Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
This wife you have, Bird said at last, deeply contemplative, did you pay a great deal for her? She cost me almost everything I had, he said, with a wry tone that made the others laugh. But worth it.
The effect of capitalism is to steer human selfishness so that, through the invisible hand of competition, the energies of the capitalist produce the abundance from which the whole society benefits.
There is no way I could have played fourteen years in the NFL if I didn't work my butt off on the practice field perfecting my technique or spend hours upon hours in the film room studying defenses.
When one of my friends becomes a Christian, which happens about every 10 years because I am a sheep about sharing my faith, the experience is euphoric. I see in their eyes the trueness of the story.
A story begins and it always passes from the subjunctive to the declarative. And Italians don't seem to care about making a fine distinction between that which is speculation and that which is fact.
The first indication of menopause is a broken thermostat. It's either that or your weight. In any case, if you don't do something, you could be dead by August. God, middle age is an unending insult.
I lived in New York for a couple months. It seemed to me at first an incredibly clean place with well-dressed people and washed cars and bright-painted red-and-yellow streetcars and white buildings.
If we can augment our gift giving by giving more of ourselves to those we love, all the time and in various ways, we will have a good chance of helping them and ourselves live happier, better lives.
Accepting means you allow yourself to feel whatever it is you are feeling at that moment. It is part of the isness of the Now. You can't argue with what is. Well, you can, but if you do, you suffer.
I drink a glass of wine or two occasionally with dinner. 'You drink alcohol?!' Well, if my state of consciousness is so fragile that a glass of wine would upset it, then it can't be worth very much.
In certain extreme cases, medication may be necessary. But it is given far too often, too easily, and too readily. Millions of children already are on tranquilizers, for example, and that is absurd.
Dreams are the eraser dust I blow off my page. They fade into the emptiness, another dark gray day. Dreams are only memories of the plans I had back then. Dreams are eraser dust and now I use a pen.
True, nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am, but why will say that I am mad?! The disease had haunted my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them. Of all the sense of hearing acute.
The Romans worshipped their standard; and the Roman standard happened to be an eagle. Our standard is only one tenth of an eagle,--a dollar, but we make all even by adoring it with tenfold devotion.
Preaching is God's great institution for the planting and maturing of spiritual life. When properly executed, its benefits are untold. When wrongly executed, no evil can exceed its damaging results.
Preaching is God's great institution for the planting and maturing of spiritual life. When properly executed, its benefits are untold; when wrongly executed, no evil can exceed its damaging results.
The Attorney General made another astonishing claim, that there were Pakistani terrorists possibly coming on these boats from Haiti. No one has ever seen a Pakistani coming on a boat from Haiti yet.
There are times when the only access I have to the truest person that I am is when I'm alone and trying to solve a sentence. It's exciting, even when it's frustrating, even when I can't do it right.
Sureness is something like a neck brace, which we clamp around our lives, hoping to somehow protect ourselves from the frightening, constant whiplash of change. Sadly, the brace doesn't always hold.
Every few years, I think, 'Maybe now I'm finally smart enough or sophisticated enough to understand 'Ulysses.' So I pick it up and try it again. And by page 10, as always, I'm like, 'What the hell?'
One professor in college told me flat out I wasn't good enough to enter the creative writing program. I saved that letter and promised myself I would send it back to her when my first book came out.
Anyone who is willing to take a bullet for this country, anyone who is willing to serve in uniform, should at the end of their military service be given an opportunity to become an American citizen.
As women got little crumbs of power, men began to act paranoid - as if we'd disabled them utterly. Do all women have to keep silent for men to speak? Do all women have to be legless for men to walk?
The crowd, still shouting, gives way before us. We plough our way through. Women hold their aprons over their faces and go stumbling away. A roar of fury goes up. A wounded man is being carried off.
