Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I really hate the term 'historical novel' - it reminds me of bodice-rippers. But I'm hooked on research, and I really, really enjoy it.
The purpose of education is to keep a culture from being drowned in senseless repetitions, each of which claims to offer a new insight.
DURING the first years of my service in Dr. Flint's family, I was accustomed to share some indulgences with the children of my mistress
I remember how often some of us walked out of the darkness of the Lower East Side and into the brilliant sunlight of Washington Square.
What matters is deciding in your heart to accept another person completely. When you do that, it is always the first time and the last.
When people tell a lie about something, they have to make up a bunch of lies to go with the first one. ‘Mythomania’ is the word for it.
...most people in the world don't really use their brains to think. And people who don't think are the ones who don't listen to others.
Give yourself five minutes to consider how you can turn a miserable situation to your benefit and that light bulb is going to click on.
The silence grew deeper, so deep that if you listened carefully you might very well catch the sound of the earth revolving on its axis.
Painful is the stress when one cannot reproduce or convey vividly to others, however hard he tries, what he's experienced so intensely.
I believe I once considerably scandalized her by declaring that clear soup was a more important factor in life than a clear conscience.
People may say what they like about the decay of Christianity the religious system that produced green Chartreuse can never really die.
When the wish for peace is genuine, the means for finding it is giving in a form each mind that seeks for it in honesty can understand.
A mother's love is a sanctuary, Where our soul can find sweet rest, From the struggle and the tension, Of life's fast and futile quest.
It is not the business of government to make men virtuous or religious, or to preserve the fool from the consequences of his own folly.
Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate, or despise, serves to defeat us in the end.
I am living at the Villa Borghese. There is not a crumb of dirt anywhere, nor a chair misplaced. We are all alone here and we are dead.
The Teutons have been singing the swan song ever since they entered the ranks of history. They have always confounded truth with death.
What's important is promising something to the people, not actually keeping those promises. The people have always lived on hope alone.
Like every writer, I'm drawn by unlikely juxtapositions, precisely-dated and once-only collisions between people from different worlds.
I don't know what makes fashion cruel, except I feel nothing but spiritual depletion around it. There's nothing enriching, spiritually.
As a young boy in Libya, it was hard to escape the conclusion that the women were the most feeling and most functional part of society.
Jewels, lies, slips of paper, dried flowers, memories of thing long past, useless quotations, idle hands, beads, buttons, and mischief.
You must learn to face the fact, always, that you choose to do what you do, and that everything you do affects not only you but others.
Suspicion is far more to be wrong than right; more often unjust than just. It is no friend to virtue, and always an enemy to happiness.
There were seventy-five people in the lobby and only a seven-year-old girl was finding out what it felt like to sit on the Marble Floor
I've come to understand that the truth isn't really what's important...what really matters is what people agree is the truth. -Greymane
Despite the obvious benefits, many Americans do not like Texas. Some even say they despise Texas, and make no secret of their feelings.
Man is apt to be more moved by the art of his own period, not because it is more perfect, but because it is organically related to him.
After all, it is style alone by which posterity will judge of a great work, for an author can have nothing truly his own but his style.
Education, however indispensable in a cultivated age, produces nothing on the side of genius. When education ends, genius often begins.
Kind words toward those you daily meet, Kind words and actions right, Will make this life of ours most sweet, Turn darkness into night.
I can promise you that women working together - linked, informed and educated - can bring peace and prosperity to this forsaken planet.
We've lost our sense of ethics; we live in a world of small-mindedness, of gratification without happiness and actions without meaning.
I'm always tempted to say, 'Nah, that won't work.' But I think you should be willing to try ideas out before saying no. Be open-minded.
Among other things, you'll find that you're not the first one who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior.
God Who delivers us from the guilt of sin through faith in Jesus Christ, is able to deliver the believer from the power of sin as well.
Wouldn't it be much worse if life really were fair and all the terrible things that happen to us happen because we really deserve them?
Things are drawing towards the end now, unless I am mistaken. There is an unpleasant time just in front of you; but keep your heart up!
Told a lot of stories as a child. Not 'Once upon a time' stories but, basically, outright lies. I loved lying and getting away with it!
Deities can actually own property in India, though the law treats them as minors, and they must be represented by an official guardian.
Nothing could be more insulting to me than the concept of civil rights. It means perpetual second-class citizenship for me and my kind.
The dark book has been terribly popular. Dark characters, dysfunction, and all sorts of things from reality that are true in our world.
Who knows but I shall grow reasonable at last, descend from my ideal heaven to the real earth, marry, and - Oh Plato! - make a pudding?
I wonder that among all the evils deprecated in the Liturgy, no one thought of inserting flitting. Is there any worse thing? Oh no, no!
I take in a lot of stuff from real life, movies, television, news and it all gets mixed in my head and somehow turns into a story idea.
Just because i know how to change a guys oil doesn't mean i want to spend the rest of my life on my back, staring up his undercarriage.
The transgressive nature of biography is rarely acknowledged, but it is the only explanation for biography's status as a popular genre.
I would advise any 17-year-old to surround yourself with people who listen to you, nod when you speak, and smile when you enter spaces.
As a visible and outspoken trans woman myself, I know that it's rare not to have your trans-ness lead the way for you in public spaces.