Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
But what's the good of freedom? What can you do with it? What one wants is to live well and have a beautiful house and be respected by people.
The professional guts a book through - in full knowledge that what he is doing is not very good. Not to work is to exhibit a failure of nerve.
I get up early. I like to read a little before anyone but the dog is up. I also like to read at night, not in bed but just before I go to bed.
But don't blame me for the food. My wife knows a hundred and one ways to incinerate a cow, and as far as I can tell she's still experimenting.
It is a truth universally acknowledged, in the enlightened liberal semi-socialist California circles in which I often move, that Uber is evil.
I've been a software engineer, a novelist, a journalist, and a manager - and managing developers is easily the trickiest thing I've ever done.
The most purely autobiographical fiction requires pure invention. Nobody ever wrote a more autobiographical story than "The Metamorphosis".
I want what we all want," said Carl. "To move certain parts of the interior of myself into the exterior world, to see if they can be embraced.
Comics? Honestly, that's more a matter of nostalgia for me. I think most of that energy has gone to my love of literature and my love of film.
The loveliest tune imaginable becomes vulgar and insupportable as soon as the public begins to hum it and the hurdy-gurdies make it their own.
Necessity is the most powerful divinity the world knows, and necessity is the resultant of physical forces set in operation by ethical forces.
You have no respect for excessive authority or obsolete traditions. You're dangerous and depraved, and you ought to be taken outside and shot!
Dost thou not understand that there are two distinct forces in us, that of the soul and that of the body, that is, a movement and a regulator?
Dost thou know what life is, my child? Hast thou comprehended the action of those springs which produce existence? Hast thou examined thyself?
Of all our feelings the only one which really doesn't belong to us is hope. Hope belongs to life, it's life itself defending itself. Etcetera.
You could say I'm on the troubleshooting squad." "Troubleshooting?" He put a hand on the back of his waistband. "I see trouble and I shoot it.
I didn’t realize that one tragedy can beget another, and another — bright-eyed disasters flooding out of a death hole like bats out of a cave.
Country ham is baked whole, usually with a glaze, sometimes studded with cloves, and served as the centerpiece of Christmas and Easter feasts.
I always order the banned books from a black market dealer in California, figuring if the State of Mississippi banned them, they must be good.
Many of our deepest motives come, not from an adult logic of how things work in the world, but out of something that is frozen from childhood.
After all, what can we ever gain in forever looking back and blaming ourselves if our lives have not turned out quite as we might have wished?
My own background is fairly liberal and so this notion of 'protecting women from outside intrusion' is not in my nature, nor in my upbringing.
A German wine label is one of the things life's too short for, a daunting testimony to that peculiar nation's love of detail and organization.
I hate rude behavior in a man,' he explained in his quiet, unassuming drawl. 'I won't tolerate it.' He politely tipped his hat, and rode away.
Books are boring," James said as he wrote. "They line the walls like a thousand leather doorways to be opened into worlds unknown," I offered.
Becoming an author changes your attitude too. Once you see where books come from, and how they're made, they never seem quite as sacred again.
And the good fairy said, I won't leave you money or pretty dresses but I will leave you the spirit to seek your fortune from your own efforts.
Our desires cut across one another, and in this confused existence it is rare for happiness to coincide with the desire that clamoured for it.
There is not a woman in the world the possession of whom is as precious as that of the truths which she reveals to us by causing us to suffer.
The stellar universe is not so difficult to understand as the real actions of other people, especially of the people with whom we are in love.
La possession de ce qu'on aime est une joie plus grande encore que l'amour. Possessing what one loves is an even greater joy than love itself.
Family life itself, that safest, most traditional, most approved of female choices, is not a sanctuary: It is, perpetually, a dangerous place.
Our great mistake is to try to exact from each person virtues which he does not possess, and to neglect the cultivation of those which he has.
The written word has taught me to listen to the human voice, much as the great unchanging statues have taught me to appreciate bodily motions.
'Mad About You' fit my sensibility the most of any show that I worked on, and as a result, it was really fun. It felt like a very natural fit.
There is more beauty than our eyes can bear, precious things have been put into our hands and to do nothing to honor them is to do great harm.
The stories are most often about justice. In her stories, those who commit injustice, or act tyrannically, come to no good. They are punished.
Drawing is the first language of the human being before writing. It's a transcription of how the human being sees reality, not reality itself.
We have two families in life. One were born with that shares our blood. Another we meet along the way that's willing to give it's life for us.
Children simply don't make the distinction; a book is either good or bad. And some of the books they think are good are very, very bad indeed.
Jane Austen was writing about boring people with desperately limited lives. We forget this because we've seen too many of her books on screen.
Richard's bookshelves weren't alphabetized. He never had time to alphabetize them. He was always too busy- looking for books he couldn't find.
History is the depository of great actions, the witness of what is past, the example and instructor of the present, and monitor to the future.
We men of study, whose heads are in our books, have need to be straightly looked after! We dream in our waking moments, and walk in our sleep.
My daddy said, that the first time you fall in love, it changes you forever and no matter how hard you try, that feeling just never goes away.
I've come to believe that in everyone's life, there's one undeniable moment of change, a set of circumstances that suddenly alters everything.
What it's like to be a parent: It's one of the hardest things you'll ever do but in exchange it teaches you the meaning of unconditional love.
He'd lived long enough to know that everyone handled grief in different ways, and little by little, they all seemed to accept their new lives.
Comfort and familiarity were wonderful but they also dulled passion and excitement. Predictability and habit made surprises almost impossible.
The next time you're mad at me, talk to me,' he said. 'Don't shut me out. I don't like playing games. And by the way, I had a great time, too.