Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Why are we sitting? Why are we practicing? Why are we doing anything? It's not so I can be happy. It's so I can embody the dharma in order to benefit other beings.
Dedication: My thanks to the people who showed me that opera was stranger than I could imagine. I can best repay their kindness by not mentioning their names here.
I meant," said Ipslore bitterly, "what is there in this world that truly makes living worthwhile?" Death thought about it. CATS, he said eventually. CATS ARE NICE.
A number of religions in Ankh-Morpork still practiced human sacrifice, except that they didn't really need to practice any more because they had got so good at it.
You can't remember the plot of the Dr Who movie because it didn't have one, just a lot of plot holes strung together. It did have a lot of flashing lights, though.
Colon thought Carrot was simple. Carrot often struck people as simple. And he was. Where people went wrong was thinking that simple meant the same thing as stupid.
I believe it should be possible for someone stricken with a serious and ultimately fatal illness to choose to die peacefully with medical help, rather than suffer.
An author writes a book, and that's the book at that point. And if the author writes the book again, then somehow something has gone wrong, if you see what I mean.
It's actually true that I keep myself going by constantly promising myself that in response for the hard work I will be allowed to do some more hard work later on.
If you know wilderness in the way that you know love, you would be unwilling to let it go.... This is the story of our past and it will be the story of our future.
The act of civil disobedience is the act of taking our anger and turning it into sacred rage. It is a personal and collective gesture of resistance and insistance.
I really do believe if there is hope in the world, then it is to be found within our own communities with our own neighbors, and within our own homes and families.
All the Scriptures give clear proof of the Trinity, and it is from these that our principle is deduced...the distinction of the Trinity is quite clearly displayed.
The biggest hindrance to the missionary task is self. Self that refuses to die. Self that refuses to sacrifice. Self that refuses to give. Self that refuses to go.
At some point just about all of us experience loneliness. In a sense, it is what it means to be a sentient animal, to have an experience of separation from others.
Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by importance.
I fear not, I see not reason for fear. In the end we will be the victors. For though at times the flame of liberty may cease to shine, the ember will never expire.
In the private sanctuary of one's own conscience lies that spirit, that determination to cast off the old person and to measure up to the statue of true potential.
Those who understand the gospel cannot possibly look down on anyone, since they were saved by sheer grace, not by their perfect doctrine or strong moral character.
Pain? He could handle that, no problem; it was the idea that the female he loved was suffering that made him want to either punch something or vomit in the corner.
I think trust is primarily built through relationships, and it's important because it's the foundational currency that a leader has with his team or his followers.
As a writer, I can't be a heroic sword fighter like General Dumas, but I can rescue someone who's been taken out of history by using my writing to bring them back.
When humans were young, they were pushed around in strollers. When they were old, they were pushed around in wheelchairs. In between, they were just pushed around.
Some praise me, some blame me. I go the other way. Sometimes those things that attract the most attention to us are the things which afford us the greatest privacy
Some marriages are made in heaven, Mine was made in Hong Kong, by the same people who make those little rubber pork chops they sell in the pet department at Kmart.
Vietnam was really an idealistic thing to stop the spread of communism, which, incidentally, it did. It was a pretty costly way to do it, but it achieved its goal.
The newspaper is, in fact, very bad for one's prose style. That's why I gravitated towards feature stories where you get a little more leeway in the writing style.
She took off her dark glasses and squinted at me. It was as though her eyes were shattered prisms, the dots of blue and gray and green like broken bits of sparkle.
I don't even pursue girls anymore. I mean, I could obviously still pursue girls. It's not like I can't. But I don't have to pursue girls anymore. Girls come to me.
The artist deals with what cannot be said in words. The artist whose medium is fiction does this in words. The novelist says in words what cannot be said in words.
There are dance artists, painting artists and writing artists. Authors are writing artists. You can practice art in whatever medium you choose, and words are mine.
If you would try out a preacher, send him to preach to farmers: if he cannot make the grade there, let him reconsider his call - or maybe he needs to be converted.
Generative ideas emerge from joint thinking, from significant conversations, and from sustained, shared struggles to achieve new insights from partners in thought.
There are really only two ways to react to the extraordinary. The first is to ponder the grand purpose until all the fun is sucked away, the second is to enjoy it.
'Glass Sword' has several set piece scenes that I plotted out or visualized before I wrote them, but I always knew they were coming. They anchor bits of the story.
Have you ever heard the phrase, it is better to keep your mouth closed and have people wonder if you are stupid than open it and remove all doubt? (Hakim al Harbi)
Spring is beautiful, and smells sweet. Spring is when you shake the curtains, and pound on the rugs, and take off your long underwear, and wash in all the corners.
For the writer, there is nothing quite like having someone say that he or she understands, that you have reached them and affected them with what you have written.
Bring into reality the possibility of the improbable by acquiring a positive mental attitude. Say to yourself, as Henry Ford said to his engineers, "Keep working!"
Being relaxed, at peace with yourself, confident, emotionally neutral loose, and free-floating - these are the keys to successful performance in almost everything.
Comfort and luxury are usually the chief requirements of life for your ego - its top priorities tend to be accumulations, achievements, and the approval of others.
What if the healing of the world utterly depends on the ten-thousand invisible kindnesses we offer simply and quietly throughout the pilgrimage of each human life?
You hold in your hand the camel's-hair brush of a painter of Life. You stand before the vast white canvas of Time. The paints are your thoughts, emotions and acts.
The only proper suit-and-tie job I've had in my life was the two years in the late 1980s when I ran a small corporate publishing company. I even had a Ford Sierra!
I'm very happy for whatever plaudits might come the way of my work, but I never ever sit down to write x with y in view - whether it's a reader, a prize or a sale.
The disposition to give a cup of cold water to a disciple is a far nobler property than the finest intellect. Satan has a fine intellect, but not the image of God.
A conservative is someone who stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.
I work with a lot of different editors at different publishers and magazines and so on, and having a system of shared folders makes keeping track of things a snap.
We know that our senses are subject to decay, that from our middle years they are decaying all the time; but happily it is as if we didn't know and didn't believe.
There are few places in England where you can get so much wildness and desolation of sea and sandhills, wood, green marsh and grey saltings as at Wells in Norfolk.