Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
To know ourselves, is agreed by all to be the most useful Learning; the first Lessons, therefore, given us ought to be on that Subject.
My mother and her five sisters have always been living examples of the great love that can exist among sisters - and in a large family.
What you possess is not what you jingle in the pockets of your memory, but the imaginings with which you fill the spaces of the future.
To judge therefore of Shakespeare by Aristotle's rule is like trying a man by the Laws of one Country who acted under those of another.
It was just very interesting to me that certain types of women inspire people's imagination, and all of them were very difficult women.
My imagination, my ability to understand the way love and people grow over time, how passion can surprise and renew, utterly failed me.
I gained direct knowledge of the life of the poor in big towns: I have lived the narrowing mechanism of its conditioning and feared it.
Socialism and the woman movement are two mighty streams which drag along with them great parts of the firm formations which they touch.
The sensation reminds him of the first snow of winter, for those first few hours when everything is blanketed in white, soft and quiet.
It is difficult to see a situation for what it is when you are in the midst of it,” Tsukiko says. “It is too familiar. Too comfortable.
Writing in a near-frenzy is wonderful and freeing but, for me, it does not result in a nice shiny novel. Instead what I have is a mess.
O, if so much beauty doth reveal Itself in every vein of life and nature, How beautiful must be the Source itself, The Ever Bright One.
Writing a story is kind of like surfing, as opposed to the novel, where you use a GPS to get somewhere. With surfing, you kind of jump.
Vengeance comes not slowly either upon you or any other wicked man, but steals silently and imperceptibly, placing its foot on the bad.
A weak people and its equally debilitated leaders are bludgeoned by history. It maims them into the cripples that they are meant to be.
We criticize, copy, patronize, idolize and insult but we never doubt that the U.S. has a unique position in the history of human hopes.
There's always wan encouragin' thing about th' sad scientific facts that come out ivrv week in th' pa-apers. They're usually not thrue.
Nothing needs to happen to a writer’s life after they are 20. By then they’ve experienced more than enough to last their creative life.
There is no separation in Divine Mind, therefore, I cannot be separated from the love and companionship which are mine by divine right.
Credulity is always a ridiculous, often a dangerous failing: it has made of many a clever man, a fool; and of many a good man, a knave.
This was not a fearie tale. This was not the movies. This was life. It hurt more. It was excruciating. It was excruciatingly beautiful.
Mozart starved, but you allow Thalberg and Liszt make tons of gold: Of course, you may think that someone immortal cannot die of hunger
One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in his bed he had been changed into a monstrous bug.
Like a house in the rain, books were havens of permanence and protection from whatever it was that as a child I needed protection from.
I was thinking of writing a little foreword saying that history is, after all, based on people's recollections, which change with time.
The big new development in my life is, when I turned 80, I decided I no longer have to do four pages a day. For me, it's like retiring.
There's a burden of representation that comes into play when there aren't enough representatives of a certain group in popular culture.
Are you happy in your misery? Resting peaceful in desolation? It’s the final tie that binds us The sole source of my consolation" “blue
For me, those little cinemas in Paris where I saw many art films for the first time meant that cinema became a kind of pilgrimage site.
Early to bed and early to rise is a bad rule for anyone who wishes to become acquainted with our most prominent and influential people.
The prevailing theory of capitalism suffers from one central and disabling flaw, a profound distrust and incomprehension of capitalism.
As SUVs are higher and heavier, they are more likely to kill the people they hit. Driving an SUV in an urban area is an antisocial act.
Whatever you love, that will be an influence. It just will. So in effect the young writer's job is: go out and find some stuff to love.
Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a colored pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling.
I don't need a church to tell me I'm wrong where I already know I'm wrong; I need a Church to tell me I'm wrong where I think I'm right
It is very foolish of a man to be frightened of a skeleton, for Nature has put an insurmountable obstacle against running away from it.
For Scotland has a double dose of the poison called heredity; the sense of blood in the aristocrat, the sense of doom in the Calvinist.
He may be mad, but there's method in his madness. There nearly always is method in madness. It's what drives men mad, being methodical.
Books are many things: lullabies for the weary, ointment for the wounded, armour for the fearful and nests for those in need of a home.
I sometimes think it is because they are so bad at expressing themselves verbally that writers take to pen and paper in the first place
Many writers who choose to be active in the world lose not virtue but time, and that stillness without which literature cannot be made.
A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.
Have you seen a room from which faith has gone? Like a marriage from which love has gone. And patience, patience everywhere like a fog.
That man has missed something who has never left a brothel at sunrise feeling like throwing himself into the river out of pure disgust.
Getting stressed and struggling to change the outcome of any past event is like arguing with an echo to make it see your point of view.
Each time we see and are touched by the expression of some eternal principle, we catch a sweet glimpse of some aspect of our True Self.
I must confess that my imagination refuses to see any sort of submarine doing anything but suffocating its crew and floundering at sea.
...the voice was indisputable. It continued to swear with that breadth and variety that distinguishes the swearing of a cultivated man.
Different people have different reasons for racing, but one is simply the incentive to get out and run, increase mileage and feel good.
The short story ... is the most democratic of all the arts; anyone may tell a story, and if it is an absorbing one someone will listen.