Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
You cannot find your soul with your mind, you must use your heart. You must know what you are feeling. If you don't know what you are feeling, you will create unconsciously. If you are unconscious of an aspect of yourself; if it operates outside your field of awareness, that aspect has power over you.
What you learn in school is the opposite of what happens in the real world. In school, you're always worried about minimums. You have to reach 20 pages or you have to have so many slides or whatever. Then you get out in the real world and you think, 'I have to have a minimum of 20 pages and 50 slides.
There's a lot of really wonderful things about the United States of America, especially its ethnic diversity and its mostly successful struggle to create a democracy out of many different cultures. So, we have a lot of capital as a people, we have a lot of cultural capital to keep our democracy going.
I obviously read and adore traditional fiction. I teach traditional fiction, I also teach all kind of not-so-traditional fiction. And since I'm such a plot buff, and I'm really such a narrative buff, I can't seem to relinquish my - not just reliance - but excitement about those traditional techniques.
When tragedy strikes, or even when it looms, our families will have the opportunity to look into our hearts to see whether we know what we said we knew. Our children will watch, feel the Spirit confirm that we lived as we preached, remember that confirmation, and pass the story across the generations.
You cannot exercise and be amused about it. You cannot integrate the dying bug into your core workout and hold to the position that you are a spiritual being. In this way, the body and the mind are each other's opposite unto death, which is why you have to choose which of them you are going to follow.
No good writer ever merely cheered us up. But there's an unblinking stare into the darkness of things we have to go elsewhere to find. Jane Austen was made of strong stuff. She was too satiric for D. H. Lawrence's taste and too unforgiving for Kingsley Amis's, but you would still not call her hellish.
Economics is not a science; it is a quasi-religion: part superstition, part mystique, part sentimentality. Bankers dream like other men, the only difference being that when their dreams turn to nightmares, we all lose sleep. There can be no trusting the muttering of any prelate when it comes to money.
The Hebrew language... is the only glue which holds together our scattered bones. It also holds together the rings in the chain of time.... It binds us to those who built pyramids, to those who shed their blood on the ramparts of Jerusalem, and to those who, at the burning stakes, cried Shema Yisrael!
God Most High has said, "Is the reward of virtue aught save virtue?" . . . Know, O man, that the covenant of servanthood is incumbent upon you, and that the covenant of Lordship is incumbent upon His magnanimity, as He Most High has said, ". . . and fulfill your covenant, I shall fulfill My covenant."
There is no gaming table in the world where loaded dice are tolerated, no athletic field where men must not start fair. Yet Mr. Rockefeller has systematically played with loaded dice, and it is doubtful if there has ever been a time since 1872 when he has run a race with a competitor and started fair.
We have been shaken by the deaths of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, and Tamir Rice - shaken, but not sufficiently unsettled. We must contextualize those losses, force our neighbors to become so deeply disturbed by what has occurred that they, too, are inspired to act to change the system.
If the world is an objective reality that exists independently of us, then humans themselves, even in their own eyes, are nothing more than objects, and their life stories merely a series of disconnected historical accidents, which they may wonder at, but which they themselves have nothing to do with.
Three characteristics a work of fiction must possess in order to be successful: 1. It must have a precise and suspenseful plot. 2. The author must feel a passionate urge to write it. 3. He must have the conviction, or at least the illusion, that he is the only one who can handle this particular theme.
The quality of an idea does not depend on its altitude in the organization...An idea can be from any source. So we will search the globe for ideas. We will share what we know with others to get what they know. We have a constant quest to raise the bar, and we get there by constantly talking to others.
Behavior runs in deep channels that were cut during early childhood, and it is very difficult to alter them. In order to change a deeply ingrained pattern, you have to build a sturdy dam, dig another canal and reroute the river in the new direction. That effort is rarely successful over the long haul.
All the strength and force of man comes from his faith in things unseen. He who believes is strong; he who doubts is weak. Strong convictions precede great actions. The man strongly possessed of an idea is the master of all who are uncertain or wavering. Clear, deep, living convictions rule the world.