We have lost all sense of other considerations, because they are artificial. Only the facts are real and important to us. And good boots are hard to come by." - All Quiet On The Western Front, Ch. 2
It had not yet been named Silicon Valley, but you had the defense industry, you had Hewlett-Packard. But you also had the counter-culture, the Bay Area. That entire brew came together in Steve Jobs.
"Welcome to our camp!" Blackstar called, beckoning them with his tail. "Rest here and take your pick of the fresh-kill pile." "Who are you and what have you done with Blackstar?" Lionblaze muttered.
On the 'Star,' you were forced to learn to write a simple declarative sentence. This is useful to anyone. Newspaper work will not harm a young writer and could help him if he gets out of it in time.
This thing that haunts you, that never seems satisfied, the cravings in your soul that you are unable to satiate through all the success that the world can bring this is your soul screaming for God.
The kiss that you have never given is just as powerful as hours of actual lovemaking. The erotic isn't just what is happening between people's legs. It is also what's happening in their erotic mind.
Gardening is akin to writing stories. No experience could have taught me more about grief or flowers, about achieving survival by going, your fingers in the ground, the limit of physical exhaustion.
You'll find another.' God! Banish the thought. Why don't you tell me that 'if the girl had been worth having she'd have waited for you'? No, sir, the girl really worth having won't wait for anybody.
If you don't have children and you don't have a job, you have time for friendship ... People who have jobs are not the best friends to have. It's better to be friends with people who are unemployed.
When I was very little, say five or six, I became aware of the fact that people wrote books. Before that, I thought that God wrote books. I thought a book was a manifestation of nature, like a tree.
No society has fulfilled its democratic promise if people go hungry... If some go without food they have surely been deprived of all power. The existence of hunger belies the existence of democracy.
To awaken a man who is deceived as to his own merit is to do him as bad a turn as that done to the Athenian madman who was happy in believing that all the ships touching at the port belonged to him.
To endure oneself may be the hardest task in the universe. You cannot hire a wise man or any other intellect to solve it for you. There's no writ of inquest or calling of witness to provide answers.
Give me the judgment of balanced minds in preference to laws every time. Codes and manuals create patterned behavior. All patterned behavior tends to go unquestioned, gathering destructive momentum.
Despite her cough, Rose was in unusually good spirits. That was irritating. If I’m to trade my life for Rose’s, I’d appreciate her exhibiting a touch of melancholy. Also acceptable would be despair.
Karma means that through your thoughts and feelings and actions, you are generating a state of mind. That state of mind has a view. That view will cause things to happen to you or not happen to you.
Much of the time your attention is directed towards the world of sexuality, it's done through the second attention of a woman - not simply in your physical presence but from thousands of miles away.
Take a couple of days by yourself and rent a nice cabin in some nice, happy place. Stay a day or two and meditate and take walks in areas that feel good to you. Find out who you are again. Remember.
Focus on one point and hold your attention there. The mind will waiver, you'll think a million thoughts, but each time you do, bring your mind back to the point of concentration, seeing it visually.
Your life can be horrible or it can be incredibly beautiful. It can be boring or exciting. It's seldom in between. Your active use of will determines what will happen to you in this and other lives.
There are future lives. It is not necessary to cram everything into this lifetime. You can enjoy this lifetime, go with the flow, and know it will lead you to a better life in your next incarnation.
The American Indians, the ancient Indians would say, the metaphysical ones would say: "Power binds us together." Power, for a while, makes us what we are, perceivers, luminous perceivers of reality.
A way of spreading the dharma is just telling people, sharing with them your experiences. Never push it, never be a missionary. Be completely selfless; realize you're only an instrument of eternity.
I found that the breakthroughs for me, as I went through school, came through sexuality, explorations of consciousness, reading, loving, friends, time in nature, and through psychedelic experiences.
The Zen Master was constantly attempting to break up concepts that people had about what it was like to be a spiritual teacher. We have a traditional image. Each Zen master was a complete character.
People over-focus on teachers as an excuse to avoid their own life, and that way they fail to take responsibility for themselves. They have this feeling that the teacher will just take care of them.