Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Death is only a launching into the region of the strange Untried; it is but the first salutation to the possibilities of the immense Remote, the Wild, the Watery, the Unshored.
The starred and stately nights seemed haughty dames in jewelled velvets, nursing at home in lonely pride, the memory of their absent conquering Earls, the golden helmeted suns!
A husband can commit no greater blunder than to discuss his wife, if she is virtuous, with his mistress; unless it be to mention his mistress, if she is beautiful, to his wife.
By definition, you have to live until you die. Better to make that life as complete and enjoyable an experience as possible, in case death is shite, which I suspect it will be.
Sternly, remorselessly, fate guides each of us; only at the beginning, when we're absorbed in details, in all sorts of nonsense, in ourselves, are we unaware of its harsh hand.
A riveting and realistic portrayal of space travel gone wrong, and of a crew who must fight for their survival. Bones Burnt Black is exciting, and expertly told. A must-listen.
I've never suffered from writer's block. I have plenty of ideas, sometimes too many. I've always had a strong imagination. If it dries up I'll stop and look for another career.
Play is a sacred thing, a divine ordinance, for developing in the child a harmonious and healthy organism, and preparing that organism for the commencement of the work of life.
His chin grazed the top of my head and then his lips brushed across my forehead. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “I’ll be right here when you wake up, sweetheart. I promise.
She was twenty and had come to realize that, though she had a voice, she wasn't a singer; that to endure and embrace the life of a singer demands a whole lot more than a voice.
Love between man and man is impossible because there must not be sexual intercourse and friendship between man and woman is impossible because there must be sexual intercourse.
Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so you shall become. Your vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.
My first book was published without any editorial advice. Nobody said, 'You might do this or that,' or 'Why don't we see more of this.' I merely took the book and published it.
Life runs to death as its goal, and we should go towards that next stage of experience either carelessly as to what must be, or with a good, honest curiosity as to what may be.
I have had to contend against the unkindness of his sister, and the insolence of his mother; and have suffered the punishment of an attachment, without enjoying its advantages.
The post-office is a wonderful establishment! The regularity and dispatch of it! If one thinks of all that it has to do, and all that it does so well, it is really astonishing!
We value the devotedness of friendship rather as an oblation to vanity than as a free interchange of hearts; an endearing contract of sympathy, mutual forbearance, and respect!
'The Good Soldier' is an odd and maybe even unique book. That it is a masterpiece, almost a perfect novel, comes as a repeated surprise even to readers who have read it before.
He set fire to some potatoes, then cooked some undelivered post in the embers." - Dad "Did he now? What a strange fellow. I would have done it the other way around." - Stafford
I have been here five days. I have decided on a place to eat in at midday, a place to eat in at night, a place to have my drink in after dinner. I have arranged my little life.
Comparison is painful. Don't be cowed by other people's pretty pictures. When you feel unimpressive, or irrelevant, that has nothing to do with what you're actually capable of.
After I finished my first draft of 'Salvage the Bones,' I felt that I wasn't political enough. I had to be more honest about the realities of the community I was writing about.
Sometimes, you get tired of fighting. I think you just sort of come to this realization that yes, that you will get tired, but that doesn't mean that you can give up the fight.
If I'm honest about the people that I love, then I need my characters to live through the same things that the people I love and care about are living with and struggling with.
He knows what I'm about to say--he always does. He is my best friend, my soul mate. In a perfect world, full of roses and sunshine we'd be together, but this is full of broken.
It is that cricket field that, in all the sharp and bitter moments of life as they come to me now, gives me a sense of wholesome proportion: 'At least I am not playing cricket!
An aging writer has the not insignificant satisfaction of a shelf of books behind him that, as they wait for their ideal readers to discover them, will outlast him for a while.
I have two ideas for novels at the moment, neither of them all that conventional, but I'm not ready to choose between them yet, let alone settle down to the process of writing.
The people do not complain because they have no voice; do not move because they are lethargic, and you say that they do not suffer because you have not seen their hearts bleed.
On the earth, even in the darkest night, the light never wholly abandons his rule. It is diffused and subtle, but little as may remain, the retina of the eye is sensible of it.
Everything can be killed except nostalgia for the kingdom, we carry it in the color of our eyes, in every love affair, in everything that deeply torments and unties and tricks.
As I watched bookstores close, I began to wonder how that felt for the owners. Owning a bookstore was their dream and now they're struggling and seeing those dreams fall apart.
In the end I would always pull up with a sense of glory, that loving is the strong side. It's feeble to be an object. What's the point of being loved in return, I'd ask myself.
I would like people to have an appreciation for what happened to women under the Taliban, as in 'A Thousand Splendid Suns.' I hope they get a sense of how connected we all are.
This is April," he said, holding up the chicken. "She's the only friend I have left. I saved her from an evil chef at Tavern on the Green, and we've pledged eternal friendship.
Sometimes we have to step out of our comfort zones. We have to break the rules. And we have to discover the sensuality of fear. We need to face it, challenge it, dance with it.
I wasn't that familiar with silent films. I didn't know, for example, how hugely popular silent films were in the 1920s, how people would go to the movies several times a week.
Fiction is about telling a good story, first and foremost. But of course, everything I'm interested in or angry about leaks into my writing, from art to violence against women.
Depressing thought: my friends were the girls I ate lunch with, all buddies from kindergarten who knew one another so well we weren't sure if we even liked one another anymore.
Everyone said that one day I was going to have a big accident, an accident to end all accidents. One day you might look up and see a kid falling from the sky. That would be me.
Painful as it may be, a significant emotional event can be the catalyst for choosing a direction that serves us - and those around us - more effectively. Look for the learning.
Beth ceased to fear him from that moment, and sat there talking to him as cozily as if she had known him all her life, for love casts out fear, and gratitude can conquer pride.
I think I have become a better writer since having children. It improves creativity, particularly because once you have children it makes you realise the story isn’t about you.
Democracy, which began by liberating man politically, has developed a dangerous tendency to enslave him through the tyranny of majorities and the deadly power of their opinion.
No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me.
We ought at least, from prudence, never to speak of ourselves, because that is a subject on which we may be sure that other people's views are never in accordance with our own.
Men and women can never be close. They can hardly speak to one another in the same language. But are compelled, forever, to try, and therefore even in defeat there is no peace.
I think because I try to keep things as real as I can, or I try to start from a place of reality, I almost don't have the imagination to write a book that's not set where I am.
Regarding Her Majesty, Queen Levana, has she or any of the Lunar court commented on the escape of the convict?" Kai's jaw tensed. "Oh, she's had a thing or two to say about it.
With animation, if something does not fit, you always have the time to change it. When you make a live-action movie, when your days of shooting are over, they are over forever.