In the second half of life, the questions become: 'Who, apart from the roles you play, are you? What does the soul ask of you? Do you have the wherewithal to shift course, to deconstruct your painfully achieved identity, risking failure, marginalization and loss of collective approval?' No small task.
I'm Min's fairy godmother, Charm Boy,' Liza said, frowning down at him. 'And if you don't give her a happily ever after, I'm going to come back and beat you to death with a snow globe.' What happened to "bibbity bobbity boo"?' Cal asked Min. That was Disney, honey,' Min said. 'It wasn't a documentary.
Well, what did you have for lunch?” I snapped. “Surely that’s not top secret superhero information.” “Steak with mashed potatoes and a side salad,” Striker replied. “And a piece of chocolate cheesecake for dessert.” I gave up on conversation after that. I was too jealous of the cheesecake to continue.
How many people have gotten older and forgotten about the things they hoped for and dreamed about when they were young? Or given up without ever taking a chance, or settled in life because it's easier, or they're scared, or whatever other excuses? How many people need a reminder of who they once were?
I think there are a lot of misconceptions on both sides, the developing vs. the developed world, especially about America. I've felt the frustration in my lack of belonging to any one place, but I've also felt it liberating to be able to appreciate something without feeling disloyal to my own culture.
Well. We’ll just have to hope that this wasn’t a loup-garou, I guess.” “If it was a louper, you’d know,” Bob said wisely. “In the middle of this town, you’d have a dozen people dead every time the full moon came around. What’s going on?” “A dozen people are dying every time the full moon comes around.
Violence is so terribly fast . . . the most perverse thing about the movies is the way they portray it in slow motion, allowing it to be something sensuous . . . the viewer's lips slightly wet as the scene plays out. Violence is nothing like that. It is lightning fast, chaotic, and totally intangible.
Life without balance can cost you your relationships. Life without balance can cost you your health. Life without balance can cost you your spirituality. Life without balance can cost you your wealth and your happiness. So find things to motivate you from all areas of life. Your success depends on it.
If you don't like how something is going for you, change it. If something isn't enough, change it. If something doesn't suit you, change it. If something doesn't please you, change it. You don't ever have to be the same after today. If you don't like your present address change it - you're not a tree!
I was supposed to have a script, and had mislaid it. I was supposed to hear cues, and no longer did. I was meant to know the plot, but all I knew was what I saw: flash pictures in variable sequence, images with no 'meaning' beyond their temporary arrangement, not a movie but a cutting-room experience.
Sometimes when you pick up your child you can feel the map of your own bones beneath your hands, or smell the scent of your skin in the nape of his neck. This is the most extraordinary thing about motherhood - finding a piece of yourself separate and apart that all the same you could not live without.
There had been so many easy words between them that Daniel was guilty of nodding every now and then and tuning out the excess. He hadn't known, at the time, that he should have been hoarding these, like bits of sea glass hidden in the pocket of a winter coat to remind him that once it had been summer.
The nurses, I have already learned, are the ones who give us the answers we’re desperate for. Unlike the doctors, who fidget like they need to be somewhere else, the nurses patiently answer us as if we are the first set of parents to ever have this kind of meeting with them, instead of the thousandth.
Leaders instill purpose through their words and their actions. Their communications demonstrate a commitment to vision and mission, but their behaviors underscore its real importance. What a leader does is far more important than what he or she says. People want to see action and help achieve results.
Just as Jesus learned obedience by the things He suffered, we learn obedience by the difficult circumstances we face. When we obey the Word of God that is spoken by the Holy Spirit, we will grow and mature in the times of conflict and suffering. Our knowledge of Scripture is not the key. Obedience is.
It's easy to like someone from a distance. But when she stopped being this amazing unattainable thing or whatever, and started being, like, just a regular girl with a weird relationship with food and frequent crankiness wh's kind of bossy--then I had to basically start liking a while different person.
