Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The silence of a friend commonly amounts to treachery. His not daring to say anything in our behalf implies a tacit censure.
The greatest pleasure in life is that of reading while we are young. I have had as much of this pleasure perhaps as any one.
It may be made a question whether men grow wiser as they grow older, anymore than they grow stronger or healthier or honest.
I am proud up to the point of equality; everything above or below that appears to me arrant impertinence or abject meanness.
To get others to come into our ways of thinking, we must go over to theirs; and it is necessary to follow, in order to lead.
There are two kinds of adventurers: those who go truly hoping to find adventure and those who go secretly hoping they won't.
There are two kinds of adventurers: those who go truly hoping to find adventure and those who go secretly hoping they won t.
Trading and religion have always been aligned together in the history of the world, and especially on the African continent.
In the world of literature, I see prizes as more of a duty to the craft itself, rather than as something for the individual.
A novel, basically, is writing one sentence — then, without violating the scope of the first one, writing the next sentence.
It amazes me that we spend 20% of the US budget on defense and far-off wars, and not on fighting cancer, disease, and aging.
I'm terribly prone to anxiety. I get very depressed and I get very anxious and my anxiety is almost always about my children.
And learn to tie a bow - it's not difficult and there's no excuse for either a clip-on or the hideous Hollywood straight tie.
Mourning the loss of the phone call is like pining for buggy driving or women in hats or three-martini lunches. They've gone.
Twenty is a tough age because it slips past in the middle of so much else - university, gap year, leaving home, getting jobs.
How brave a ladybug must be! Each drop of rain is big as she. Can you imagine what you'd do, If raindrops fell as big as you?
Our disrespect for thinking: someone sitting in a chair, gazing out of a window blankly, always described as 'doing nothing'.
A great writer picks up on those things that matter. It’s almost like their radar is attuned to the most significant moments.
Love is an incurable disease. In love, there is permanent suffering. Those who love and those who are happy are not the same.
A lump rises in our throat at the sight of beauty from an implicit knowledge that the happiness it hints at is the exception.
Language comes first. It's not that language grows out of consciousness, if you haven't got language, you can't be conscious.
It seems strange that my life should end in such a terrible place, but for three years I had roses, and apologized to no one.
Liberate yourselves from everything you know and look with complete innocence at this infinitely improbable thing before you.
Christianity accepted as given a metaphysical system derived from several already existing and mutually incompatible systems.
Arabs are a complete abstraction in the propaganda world and all the death and destruction is completely unreal to Americans.
A society or culture which is disposed to view the world in Manichean terms will be more vulnerable to control by propaganda.
I believe what I write to be the truth...every man who is not indifferent to the truth has a weakness for spreading it about.
Truly generous men are always ready to become sympathetic when their enemy’s misfortune surpasses the limits of their hatred.
The wretched and miserable should turn to their Saviour first, yet they do not hope in Him until all other hope is exhausted.
That is a dream also; only he has remained asleep, while you have awakened; and who knows which of you is the most fortunate?
Maturity is the ability to sort the portions of truth from the accepted lies and self-deceptions that you have grown up with.
I don't have a night stand. If I read at night in bed or too close to sleep-time, I lie awake thinking in the dark for hours.
I'm always telling my students, don't - don't worry so much third person, first person. It doesn't make that much difference.
The world was a cruder, more vulgar place than the one I had known. This was the language required to live in it, I supposed.
Because we imagine, we can have invention and technology. It's actually play, not necessity, that is the mother of invention.
You've got to think about big things while you're doing small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction.
Finn: I look at you because I can't look away Wendy. Wendy: That's kinda creepy. Finn: I will work on being less creepy then.
In the early 1990s, my relatives in Patna, even those who had no interest in reading or writing, wanted Parker fountain pens.
I write about reconciliation, but not as a miracle, as a slow, gradual process of mutual discovery - discovering one another.
Almost every modern literary form existed in Hebrew two thousand years ago. And, yes, it existed even during the middle ages.
This isn't just 'the way things are.' This is the way you made them. This is the result of your choices, your actions. Yours.
We don't seek the painful experiences that hew our identities, but we seek our identities in the wake of painful experiences.
The 50-50-90 rule: Anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there's a 90% probability you'll get it wrong.
Perhaps because technology so dominates our existence, more and more it seems that the young reader is captivated by fantasy.
The poor think they will be happy when they become rich. The rich think they will be happy when they are rid of their ulcers.
Referring the matter to a committee' can be a device for diluting authority, diffusing responsibility and delaying decisions.
In my family, as in most middle-class Indian families I knew when I was growing up, science and mathematics were held in awe.
If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.
War may be the game of kings, but, like the games at ancient Rome, it is generally exhibited to please and pacify the people.
Anger is an appropriate reaction to racist attitudes, as is fury when the actions arising from those attitudes do not change.