Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
My reading as a child was lazy and cowardly, and it is yet. I was afraid of encountering, in a book, something I didn't want to know.
He smelt of the sun, as if it had seeped deep into his skin, and I found myself inhaling silently, as if he were something delicious.
Once there are good sentences on the page, I can feel a loyalty to them and start following their logic, and take refuge from myself.
It's very liberating for me to realize that I don't have to step up to the plate with a plot that involves the U.N. Security Council.
Spain, must we some day tell Filipinas that thou hast no ear for her woes and that if she wishes to be saved she must redeem herself?
If you do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got. If what you are doing is not working, do something else.
Each genre has something to teach me about the others. Not all the lessons are transferable, but many of the most important ones are.
History is written by the victors, the strongest, the most determined. Truth is found most often in the silence, in the quiet places.
In a really good, closely matched situation, the style of the boxer is every bit as explicit and specific to him as a painter's hand.
She hug me around my neck, say, "You're righter than Miss Taylor." I tear up then. My cup is spilling over. Those is new words to me.
You need to remember that. If you’re to have decent lives, you have to know who you are and what lies ahead of you, every one of you.
She didn't go all fangirl on anyone, but I suspect that's only because none of them bore the slightest resemblance to Nathan Fillion.
As far as I know, he never asked where she had been or why she had left and she never told. I guess some stories do not need telling.
and every day I thank [God] that I am alive, not because I fear death, but because my wife has a husband and my son is not an orphan.
The country [Afghanistan] faces enormous problems. There is a violent insurgency hampering the rule of law and developmental efforts.
It's never pleasant to have one's unquestioning beliefs put in their historical context, as I know from experience, I can assure you.
The universe had an odd sense of fairness; it took away things one did not want to give up, and then gave things one did not ask for.
I love James Baldwin essays, but also his novels. I recently read "Another Country." I couldn't believe how ahead of his time he was.
As a very young girl, I understood that the interior activities of the home are as significant as the exterior activities of society.
I don’t believe one reads to escape reality. A person reads to confirm a reality he knows is there, but which he has not experienced.
If we are all alive ten years hence, let's meet, and see how many of us have got our wishes, or how much nearer we are then than now.
Jo's eyes sparkled, for it's always pleasant to be believed in; and a friend's praise is always sweeter than a dozen newspaper puffs.
I still do believe that form and content are very much related. I think throwing away some of the rule books on that is a good thing.
Nobility is often no more than the inner aspect which our egotistical feelings assume when we have not yet named and classified them.
... if a man really and truly believed that black was white, you might advise him to see an oculist, but you mustn't call him a liar.
One reads thousands of books, of poets, modern and ancient, as one meets thousands of people. What remains of it all is hard to tell.
Love is an emotion. It can't be seen or touched, and it is experienced differently by everyone, therefore it is difficult to measure.
Hate is a grand, a strong quality! It makes nations, it builds up creeds! If men loved one another what should they need of a Church?
A man can know his father, or his son, and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual incomprehension.
Every sorrow suggests a thousand songs and every song recalls a thousand sorrows and so they are infinite in number and all the same.
If you were a gentleman, you would offer to buy me one as well." "If you were a lady, you would have waited for me to make the offer.
Payments to the disabled are getting slashed and people like me are getting a tax cut. Who could possibly think that is a good thing?
If you enjoy math and you write novels, it's very rare that you'll get a chance to put your math into a novel. I leapt at the chance.
I started writing books for children because I could illustrate them myself and because, in my innocence, I thought they'd be easier.
Religion is passionate, reckless, destructive, idol-smashing. It's a martyr burning at the stake. It's a crown of thorns and a cross.
The lush green of the fields became a rich gold that swayed sturdily under the wind and fell at last before the hands of the reapers.
Perhaps there are other bits of my life that would take on content, take on shadow, if only I read more and thought less about money.
Always guarding one's real, precious self in a cocoon of tranquility within a thousand masks. Life itself had become a secret affair.
Give me good digestion, Lord, And also something to digest; but where and how that something comes I leave to Thee, who knoweth best.
But when you dwell in a house you mislike, you will look out of a window a deal more than those that are content with their dwelling.
It is indeed in many ways more comfortable to belong to that section of society whose action are not publicly canvassed and discussed
To be poor, ugly and, moreover, intelligent condemns one in our society to a dark and disillusioned life...to beauty all is forgiven.
If you want to concentrate deeply on some problem, and especially some piece of writing or paper-work, you should acquire a cat . . .
He had no idea that grief was a reward. That it only came to those who were loyal, to those who loved more than they were capable of.
An aristocracy in a republic is like a chicken whose head has been cut off: it may run about in a lively way, but in fact it is dead.
An aristocracy in a republic is like a chicken whose head has been cut off; it may run about in a lively way, but in fact it is dead.
Kids have always play-fought, but I think my generation had a particularly privileged cultural fantasy surrounding military violence.
There is no such thing in man's nature as a settled and full resolve either for good or evil, except at the very moment of execution.
So intense was his sexual frustration that it had begun to feel like a life-threatening illness: testicular gout, libidinal gangrene.
There's never been anything I didn't love that I didn't connect with on a personal level because to some degree, I projected upon it.