Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I was raised in a house on the far South Side of Chicago, in a development erected on a landfill made from slag and other industrial by-products a few years after World War II.
As a writer, I try to turn my feelings and experiences into a different form entirely, something that gives me mastery over them and also makes them meaningful to other people.
One is telling a story about old times when someone breaks in with a little detail that he happens to know, implying that one's own version is inaccurate — disgusting behavior!
There is no abstract Evil; you have to understand that! Its roots are here, all around us, in this herd that goes on chewing and having a good time only an hour after a murder!
People don't believe what you tell them. They rarely believe what you show them. They often believe what their friends tell them. They always believe what they tell themselves.
If you treat your employees like mushrooms (keep them in the dark and regularly throw crap on them), it's entirely likely you will get precisely the work you deserve in return.
Most people don't see that they have options beyond what society tells them to do. That's the biggest problem. They honestly believe that compliance is the shortcut to success.
On the contrary, there is something pleasing about his mouth when he speaks. And there is something of dignity in the way his trousers cling to those most English parts of him.
It was this weird confrontation of these two delicious flavors that got me consciously or subconsciously combining Lincoln and vampires as an observational in-joke with myself.
When we finally give up the struggle to find fulfillment "out there," we have nowhere to go but within. It is at this moment of total surrender that a new light begins to dawn.
In writing of Indian culture, I am highly conscious of my own subjectivity; arguably, there is more than one Indian culture, and certainly more than one view of Indian culture.
Success does not mean happiness. Check out any celebrity magazine to look for examples to disabuse you of thinking that being beautiful, successful or rich will make you happy.
But blacks make little to no progress and, worse, the preoccupation with injustice only leaves them eternally inconsolable and cut off from their own best energies and talents.
Everything good is costly, and the development of the personality is one of the most costly of all things. It will cost you your innocence, your illusions, your certainty. (10)
I had a lot of friends who were boys. I played ball with them, but we didn't date. They didn't ask me that much because I wasn't cute enough or because I didn't drink or party.
I am a basketball junkie, and as a product of the great basketball state of Kansas, I have watched many a ball game between the University of Kansas Jayhawks and the Tar Heels.
...he will go to his grave feeling cheated, never realizing that there isn't much difference between one woman and the other, that it is the loving that creates the difference.
If you're looking for a book that will spike in sales and then go away and then spike again when it comes out in paperback, your normal model, I definitely won't give you that.
There is a difference between vulnerability and telling people everything about yourself. Vulnerability is a feeling. Telling everyone about yourself is just facts and details.
We are all unconsciously in search of love. Whenever we feel its presence in our environment, we can't help but be drawn to it. There is no more compelling energy in the world.
My mother tells this joke about how when I was little I used to say, 'Mummy, all I want is a stable home!' and she'd reply, 'That's all right, darling, we'll buy you a stable.'
Smile, my friends, my soulful friends, smile. Let us smile. True, this world of ours is full of suffering and excruciating pangs, but that is no reason why we should not smile.
The word 'yoga' means skill - skill to live your life, to manage your mind, to deal with your emotions, to be with people, to be in love and not let that love turn into hatred.
I finished the [blog] post reflecting on the fact that, despite all the changes in my life, maybe I wasn't so different after all. If I typed it, maybe I could believe it, too.
Principles don't die. They aren't here one day and gone the next. They can't be destroyed by fire, earthquake or theft. Principles are deep, fundamental truths, classic truths.
Effective leadership is the only competitive advantage that will endure. That's because leadership has two sides- what a person is character and what a person does- competence.
If you don't set your goals based upon your Mission Statement, you may be climbing the ladder of success only to realize, when you get to the top, you're on the WRONG building.
I am senting many books for endorsement purposes, which enables me to stay relevant in my own field, and I have people that help me decide which ones I should read and endorse.
There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers; good stories seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky.
Every liberal in the country must watch Fox News for one year, and every conservative in the country must watch MSNBC for one year. (Middle-of-the-roaders could stick with CSI)
I changed it. I had to. Do you know why?" She studied him, her eyes grave. "Because that was then and this is now. Because the past is gone, even though it defines the present.
In many ways, Eulah-Beulah prepared me for literary criticism. After having a two-hundred-pound babysitter fart on your face and yell Pow!, The Village Voice holds few terrors.
Ataturk approved of the mevlevi dervish approach to God as being 'an expression of Turkish genius' that reclaimed Islam from what he saw as hide-bound, backward Arab tradition.
If the art is created with the whole person, then the work will come out whole. Education must teach, reach, and vibrate the whole person rather than merely transfer knowledge.
Remember that when you say "I will have non of this exile and this stranger for his face is not like my face and his speech is strange," you have denied America with that word.
Regardless of others' reactions, do your best to stay true to yourself. Make the choices that allow you to look in the mirror and feel good about the person gazing back at you.
The sea remains the greatest wilderness. To my mind, voyaging through wildernesses, be they full of woods or waves, is essential to the growth and maturity of the human spirit.
Every single cell in the human body replaces itself over a period of seven years. That means there's not even the smallest part of you now that was part of you seven years ago.
But nothing really clicked for me until I gave up completely on hitting the overlap and just did what I loved, even when I thought nobody else in the world would be interested.
Never say, ‘No’, never say, ‘I cannot’, for you are infinite. Even time and space are as nothing compared with your nature. You can do anything and everything, you are almighty
Perfect life is a contradiction in terms. Therefore we must always expect to find things not up to our highest ideal. Knowing this, we are bound to make the best of everything.
...never try to follow another's path for that is his way, not yours. When that path is found, you have nothing to do but fold your arms and the tide will carry you to freedom.
Even the lowest of the low have the Atman (Soul) inside, which never dies and never is born, immortal, without beginning or end, the all pure, omnipotent and omnipresent Atman!
One point of difference between Hinduism and other religions is that in Hinduism we pass from truth to truth-from a lower truth to a higher truth-and never from error to truth.
Go and preach to all, 'Arise, awake, sleep no more: within each of you there is the power to remove all wants and all miseries. Believe this, and that power will be manifested.
Stamping down the weakness of mind and heart, stand up, saying, "I am possessed of heroism, I am possessed of a steady intellect..." Never allow weakness to overtake your mind.
I am no metaphysician, no philosopher, nay, no saint. But I am poor and I love the poor. I see what they call the poor of this country and how many there are who feel for them!
We want to lead mankind to the place where there is neither the Vedas, nor the Bible, nor the Koran; yet this has to be done by harmonizing the Vedas, the Bible, and the Koran.
What matters is discovering myself under the veneer, under the layers that are wrapped around me. There are two 'yous'; there's 'you', the real you, and then there's the image.
Meditation is for you to realise that the deepest nature of your existence is beyond thoughts and emotions, that it is incredibly vast and interconnected with all other beings.