Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Talent is the capacity of doing anything that depends on application and industry and it is a voluntary power, while genius is involuntary.
You have to beat your own problematic imagination to discover what it is you're saying and how to say it and move forward into the unknown.
God does not guide those who want to run their own life. He only guides those who admit their need of His direction and rely on His wisdom.
History teaches us to beware of the excitation of the liberated and the injustices that often accompany their righteous thirst for justice.
The loneliness of the expatriate is of an odd and complicated kind, for it is inseparable from the feeling of being free, of having escaped.
If you're being attacked from all sides, it's possible you're doing something right; it's also possible that you are doing everything wrong.
Love is a flame that burns everything other than itself. It is the destruction of all that is false and the fulfillment of all that is true.
All we really want in the end is to be connected once again with the Truth of our being, to realize what it is that wears this mask of self.
Fear is very often a part of the spiritual path. When people sit down and meditate it's not at all uncommon for fear to arise at some point.
When we had to do book reports, I would pick a book that no one read and just make it up and turn that in. I got praised for my imagination.
What is a snob? A snob is anybody who takes a small part of you and uses that to come to a complete vision of who you are. That is snobbery.
We may seek a fortune for no greater reason than to secure the respect and attention of people who would otherwise look straight through us.
Every realistic picture represents a choice as to which features of reality should be given prominence; no painting ever captures the whole.
The desire for high status is never stronger than in situations where "ordinary" life fails to answer a median need for dignity and comfort.
Appreciation is the highest form of prayer, for it acknowledges the presence of good wherever you shine the light of your thankful thoughts.
The world would have you agree with its dismal dream of limitation. But the light would have you soar like the eagle of your sacred visions.
It hurts! It throbs with pain, the like of which I never felt the half! Mortal flesh would scream again . . . yet demon spirit bids to laugh
A lot of the critique of our growing mechanization was actually at its strongest, and arguably at its most perceptive, during the late '60s.
Every reader has found charms by which to secure possession of a page that, by magic, becomes as if never read before, fresh and immaculate.
With '44 Scotland Street' I found myself having to work out how a daily novel works, and it is completely different to a conventional novel.
But Valentine, why despair, why always paint the future in such sombre hues?" Maximilien asked. "Because, my friend, I judge it by the past.
I was not out to paint beautiful pictures; even painting good pictures was not important to me. I wanted only to help the truth burst forth.
There is no one, however wicked, whom Mary does not save by her intercession when she wishes ... He who has recourse to Mary shall be saved.
Sometimes the best course in the search for the meaning of life is to busy yourself until you forget that you don't know the meaning of life
I proceeded in my national mission, seeking to pave the way for an understanding between His Majesty and the other ruling princes of Arabia.
The opposite of compromise is not integrity. The opposite of compromise is not idealism. The opposite of compromise is fanaticism and death.
The more I like a book, the more slowly I read. this spontaneous talking back to a book is one of the things that makes reading so valuable.
With ritual, I punctuate my days till they no longer belong to who I am today but to who I'll be when I look back in days and years to come.
Only when manhood is dead - and it will perish when ravaged femininity no longer sustains it - only then will we know what it is to be free.
At the end of the day, will God be interested primarily in whether I have been kind and helped others, or in whether I was baptized and how?
I am not alone in bearing grudges against reviewers who have doomed a book's chances because they've missed the point, the tone, everything.
When we talk of leaving our childhood behind us, we might as well say that the river flowing onward to the sea had left the fountain behind.
In New York there is always something to look at, but it is all infinitely more interesting through a window in the backseat of a limousine.
In fact she was quite bad and according to Jas she was naughty at school, but no one seems to remember that now she is all dead and perfect.
Our recovery of hope - full colour, three-dimensional, hard working, clear thinking, wildly radical, living hope - is our key to liberation.
A woman with an education may be able to spend more time sitting in a chair instead of lying on her back. A sound advantage, I should think.
I see 'Hansel and Gretel' as a breakthrough book for me, and one of the reasons is because I started to apply meaning to the hidden details.
Force me to choose my best book, and I always come back to 'Gorilla.' It was the first time I felt I understood what picture books could do.
Even though human life may be the most precious thing on earth, we always behave as if there were something of higher value than human life.
Once abroad, I eat one meal a day picnic-style: Ive learned that no mature stomach can tolerate an endless routine of rich restaurant meals.
It requires a strong mind to bear up against several languages. Some persons have learnt so many, that they have ceased to think in any one.
Thanksgiving was nothing more than a pilgrim-created obstacle in the way of Christmas; a dead bird in the street that forced a brief detour.
When I first left Iran at the age of 13, Iran had become such a shining star - it was the point to which all my desires and dreams returned.
Everything in life has some good in it. And when something awful happens, the goodness stands out even more--it's sad, but that's the truth.
Unless you have shelter, fire is going to be very hard and if you have fire, but no water, you're going to die. They're all super important.
If you really understand something, you can: 1) explain it using a clear metaphor and 2) explain the strongest counter-argument to the idea.
If frequency with which you cite an education credential does not decrease over the course of your life, you’re not accomplishing very much.
For it seems that long before the first enterprising man bent some twigs into a leaky roof, many animals were already accomplished builders.
Ask a writer what he thinks about critics and the answer you get is similar to what you get when you ask a lamppost how he feels about dogs.
Reality is overrated to me. Everyone spends enough time on the computer, eating, going out to bars. Why do I need to read a book about that?