Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Léonie, you will do well to consider. You are not the first woman in my life." She smiled through her tears. "Monseigneur, I would so much rather be the last woman than the first,” she said.
There are things roaming around inside my head as clever as Theseus in the Labyrinth. It's just that nobody ever gave them the necessary piece of string, so they'll never find their way out.
Yeah, that's all," said Dill. "He'll probably come out after you when he sees you in the yard, then Scout'n' me'll jump on him and hold him down till we can tell him we ain't gonna hurt him.
It may be laid down as a general rule, that no woman who hath any great pretensions to admiration is ever well pleased in a company where she perceives herself to fill only the second place.
For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life.
Of all human events, perhaps, the publication of a first volume of verses is the most insignificant; but though a matter of no moment to the world, it is still of some concern to the author.
You don't have to stop thinking and asking questions to believe in God, child. If He'd wanted a flock of eight billion sheep, He wouldn't have given us opposable thumbs, much less free will.
Why is everyone calling me Consort?" "Jim designated you as Consort in official papers. You don't want to be called Mate, calling you Alpha is confusing, and 'Beast Lady' makes people laugh.
My investigative technique mostly consisted of going through the list of interested parties and making as much noise as possible, until the culprit lost his patience and tried to shut me up.
People love talking about their jobs. Take them out, buy them lunch or take them for a beer and they'll talk about their job, provided they know that you're going to respect their anonymity.
Every kind of book I've written has been written in a different way. There has not been any set time for writing, any set way, I haven't re-invented the process every time but I almost have.
For whatever reason, various outlets and individuals are committed to making the world think that young girls don't talk or care about feminism anymore, that it's totally over. But it's not.
There are signs, I think, that people aren't satisfied by consumerism: that people resent the fact that the most moral decision in their lives is choosing what colour their next car will be.
The barman sidled toward them out of a back room. He was a grump-looking old man with a great deal of a long gray hair and a beard. He was tall and thin and looked vaguely familiar to Harry.
I don't mean to be rude—" he began, in a tone that threatened rudeness in every syllable. "Yet, sadly, accidental rudeness occurs alarmingly often," Dumbledore finished the sentence gravely.
But I got this far, didn’t I?” he said slowly. “They thought I’d die in the attempt, but I’m here . . . and you’re in my power. . . . I’m the one with the wand. . . . you’re at my mercy. . .
I want you. Bad. Right now. Against the wall. On my bed. The floor and maybe in the bathroom later. I have a shower stall and a Jacuzzi we could put to really good use. I know you'd like it.
...Bringing the very heavens close enough to touch. It was Zsadist. His eyes closed, his head back, his mouth wide open, he sang. The scarred one, the souless one, had the voice of an angel.
and never really thought I'd amount to anything. It was precisely what I wanted the whole world to think; then I could sneak in, if that's what they wanted, and sneak out again, which I did.
The thing about writing in America is that writers in America have an arc. You enter writing as a career, you expect to be successful, and really it's the wrong thing. It's not a profession.
The world tends to trap you in the role you play and it is always extremely hard to maintain a watchful, mocking distance between oneself as one appears to be and oneself as one actually is.
Scepticism, like wisdom, springs out in full panoply only from the brain of a god, and it is little profit to see an idea in its growth, unless we track its seed to the power which sowed it.
Since the attack on the United States on September 11 2001, and the US retaliation in Afghanistan and Iraq, there must be few people who have not felt a twinge of nostalgia for the cold war.
We were so fundamental that almost everything had been stripped away from the place of worship. Think of the role words can play, when all other enticements and sensual attractions are gone.
To the truly benevolent mind, indeed, nothing is more satisfactory than to hear of a miser denying himself the necessaries of life a little too far and ridding us of his presence altogether.
I pay very little regard...to what any young person says on the subject of marriage. If they profess a disinclination for it, I only set it down that they have not yet seen the right person.
The only siblings I have are half-siblings. My nuclear family would have been an extra-suffocating threesome. Instead, I have an interesting brother and sister, in-laws, and darling nephews.
Some novelists are luckier than others in the eras of their formative intellectual years, but all Weltanschauungs return, which means that most novelists have at least a chance of a revival.
The safest course was actually the simplest-do nothing at all and hope everything turned out for the best. It wasn't a great plan, but it had the benefits of simplicity and a long tradition.
I listened to classic rock and roll, and punk rock. 'Goon Squad' provides a pretty accurate playlist of my teenage years, though it leaves out 'The Who,' which was my absolute favorite band.
A few nights later, I secretly hope that I might be a genius. Why else can no amount of sleeping pills fell my brain? But in the morning my daughter asks me what a cloud is and I cannot say.
- Growth has its season. There are spring and summer, but there are also fall and winter. And then spring and summer again. As long as the roots are not severed, all is well and all be well.
My mother is currently associating with some undesirables who are attempting to transform her into an athlete of sorts, deprave specimens of mankind who regularly bowl their way to oblivion.
There now exists a factor which was formerly lacking - the spirit of the nation has been aroused, and a common misfortune, a common debasement, has united all the inhabitants of the Islands.
The things we felt most are hardest to put into words. Hate is always easier to speak of than love. How shall I make love go through the sieve of words and come out something besides a pulp?
My first book took five years to write and I made $1,000 on it. The second took three years and I made $3,000. All this time I was a housewife being supported by a husband. I was very lucky.
I didn't start writing so that I could more deeply know myself. I was bored of myself, my life, my childhood, my hometown. I started writing as a way to know others, to get away from myself.
You know, I've lived a long time," he told me, massaging my calf more firmly now. "And I met a lot of people. But I ain't never met a woman made me want to beat her to death as often as you.
As my family saw them, men were untrustworthy, weak, and selfish. Our mother taught us to get along without them, to get along without much of anything, and to live well and have fun anyway.
All my life I'd been told what to believe about politics, coloreds, being a girl. But with Constantine's thumb pressed in my hand, I realized I actually had a choice in what I could believe.
I returned to Afghanistan because I had a deep longing to see for myself how people lived, what they thought of their government, how optimistic they were about the future of their homeland.
I was overwhelmed with the kindness of people [in Afghanistan] and found that they had managed to retain their dignity, their pride, and their hospitality under unspeakably bleak conditions.
For me as a writer, the story has always taken precedence over everything else. I have never sat down to write with broad, sweeping ideas in mind, and certainly never with a specific agenda.
I have a feeling that books are a lot like people - they change as you age, so that some books that you hated in high school will strike you with the force of a revelation when you're older.
Song: Heloise and Abelard by Elizabeth Devlin. Beyond the a propros subject matter, this lady can really play the Autoharp. This song sounds like something you'd find on a gramophone record.
So long as a man rides his hobbyhorse peaceably and quietly along the King's highway, and neither compels you or me to get up behind him - pray, Sir, what have either you or I to do with it?
I have always made an effort to render every detail of my reality with the greatest accuracy; but I have never paid attention to whether my presentation of historical facts was an exact one.
I may well do some more polemical writing, if a subject that fires me up comes along. Apart from that possibility, I would like to continue to tell stories so long as I have stories to tell.
The conclusion, therefore, is that there are two major forces in society: love, which multiplies the species, and the nose, which subordinates it to the individual. Procreation, equilibrium.
On the first day of school, my father told me I'd be the most popular girl and everyone would love me and want to be my friend. It wasn't so, but it gave me an enormous amount of confidence.