Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Every man is a creature of the age in which he lives and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time.
I am the best-natured creature in the world, and yet I have already killed three, and of these three two were priests.
If you can find collaborators whose strengths compliment your own, the result can be more than the sum of its authors.
Every man whose business it is to think knows that he must for part of the day create about himself a pool of silence.
Certainly he is not of the generation that regards honesty as the best policy. However, he does regard it as a policy.
Almost always tradition is nothing but a record and a machine-made imitation of the habits that our ancestors created.
Men endure the losses that befall them by mere casualty with more patience than the damages they sustain by injustice.
O Music! how it grieves me that imprudence, intemperance, gluttony, should open their channels into thy sacred stream.
If you are going to live by faith, then expect your faith to be tested. A faith that can't be tested can't be trusted.
It is by speech that many of our best gains are made. A large part of the good we receive comes to us in conversation.
Man is an emotional animal, occasionally rational; and through his feelings he can be deceived to his heart's content.
My friend, judge not me, Thou seest I judge not thee; Betwixt the stirrop and the ground, Mercy I askt, mercy I found.
Whatever its symbol - cross or crescent or whatever - that symbol is man's reminder of his duty inside the human race.
Those who make their dress a principal part of themselves, will, in general, become of no more value than their dress.
Friendship is cemented by interest, vanity, or the want of amusement; it seldom implies esteem, or even mutual regard.
The characteristic of Chaucer is intensity: of Spencer, remoteness: of Milton elevation and of Shakespeare everything.
That which is not, shall never be; that which is, shall never cease to be. To the wise, these truths are self-evident.
The temple of fame stands upon the grave: the flame that burns upon its altars is kindled from the ashes of great men.
Death puts an end to rivalship and competition. The dead can boast no advantage over us, nor can we triumph over them.
I almost always urge people to write in the first person. ... Writing is an act of ego and you might as well admit it.
Make a habit of reading what is being written today and what has been written before. Writing is learned by imitation.
When a leader encourages the culture of impunity, the society is lost and it makes the work harder for the rest of us.
I consider the process of gestation just as important as when you're actually sitting down putting words to the paper.
Recording stories is a way of honoring the faculty of memory, even if it's recorded, outsourcing memory to technology.
For Kenya: we have a chance to start again each time we meet one another. The ghosts do not need to define the future.
Gifts are an important and necessary part of our collective lives. We need to give and we need to allow others to give.
The pleasure in lovers' gifts is that they are often covert and secretive, worn next to the skin, hidden under pillows.
For men, privacy means not being told stuff that would hurt. For women, secrecy is having stuff go on behind your back.
It is not arrogance to appreciate what Allah has blessed you with; arrogance is to ascribe those blessings to yourself.
Refuse to disconnect from love and every relationship will be totally transformed; even the relationship with yourself.
The silence inside of you is the sound of your knowledge collapsing. Remember, it is you who said, 'I want to be free.'
There's a fierceness about life that calls for a fierceness to not anxiously solve it but to allow it to transform you.
It is perhaps when our lives are at their most problematic that we are likely to be most receptive to beautiful things.
Simply be who you are, do what you do best, be where you are called by joy, and let life work its magic on your behalf.
The leech's kiss, the squid's embrace, The prurient ape's defiling touch: And do you like the human race? No, not much.
Abused as we abuse it at present, dramatic art is in no sense cathartic; it is merely a form of emotional masturbation.
For what we think and feel and are is to a great extent determined by the state of our ductless glands and our viscera.
And what strange voices they have! Sometimes like the complaining of small children; sometimes like the noise of lambs.
The beauty of literature - also its limit - is that it is inescapably personal, even if you're writing science fiction.
You don't want your neurosurgeon to have doubts about the meaning of it all while he or she is operating on your brain.
Outsider means "I will accept the possibility that I don't have responsibility for what is happening inside my domain."
There's no bad writing; you did something. I was operating inside language, and I did something. I'm not ashamed of it.
False gods must be repudiated, but that is not all: The reasons for their existence must be sought beneath their masks.
No one is to blame. It is neither their fault nor ours. It is the misfortune of being born when a whole world is dying.
There are many women whose lives would be immeasurably improved by widowhood, but one should not always point that out.
I want to be bored. But I can't. But I really don't want to be this thing that I'm having to be instead of being bored.
My nature is feminist. How could you not be a feminist and be alive? The world is full of brilliant, interesting women.
I have a theory, now - that the whole of the Renaissance was peopled with girls dressed as boys so they could make art.
Like snowflakes,' Franny said,'none of them the same and yet each one, from where we stand, exactly like the one before
As she brought prospective buyers through, the realtor said it was an oil stain, but it was me, seeping out of the bag.