Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Before catechisms can instill a proper humility, small children know the truth that their own existence has caused the world to bloom into being.
I wrote for a weekly magazine and then edited a literary magazine, but I did not really feel comfortable with the profession of journalism itself
With most of the events in the books [ Bridget Jones Diaries ] I draw a little bit from my own life and some from what I see happening around me.
There are those who never reason on what they should do, but what they have done; as if Reason had her eyes behind, and could only see backwards.
Through writing, one experiences something different to what one experiences with the five senses one has because language is a different metier.
When women love us, they forgive us everything, even our crimes; when they do not love us, they give us credit for nothing, not even our virtues.
I was born and grew up in the greatest, the noblest achievement of the human race on this planet - which was called the United States of America.
I'm disenchanted with Communism and most other things. I'm cynical but not a cynic. I'm cynical about TV, Congress, and commercial peanut butter.
At the back of my mind I had a sense of us sitting about waiting for some terrible event, and then I would remember that it had already happened.
Perhaps violence, like pornography, is some kind of an evolutionary standby system, a last-resort device for throwing a wild joker into the game?
The fact is that sin is the most unmanly thing in God's world. You never were made for sin and selfishness. You were made for love and obedience.
It is a strange thing, but when you are dreading something, and would give anything to slow down time, it has a disobliging habit of speeding up.
The hook-nosed teacher looked past Quirrell’s turban straight into Harry’s eyes — and a sharp, hot pain shot across the scar on Harry’s forehead.
If you love something - and there are things that I love - you do want more and more and more of it, but that's not the way to produce good work.
Oh, I'm so glad we know what it's called, that's a great help," snarled Ron, leaning back, trying to stop the plant from curling around his neck.
I promise to love you forever in this life and wherever we go in the afterlife, because I know I can't go on in any life unless you're in it too.
I hope it is true that a man can die and yet not only live in others but give them life, and not only life, but that great consciousness of life.
What's your road, man? - holyboy road, madman road, rainbow road, guppy road, any road. It's an anywhere road for anybody anyhow. Where body how?
We were all delighted, we all realized we were leaving confusion and nonsense behind and performing our one and noble function of the time, move.
I love planting. I love digging holes, putting plants in, tapping them in. And I love weeding, but I don't like tidying up the garden afterwards.
Love is like the lightning, and your maturity is signaled by the extent to which you can accept the dangers and the power and the beauty of love.
Unless a writer is extremely old when he dies, in which case he has probably become a neglected institution, his death must always seem untimely.
The young think that failure is the Siberian end of the line, banishment from all the living, and tend to do what I then did - which was to hide.
Morality rests upon a sense of obligation; and obligation has no meaning except as implying a Divine command, without which it would cease to be.
So much of 'normal, civilized' life is bull that you can't imagine... What frightens you, doesn't frighten me, what frightens me, you'd laugh at.
What kind of liberation would that be to forsake an absurdity which is logical and coherent and to embrace one which is illogical and incoherent?
The vision that you glorify in your mind, the ideal that you enthrone in your heart - this you will build your life by, and this you will become.
I lay it down as a general rule, Harriet, that if a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him.
It is very often nothing but our own vanity that deceives us. Women fancy admiration means more than it does. And men take care that they should.
How little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue.
the Musgroves had had the ill fortune of a very troublesome, hopeless son, and the good fortune to lose him before he reached his twentieth year.
I don't think that talking to anybody can help you - a writer or a nonwriter. So what do I do in Wisconsin? I don't know. I just slug through it.
There can never be such a thing as a free market, because it is human nature to cheat, monopolize, and buy off others so as to corner the market.
But, like anyone in love, Madeleine believed that her own relationship was different from every other relationship, immune from typical problems.
The music industry is an interesting lens through which to look at change, because it has had such a difficult time adjusting to the digital age.
My first attempt at writing a novel was horrible. I had to throw it away. But I stuck with the idea, which is what became 'The Invisible Circus.'
I can be bolder on the page, as a character. I can gnash my teeth, I can scream and yell, in a way that I'm perhaps too timid to do in real life.
Good fiction must be entertaining- but what makes fiction special- and True- is that the realness of a novel allows it to carry a larger message.
There are many types of participation. One can observe so intensely that one becomes part of the action, but without being an active participant.
Five people read my work before its ready for publication, and I solicit opinions from all of them: my wife, my agent, my editor, and my parents.
For memory, we use our imagination. We take a few strands of real time and carry them with us, then like an oyster we create a pearl around them.
Dogs are dim creatures, do not speak to me of their good sense--have you ever heard of a team of tomcats hauling a sled across the frozen wastes?
People try to glorify war, particularly those who aren't actually fighting in them. People tend to make heroes of those who are fighting in them.
This was not of the nature of a Christlike lesson for Owen Meany to learn, as he lay in the manger, that someone you hate can give you a hard-on.
At last, small witches, goblins, hags, And pirates armed with paper bags Their costumes hinged on safety pins, Go haunt a night of pumpkin grins.
She went kind of pink and laughed, the kind of laugh you do when you know yo shouldn't be laughing. The kind of laugh that spoke of a conspiracy.
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...
I suppose in a way most of my characters are non-consumers, not terribly interested in all the little baubles and artifacts of contemporary life.
I honor the father in his son, not the son in his father. Each one receives a reward or punishment for his deeds, but not for the acts of others.
Compared to Americans, Canadians are often more gentle in their approach to things. They're much more apologetic. There's less room for conflict.