Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
She had always been fond of history, and here [in Rome] was history in the stones of the street and the atoms of the sunshine.
Think only what is right there, what is right under your nose to do. It's such a simple thing - that's why people can't do it.
Hitler is no worse, nay better, in my opinion, than the other lugs. He makes the German mistake of being tactless, that's all.
Part of the act of creating is in discovering your own kind. They are everywhere. But don't look for them in the wrong places.
Every man is working out his destiny in his own way and nobody can be of any help except by being kind, generous, and patient.
I don't know whether you've ever had a woman eat an apple while you were doing it. Well, you can imagine how that affects you.
The world appears rectilinear, but is in fact curvilinear - a literal truth in physics, and a metaphorical one in metaphysics.
It's just a freak of fate that I'm paid to write, not paying to print my own books - but I'd be doing it anyway: it's my life.
I'm aware of the mystery around us, so I write about coincidences, premonitions, emotions, dreams, the power of nature, magic.
After a few months without writing, months I've lived turned outward... I fear going deaf, not being able to hear the silence.
Do you truly believe that life is fair, Senor de la Vega? -No, maestro, but I plan to do everything in my power to make it so.
It always smelled like it was raining outside, even if it wasn't, and you were in the only nice, dry, cosy place in the world.
It happens to be one of those days when I see everybody in the family, including myself, through the wrong end of a telescope.
My god, there's absolutely nothing tenth-rate about you, and yet you're up to your neck at this minute in tenth-rate thinking.
The Japanese have a word for it. It's Judo - the art of conquering by yielding. The Western equivalent of Judo is, "Yes dear".
evil labours with vast power and perpetual success - in vain: preparing always only the soil for unexpected good to sprout in.
You will notice already that Mr. Baggins was not quite so prosy as he liked to believe, also that he was very fond of flowers.
O Elbereth! Gilthoniel! We still remember, we who dwell In this far land beneath the trees. Thy starlight on the Western Seas.
Gandalf thought of most things; and though he could not do everything, he could do a great deal for friends in a tight corner.
The empty swing set reminds us of this-- that bad won't be bad forever, and what is good can sometimes last a long, long time.
The more intense the nature of a man, the more readily will he find meditation, and the more successfully will he practice it.
I'm writing books. They're still a mix of fact and fiction and will continue to be. I think it's an interesting place to work.
I'd like to do something involving jazz. But books are how I earn my living, and I'd like to stay with the horse I rode in on.
Historians will tell you that they deal with fact and empirical evidence. But that doesn't really help me understand a person.
My goal is to be able to fill out one of those forms that asks 'Who are you?' and be able to just put 'Human being,' you know?
What kind of world is this? And what do you do about it? What do you do when the worst thing that can happen actually happens?
I worry that humanity has been "advanced" to its present level of incompetency because evolution works on the Peter Principle.
I wasn't sure exactly how prostitutes determined price, but if men bought hookers by the pound, these two would be doing okay.
I was discharged from the army for idiocy and officially certified by a special commission as an idiot. I'm an official idiot.
It's a great feeling to do what you want and do what you love. Everyone should try it sometime if you're not doing it already.
Fun drunks make a nice addition to any party. Not looking to fight. Not looking to score. Just looking to get drunk and laugh.
Achieving conventional goals, such as profits and joy, with unconventional methods, such as investing energy instead of money.
My writing process is a mix of research, personal experiences, washing the dishes, raising kids while thinking - then writing.
For the Infinite has sowed his name in the heavens in burning stars, but on the earth He has sowed his name in tender flowers.
You said, 'I love you.' Why is it that the most unoriginal thing we can say to one another is still the thing we long to hear?
Your weak point is the open, vulnerable place where you can always be hurt. Love, in all its aspects, opens the self so fully.
I am getting much more political as I get older. It's the duty of any writer, in particular, not to stand back from the world.
There's a lot of mystery just inherent in the story of 'Descender.' There's sort of a central mystery that runs throughout it.
South Florida, Central Florida, and North Florida could never be mistaken for each other. Each has its quirks and attractions.
Cosmologies are made up of small snippets of physical reality that have been remodeled by society into vast cosmic deceptions.
Tell your friend that in his death, a part of you dies and goes with him. Wherever he goes, you also go. He will not be alone.
It is astonishingly beautiful and interesting, how thought is absent when you have an insight. Thought cannot have an insight.
The real student is studying, learning, inquiring, exploring, not just until he is twenty or twenty-five, but throughout life.
As a natural historian, I don't believe in the consciousness of rocks or the opinions of rainbows or the convictions of slugs.
You don't know which way a thing will come at you, but you need to welcome it with your whole heart which ever way it arrives.
You can change yourself and you can change the situation but you absolutely cannot change other people. Only they can do that.
As a writer, you have to first of all write what you want to. Listen to advice, by all means, but don't get bogged down in it.
There is no surer method of evading the world than by following Art, and no surer method of linking oneself to it than by Art.
Certain books seem to be written, not that we might learn from them, but in order that we might see how much the author knows.
Treat people the way they are and they will stay that way. Treat people the way they can become and they will become that way.