Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Was it hard? I hope she didn't die hard.' Sethe shook her head. 'Soft as cream. Being alive was the hard part.
Maybe there's more we all could have done, but we just have to let the guilt remind us to do better next time.
I'll have to keep looking for more of them, more brief moments of freedom in a world that refuses to allow it.
All that land is filled with people, every one of them different, and the things they do to each other matter.
Sometimes I see him as just another person, and sometimes I feel the sight of him in my gut, like a deep ache.
I think about pressing myself against him, but I can't, because all our secrets would keep a space between us.
Tragedy had sent me headlong into reality. All the things I had seen before now looked different, even nature.
The writer's job is to get the main character up a tree, and then once they are up there, throw rocks at them.
The ecological principle in agriculture is to connect the genius of the place, to fit the farming to the farm.
...And we pray, not for new earth or heaven, but to be quiet in heart, and in eye clear. What we need is here.
The mercy of the world is time. Time does not stop for love, but it does not stop for death and grief, either.
One reason the human race has such a low opinion of itself is that it gets so much of its wisdom from writers.
In the broad spectrum of the arts, two worlds rarely overlap - the literary world and the world of rock music.
I can't imagine writing a book without some strong female characters, unless that was a demand of the setting.
I am optimistic when I consider the spiritual dimension which the scientist's discipline forces him to ignore.
You can't order remembrance out of the mind; and a wrong that was a wrong yesterday must be a wrong to-morrow.
The world is full of love and pity, I say. Had there been less suffering, there would have been less kindness.
The affection of young ladies is of as rapid growth as Jack's beanstalk, and reaches up to the sky in a night.
Virtue is simply happiness, and happiness is a by-product of function. You are happy when you are functioning.
Like pregnant women lose their teeth feeding the stranger, junkies lose their yellow fangs feeding the monkey.
The world wasn't a more tolerant place when I was a young man. Rather, they simply sidestepped all the issues.
Writers ever since writing began have had problems, and the main problem narrows down to just one word - life.
Huizi would say, never look back to the past. Never regret. Even if there is emptiness ahead, never look back.
I never bought the idea of individual genius from which the novel spews forth. It's always an act of curation.
We're living with the Arabs; we have to understand them... Through knowing the Arabs, you know yourself better.
It's strange, people have asked me what my schedule is and what is my process like, and I can't even answer it.
But what Mom never told me is that along the way, you find sisters, and they find you. Girls are cool that way.
I love the idea of numerology, but I don't really believe in it. But I like thinking about what numbers convey.
It was wrong to be too pragmatic, to judge people solely by results; it was more humane to judge by intentions.
Scientific research? Only when not at the cost of ethics-and first of all, those of the researchers themselves.
I have grown used to the fact that public repentance is the most unacceptable option for the modern politician.
It's perfectly reasonable to say that AIs are potentially dangerous. That seems to me like a statement of fact.
She liked to disappear, even when she was in the same room as other people. It was a talent, as it was a curse.
I never plot out my novels in terms of the tone of the book. Hopefully, once a story is begun it reveals itself
No man was ever ruined from without; the final ruin comes from within, when you turn hopeless and lose courage!
I truly believe the art's larger than the artist. Who cares about John Steinbeck? I care about the Joad family.
I possess the faculty of enjoying the company of those I - of my friends as well in silence as in conversation.
I just try to love and serve everyone, and bring everyone water, and lend an ear; that's what Jesus said to do.
Summer nearly does me in every year. It's too hot and the light is unforgiving and the days go on way too long.
I think drugs are part of the magical possibilities of youth and I wouldn't be here if I had continued with it.
Few persons who have ever sat for a portrait can have felt anything but inferior while the process is going on.
Dinner at the Huntercombes' possessed only two dramatic features - the wine was a farce and the food a tragedy.
The habit of reading is the only one I know in which there is no alloy. It lasts when all other pleasures fade.
I have no ambition to surprise my reader. Castles with unknown passages are not compatible with my homely muse.
Flirting I take to be the excitement of love, without its reality, and without its ordinary result in marriage.
But music is, at the very minimum, inflammatory, exclusionary, divisive, encouraging of snobbery and solipsism.
I personally am inclined to approach [housework] the way governments treat dissent: ignore it until it revolts.
We're animals. We're born like every other mammal and we live our whole lives around disguised animal thoughts.
I wandered the earth a mercenary, daring the gods to kill me but surviving because part of me was already dead.
It was important for me to understand who I am and where I came from. To get a hold on why I do certain things.