Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Let me remember that each life must follow its own course, and that what happens to other people has absolutely nothing to do with what happens to me.
simply to ask a blessing upon one's circumstances, whatever they are, is somehow to improve them, and to tap some mysterious source of energy and joy.
Cognitive liberty begins at home, behind your eyes and between your ears. The first act of liberation is to step forward, and be counted as one of us.
There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy.
Praise is well, compliment is well, but affection-that is the last and most precious reward that any man can win, whether by character or achievement.
Literature is well enough, as a time-passer, and for the improvement and general elevation and purification of mankind, but it has no practical value.
Every citizen of the republic ought to consider himself an unofficial policeman, and keep unsalaried watch and ward over the laws and their execution.
It is not worth while to try to keep history from repeating itself, for man's character will always make the preventing of the repetitions impossible.
Eight grown Americans out of ten dread the coming of the Fourth, with its pandemonium and its perils, and they rejoice when it is gone-if still alive.
No God and no religion can survive ridicule. No political church, no nobility, no royalty or other fraud, can face ridicule in a fair field, and live.
Experience is an author's most valuable asset; experience is the thing that puts the muscle and the breath and the warm blood into the book he writes.
I don't know anything about this man. Anyhow, I only know two things about him. One is, he has never been in jail, and the other is, I don't know why.
Circumstance - which moves by laws of its own, regardless of parties and policies, and whose decrees are final and must be obeyed by all - and will be
I like a thin book because it will Steady a Table, a leather volume because it will Strop a Razor, and a heavy book because it can be Thrown at a Cat.
There was a great difference in boats, of course. For a long time I was on a boat that was so slow we used to forget what year it was we left port in.
A historian who would convey the truth has got to lie. Often he must enlarge the truth by diameters, otherwise his reader would not be able to see it.
End your day by privately looking directly into your eyes in the mirror and saying, 'I love you'. Do this for thirty days and watch how you transform.
Polite strangers often tell soothing lies about our physical appearance that prevent many of us from facing, discussing and solving our real problems.
I majored in Chinese. I was never really good at Chinese but I really, really benefited from having been exposed to Asian philosophy early in my life.
I don't think I could have just kept writing the 'Richard Jury' books. It wasn't that I was bored or dissatisfied. I just had to write something else.
I'm drawn to the taboos that surround the human body. I find it fascinating that we are repelled by many of the acts and processes that keep us alive.
If you get a colonoscopy, you should really insist they give you no drugs - then you do get to see what it's like to swim through your own intestines.
...Someone speaks in soft tones to me and says I am psychotic, but it's going to be all right. I put on my hat, unperturbed, and ask for some crayons.
The earth we abuse and the living things we kill will, in the end, take their revenge; for in exploiting their presence we are diminishing our future.
Come in early, so there'll be time to pop corn,' Mrs. Ray said. If she mentioned popping corn, they always came in early. So she usually mentioned it.
People sometimes punish to exact judgment for past actions. God disciplines in order to teach and always in the interest of those whom he disciplines.
Since all wealth ultimately comes from God, His people ought to acknowledge His primacy by offering Him the best of their wealth, time, and abilities.
Be a child again. Flirt. Giggle. Dip your cookies in your milk. Take a nap. Say you're sorry if you hurt someone. Chase a butterfly. Be a child again.
I don't have any desire to retire in the sense of not doing anything. As long as the Lord gives me strength I want to keep writing and keep preaching.
Not many women got to live out the daydream of women—to have a room, even a section of a room, that only gets messed up when she messes it up herself.
Open your eyes to the beauty around you, open your mind to the wonders of life, open your heart to those who love you, and always be true to yourself.
Make every effort to change things you do not like. If you cannot make a change, change the way you have been thinking. You might find a new solution.
In order to be profoundly dishonest, a person must have one of two qualities: either he is unscrupulously ambitious, or he is unswervingly egocentric.
To be left alone on the tightrope of youthful unknowing is to experience the excruciating beauty of full freedom and the threat of eternal indecision.
I never have written every day. When I'm writing a book, I write Monday through Friday. I always try to take Saturday and pretend to have some sanity.
Somehow, we have come to the erroneous belief that we are all but flesh, blood, and bones, and that's all. So we direct our values to material things.
It's fantastic that the world is becoming more open to different ways of working, but we still have a long way to go in terms of changing perceptions.
It felt like an oversight to me, something that needed to be corrected. They [women who hid Jewish children] deserved to be understood and remembered.
I had no words to give him. No explanation. I didn’t understand it, myself. It scared me, but then so do roller coasters, and I ride them anyway, too.
For my part, if I'm working while flying, I'm often a bit relieved to be forced to shut down the computer on final descent. But I guess I'm a slacker.
Westerns were all daddy liked to watch. Give me some Clint Eastwood, some Charles Bronson, and I was a happy girl. It was our father-daughter bonding.
With patience and calm, persistence and stoicism, good handwriting and careful labeling, they would meet persecution, indignity, and hardship head-on.
I abandoned my second novel completely. Writing 'Kavalier & Clay,' I had several moments of utter collapse. Same with 'The Yiddish Policemen's Union.'
The demand for racial (and sexual) justice gets reduced to politics of identity - and excoriating the so-called perpetrators of the identity politics.
Ray Kroc called his first McDonald's restaurant, which he opened in Illinois, 'a little money machine.' That's why thousands of franchisees bought it.
America ships tons of sugar cookies to Denmark and Denmark ships tons of sugar cookies to America. Wouldn't it be more efficient just to swap recipes?
I'm not talking about having to consult Julia Child before you can take a pot off the rack. I think that's something we can all do more and do better.
The dream of all men is to meet little sluts who are innocent but ready for all forms of depravity—which is what, more or less, all teenage girls are.
I tend to think that good and evil exist and that the quantity in each of us is unchangeable. The moral character of people is set, fixed until death.
Painting for process is the visual equivalent of journal writing, done not for the sake of being seen or published, but purely for the telling itself.