Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Oh build your ship of death. Oh build it! For you will need it. For the voyage of oblivion awaits you.
I feel as much of a stud as... I can't come up with a metaphor. That's how lacking in studliness I am.
It looks like you can write a minimalist piece without much bleeding. And you can. But not a good one.
My books are inert as cordwood till a reader's imagination ignites one and an old flame jumps to life.
why human beings despise what is beautiful and good, and seek to destroy the things they need the most
It is astonishing what a lot of odd minutes one can catch during the day, if one really sets about it.
When the ship is going down we trouble ourselves little enough about the style of the cabin furniture.
Novels give you the matrix of emotions, give you the flavour of a time in a way formal history cannot.
Remember: the time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself. Life's cruelest irony.
The modern world is devoted to vanishing species, vanishing weather and vanishing capacity for wonder.
When people hear good music, it makes them homesick for something they never had, and never will have.
Look at me! I'm big! I'm strong! I'm a superior example of froghood and capable of protecting us both!
Think what stupid things the people must have done with their money who say they're 'happier without'.
celebratin' New Year's Eve is like eatin' oranges. You got to let go your dignity t' really enjoy 'em.
I think that in order to write really well and convincingly, one must be somewhat poisoned by emotion.
The true spirit of conversation consists in building on another man's observation, not overturning it.
Is it possible that even happy moments of pleasure never stand up to a rigorous examination? Possible.
It is important to say all the great thoughts again, without knowing that they have already been said.
I don't know how it is the most unattractive creatures of every nation seem to be the ones who travel.
If I could I would always work in silence and obscurity, and let my efforts be known by their results.
I have to avoid things like 'World of Warcraft' or 'Minecraft', otherwise I'd never get any work done.
This is worse than Hollywood, he thought. A girl comes in with a pork chop and I write a song for her.
Deprived of meaningful work, men and women lose their reason for existence; they go stark, raving mad.
Man is a creature that can get accustomed to anything, and I think that is the best definition of him.
They were renewed by love; the heart of each held infinite sources of life for the heart of the other.
He seemed, indeed, to accept everything without the least condemnation though often grieving bitterly.
Everywhere I am the object of an unbelievable esteem, the interest in me is, quite simply, tremendous.
She knew that he loved her above all else, more than anything in the world, but only for his own sake.
One of the tortures of jealousy is, that it can never turn away its eyes from the thing that pains it.
Shall we, because we walk on our hind feet, assume to ourselves only the privilege of imperishability?
in certain crises direct expression of sympathy is the least possible to those who most feel sympathy.
If troubles were put up to market, I'd sooner buy old than new. It's something to have seen the worst.
All the learnin' my father ever paid for was a bit o' birch at one end and the alphabet at th ' other.
One's self-satisfaction is an untaxed kind of property which it is very unpleasant to find deprecated.
In the ages since Adam's marriage, it has been good for some men to be alone, and for some women also.
The mind which renounces, once and for ever, a futile hope, has its compensation in ever-growing calm.
When I see a policeman with a club beating a man on the ground, I don't have to ask whose side I'm on.
Some men want whores on the eve of battle, and some want gods. Jon wondered who felt better afterward.
And pray that he is the man I think he is, he finished silently, and not the man I fear he has become.
If people were not wicked I should not mind their being stupid; but, to our misfortune, they are both.
Forget us, forget us all, it makes no difference now, but don't forget we loved it when we were alive.
Whenever there has been talk of exterminating rats, others, who were not rats, have been exterminated.
Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win.
That proves something- that a gang of wild animals can be stopped, simply because they're still human.
There is no better way of elevating the novel than by making it into a construct which contains ideas.
There is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself.
Zeal is not of necessity religion, neither is it always of the same essence with poetry or patriotism.
Let me look into a human eye; it is better than to gaze into sea or sky; better than to gaze upon God.
What can't be said can be written. Because writing is a silent act, a labor from the head to the hand.
No man has ever yet discovered the way to give friendly advice to any woman, not even to his own wife.