Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
In a world that's smarter than it used to be and, in some ways, smarter than it ought to be, stupidity has a way of making us seem all the more human.
I believe that a writer has to tell what they think is the truth in a human experience. The truth of the human experience cannot escape the political.
If we are serious about peace, then we must work for it as ardently, seriously, continuously, carefully, and bravely as we have ever prepared for war.
The Christian gospel is a summons to peace, calling for justice beyond anger, mercy beyond justice, forgiveness beyond mercy, love beyond forgiveness.
Battle with unconditioned breath the unconditioned air. Shun electric wire. Communicate slowly. Live a three-dimensional life; stay away from screens.
Far from making peace, wars invariably serve as classrooms and laboratories where men and techniques and states of mind are prepared for the next war.
I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief... For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
The actual Irish weather report is really a recording made in 1922, which no one has had occasion to change. "Scattered showers, periods of sunshine."
I don't think they [contemporary writers] read me either. I mean, if we're concerned genuinely with writing, I think we probably get on with our work.
Probably careful plotting reflects my personality. I am meticulous by nature. I can't imagine speed-writing anything that happens to pop into my head.
Intelligence and war are games, perhaps the only meaningful games left. If any player becomes too proficient, the game is threatened with termination.
Most serious writers refuse to make themselves available to the things that technology is doing. I've never been able to understand this sort of fear.
Young people understand the world. They should be listened to on matters of politics and world organization. But they know nothing of their own lives.
Biographies are no longer written to explain or explore the greatness of the great. They redress balances, explore secret weaknesses, demolish legends.
All I can say is, I don't encourage younger kids to read my books, and actually, the biggest age group on my Facebook page is 25- to 35-year-old women.
I hate the idea of sheltering kids from challenging books. It's just another form of conservative fear that promotes ignorance more than anything else.
We hang out, we help one another, we tell one another our worst fears and biggest secrets, and then, just like real sisters, we listen and don't judge.
To all those who lead monotonous lives in the hope that they may experience at second hand the delights and dangers of adventure. [author's dedication]
It is curious - but you cannot make a revolution without honest men. ... Every revolution has had its honest men. They are soon disposed of afterwards.
I think that screenwriting probably isn't seen as writing in the same way that novel-writing is seen as writing. But I certainly don't see it that way.
I don't write on set. I also - in a funny way, I don't really differentiate between the writing and directing. I think it's all sort of the same thing.
This day is going to be awful. It's the sort of day you wouldn't mind losing completely, even if it meant your life would be twenty-four hours shorter.
It was as though I had one map inside my head and it led to the man who was waiting for me. Someone who was alone - maybe even more alone - than I was.
The fashion industry is no more able to preserve a style that men and women have decided to abandon than to introduce one they do not choose to accept.
In a story, you can turn to the front and begin again and everyone lives once more. That doesn't work in real life. And I love my real people the most.
I think a writer is a describer. She describes society and human nature as she sees it. She has to be both typical of that society and alone within it.
I've spent my whole life in Chicago being asked where am I from, so that I have a sense of displacement that also is very psychologically disorienting.
That is why Russia is hated. That is why China is hated. They are forming a tremendous, final defense line protecting humanity from the Western terror.
The world is still being battered by the Western/white/Christian supremacy dogmas and practices, by the most primitive and fundamentalist 'principles'.
You'll find that no pride is greater than the pride that comes with being thick. Britain is filled with people who are really proud of their stupidity.
To pin your hopes upon the future is to consign those hopes to a hypothesis, which is to say, a nothingness. Here and now is what we must contend with.
My cousins and I used to play Beatle wives. We all wanted to be married to Paul, but John was O.K. too. None of us wanted Ringo. Or even worse, George.
Good Luck is rather particular who she rides with, and mostly prefers those who have got common sense and a good heart; at least that is my experience.
She was trusted and valued by her father, loved and courted by all dogs, cats, children, and poor people, and slighted and neglected by everybody else.
E-books are great for instant gratification - you see a review somewhere of a book that interests you, and you can start reading it five minutes later.
I happen to be a Christian, but I know that there is one God. People worshipping goodness and love and kindness and truth are worshipping the same God.
There's something very strange about Sherlock Holmes, especially if you're an English schoolboy. When you read the stories, they stay with you forever.
As to that leisure evening of life, I must say that I do not want it. I can conceive of no contentment of which toil is not to be the immediate parent.
People go on quarrelling and fancying this and that, and thinking that the world is full of romance and poetry. When they get married they know better.
The prison was very important - as everywhere on earth. Everywhere the building of a prison is the first step in the organization of a civilized state.
Morality is not a large, constructed *thing* you have or have not, but simply a capacity. Something you carry with you in your brain and in your hands.
Do you think its possible to live without wanting to put your name on your paintings? To belong to a group so securely you don't need to rise above it?
There's always a part of your nation's history that you haven't been told that... has a powerful impact on how you yourself may behave and may believe.
Never act like you want it, darlin'. Act like you wouldn't own it if they paid you. Tell them it's dirty, broken...a useless thing. Then make an offer.
That was a mistake, I guess, going out to California. They have these things called guidance counselors in high school. They drink a lot of herbal tea.
How blessed are some people, whose lives have no fears, no dreads; to whom sleep is a blessing that comes nightly, and brings nothing but sweet dreams.
It is the eve of St. George's Day. Do you not know that tonight, when the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the world will have full sway?
The value of myth is that it takes all the things you know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by the veil of familiarity.
This world is a great sculptor's shop. We are the statues and there is a rumor going round the shop that some of us are some day going to come to life.
Unless the religious claims of the Bible are again acknowledged, its literary claims will, I think, be given only 'mouth honour' and that decreasingly.