On Christ’s glory I would fix all my thoughts and desires, and the more I see of the glory of Christ, the more the painted beauties of this world will wither in my eyes and I will be more and more crucified to this world. It will become to me like something dead and putrid, impossible for me to enjoy.
Fight for us, O God, that we not drift numb and blind and foolish into vain and empty excitements. Life is too short, too precious, too painful to waste on worldly bubbles that burst. Heaven is too great, hell is too horrible, eternity is too long that we should putter around on the porch of eternity.
The wild open-market theory that died in 1929 had a run of just over thirty years. Communism, a complete melding of religious, economic, and global theories, stretched to seventy years in Russia and forty-five years in central Europe, thanks precisely to the intensive use of military and police force.
The very voices of the night, sounding like the moan of the tempest, may turn out to be the disguised yet tender voices of God, calling away from all earthly footsteps, to mount with greater singleness of eye and ardor of aim the alone ladder of safety and peace - upward, onward, heavenward, homeward.
People think that politics just somehow magically organizes itself. It doesn't work that way. You need to assemble these huge coalitions of 535 politicians on Capitol Hill, and tens of thousands of interest groups, and tens of millions of voters, and assemble all those in government to get stuff done.
The vision seemed to enter the house with me-the stretcher, the phantom-bearers, the wild crowd of obedient worshippers, the gloom of the forests, the glitter of the reach between the murky bends, the beat of the drum, regular and muffled like the beating of a heart-the heart of a conquering darkness.
What podcasts can do in order to liven up the talk show area of TV is bring new personalities and unique worldviews into the fray in a way that's not going to be filtered through the whole Q-rating thing. I think there's a whole new layer of doing things that TV is behind the Internet in figuring out.
But human beings fall easily into despair, and from the very beginning we invented stories that enabled us to place our lives in a larger setting, that revealed an underlying pattern, and gave us a sense that, against all the depressing and chaotic evidence to the contrary, life had meaning and value.
You know how it is in the symphony when you are listening to the symphony, the last notes die away, and there's often a beat of silence in the auditorium before the applause begins. It's a very full and pregnant silence. Now theology should bring us to live into that silence, into that pregnant pause.
The smart way to build a literary career is you create an identifiable product, then reliably produce that product so people know what they are going to get. That's the smart way to build a career, but not the fun way. Maybe you can think about being less successful and happier. That's an option, too.
When I die, the world is going to talk about me. They will never forget me and I will never have any regrets. If nothing else, the world will know I was here. I think that everyone should make their mark wherever they are. They will talk about you way after you're gone. Make your mark. Live your life.
Write. Remember, people may keep you (or me) from being a published author but no one can stop you from being a writer. All you have to do is write. And keep writing. While you’re working at a career, while you’re raising children, while you’re trout fishing--keep writing! No one can stop you but you.
The wonderful thing about books is that they allow us to enter imaginatively into someone else’s life. And when we do that, we learn to sympathize with other people. But the real surprise is that we also learn truths about ourselves, about our own lives, that somehow we hadn’t been able to see before.
Everything here at St. Aggie's is upside down and inside out. It's our job not to get moon blinked and to stand right side up in an upside down world. If we don't do that we'll never be able to escape. We'll never be able to think. And thinking is the only way we'll be able to plan an escape." -Gylfie
Many people measure their success by wealth, recognition, power and status. There's nothing wrong with those, but if that's all you're focused on, you're missing the boat...if you focus on significance -using your time and talent to serve others -that's when truly meaningful success can come your way.
When he died, I went about like a ragged crow telling strangers, "My father died, my father died." My indiscretion embarrassed me, but I could not help it. Without my father on his Delhi rooftop, why was I here? Without him there, why should I go back? Without that ache between us, what was I made of?
My analysis, especially of the computer revolution, always comes back to capitalism. It's that economic system that has led to Western civilization's willingness to enslave ourselves to machines - because some people benefit enormously from it, while the costs are borne by other people and the planet.