Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Trust no future, however pleasant! Let the dead past bury its dead! Act -- act in the living Present! Heart within and God overhead.
A great sorrow, like a mariner's quadrant, brings the sun at noon down to the horizon, and we learn where we are on the sea of life.
Well I know the secret places, And the nests in hedge and tree; At what doors are friendly faces, In what hearts are thoughts of me.
All things are symbols: the external shows Of Nature have their image in the mind , As flowers and fruits and falling of the leaves.
To be able to throw one's self away for the sake of a moment, to be able to sacrifice years for a woman's smile - that is happiness.
The man of power is ruined by power, the man of money by money, the submissive man by subservience, the pleasure seeker by pleasure.
Whether you and I and a few others will renew the world some day remains to be seen. But within ourselves we must renew it each day.
Potter is jealous of potter, and craftsman of craftsman; and the poor have a grudge against the poor, and the poet against the poet.
The stallion and his mare, unbridled, with arrow-pattern, are worked on. the blue cloth before the door of religion and inspiration.
Pry not into the affairs of others, and keep secret that which has been entrusted to you, though sorely tempted by wine and passion.
Nor let a god come in, unless the difficulty be worthy of such an intervention. [Lat., Nec deus intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus.]
My work holds up the mirror to hypocrisy, which puts me in a tradition of American writing that reaches back to Nathaniel Hawthorne.
New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth; They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth.
A car can massage organs which no masseur can reach. It is the one remedy for the disorders of the great sympathetic nervous system.
I want to whisper poetry into your mind and imprint love letters to your soul and dance with you in an empty white room of potential
I have a different purpose in writing each novel. Some of them seem more similar than others, but the purposes are always different.
Americans are genuinely and profoundly anti-intellectual. They are especially so in their pleasure-seeking, which is epically banal.
I'm heading for a clean-named place like Wisconsin, and mad as a jack-o'-lantern, will get there without help and nosy proclivities.
Our two souls therefore which are one, Though I must go, endure not yet A breach, but an expansion, Like gold to airy thinness beat.
We can never be grieved for their miseries who are thoroughly wicked, and have thereby justly called their calamities on themselves.
A Wolf eats sheep but now and then; Ten thousands are devour'd by men. An open foe may prove a curse, but a pretend friend is worse.
A rich rogue nowadays is fit company for any gentleman; and the world, my dear, hath not such a contempt for roguery as you imagine.
You are always new. The last of your kisses was even the sweetest; the last smile the brightest; the last movement the gracefullest.
Why employ intelligent and highly paid ambassadors and then go and do their work for them? You don't buy a canary and sing yourself.
The Angel ended, and in Adam's ear So charming left his voice, that he awhile Thought him still speaking, still stood fix'd to hear.
The greatest burden in the world is superstition, not only of ceremonies in the church, but of imaginary and scarecrow sins at home.
The wife, where danger or dishonour lurks, Safest and seemliest by her husband stays, Who guards her, or with her the worst endures.
And some are fall'n, to disobedience fall'n, And so from Heav'n to deepest Hell; O fall From what high state of bliss into what woe!
Here we may reign secure; and in my choice To reign is worth ambition, though in hell: Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.
I prithee send me back my heart, Since I cannot have thine; For if from yours you will not part, Why, then, shouldst thou have mine?
The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears. [So when you are crying remember also to anticipate and look for the rainbow.]
Migrants all over the world are pushed and pulled across borders by hunger, terror and climate change. It happened to my own family.
The writer cannot abandon himself simply to inspiration, and feign innocence vis a vis language, because language is never innocent.
Every writer can tell you that a book is only truly alive when it finds passionate readers who bring it alive in their imaginations.
I remember reading Paul Fussell my first year teaching at U of Hawai'i and being like, oh, it has a turn! Why didn't anyone tell me?
To tell the truth is to become beautiful, to begin to love yourself, value yourself. And that's political, in its most profound way.
Path presupposes distance; If He be near, no path needest thou at all. Verily it maketh me smile To hear of a fish in water athirst!
There is no self-knowledge except historical self-knowledge. No one knows what he is if he doesn't know what his contemporaries are.
To be an American is to move on, as if we could outrun change. To attach oneself to place is to surrender to it, and suffer with it.
The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.
He was gentle, like a man mindful of his own strength. In my dreams I beheld the kings of the earth standing in awe in His presence.
A lot of manuscripts that come in, you wonder by what outrageous fantasy the author believes that this should be pressed into print.
The more sensible a woman is, supposing her not to be masculine, the more attractive she is in her proportionate power to entertain.
Social life is filled with doubts and vain aspirings; solitude, when the imagination is dethroned, is turned to weariness and ennui.
I would give worlds, could I believe One-half that is profess'd me; Affection! could I think it Thee, When Flattery has caress'd me.
I'm not really anti-gang - I was a gang member and so was my son. I'm pro-youth, pro-community, pro-family, pro-arts, and pro-peace.
The Arabs are ready to accept a strong Israel with nuclear arms - all it has to do is open the gates of its fortress and make peace.
I have long since decided if you wait for the perfect time to write, you'll never write. There is no time that isn't flawed somehow.
Love is like fire, a dangerous thing to play with, although the best of friends and the most loyal of servants when rightly handled.
We lie in each other's arms eyes shut and fingers open and all the colors of the world pass through our bodies like strings of fire.