Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
And when he died, I suddenly realized I wasn't crying for him at all, but for the things he did. I cried because he would never do them again.
A city always contains more than any inhabitant can know, and a great city always makes the unknown and the possible spurs to the imagination.
The Earth we evolved to inhabit is turning into something more turbulent and unreliable at a pace too fast for most living things to adapt to.
You can't dance cheerfully. Dancing is too important. It can be wild or solemn or gay or lewd or art for art's sake, but it can't be cheerful.
I have watched Muslims chant 'Death to America!' on the streets of Tehran, then privately beg me to help them get a visa to the United States.
We don't need to complicate all the "reasons" behind our emotions. It's much simpler than that. Two categories .. good feelings, bad feelings.
If we don't want temptation to follow us, we shouldn't act as if we are interested. No one ever fell over a precipice who never went near one.
Live long enough and all weaknesses will be illuminated, but again perhaps that is not all bad for cannot they then begin to become strengths?
War is primarily not about victory or defeat but about death and the infliction of death. It represents the total failure of the human spirit.
A steady diet of the higher truths might prove exhausting, but it's important that we acknowledge their validity and celebrate their survival.
Paul Levinson has outdone himself: The Plot to Save Socrates is a philosophically rich gem full of big ideas and wonderful time-travel tricks.
In addition to psychopaths, 'Quantum Night' is also a novel about literally thoughtless people, without inner voices, thoughts in their heads.
Every word wants to be taken literally, else it decays into a lie. But one mustn't take any word literally, else the world becomes a madhouse.
As much as we admire all the characteristics of a Ronald Reagan, as soon as something goes wrong, people will hate those same characteristics.
Much of the time I'm an introvert, by choice spending a lot of time on my own. I suppose liking my solitude is part of a writer's sensibility.
The best argument for mutual funds is that they offer safety and diversification. But they don't necessarily offer safety and diversification.
Reconstruction is the great black hole that remains to be filled. Even experts on the Civil War don't really understand its full significance.
To be old is to be part of a huge and ordinary multitude... the reason why old age was venerated in the past was because it was extraordinary.
Deaf folk hear the fairies However soft their song; 'Tis we who lose the honey sound Amid the clamor all around That beats the whole day long.
One should, I think, always give children money, for they will spend it for themselves far more profitably than we can ever spend it for them.
As a man gets older, if he knows what is good for him, the women he likes are getting older too. The trouble is that most of them are married.
My dream was to write a book and see it published. I didn't dare imagine anything beyond that, so, I'm trying to keep my head on my shoulders.
I write for myself, first and foremost and I also write for people, mostly women, who just want to be seen and heard and all too often aren't.
I like what the internet offers: the ability to get people interested in your mind, and have a chance if you're not conventionally attractive.
The last time somebody said, 'I find I can write much better with a word processor', I replied, 'They used to say the same thing about drugs'.
I was the child at school in second-hand or handmade clothes and, as I grew older, I craved material wealth, a big house and designer clothes.
Any fool can waste, any fool can muddle, but it takes something of a man to save, and the more he saves the more of a man does it make of him.
He threw his burning cigarette onto our clean living room floor and ground it into the wood with his boot. We were about to become cigarettes.
I stared at the enormous homes, the landscaping and flower beds immaculate. It was as if dollar bills, instead of leaves, hung from the trees.
I read mostly science-fiction and fantasy when I was a teenager, and I was always drawn to stories where the characters had telepathic powers.
The way we live is changing. Each year, our free time shrinks a little more as computers clamor for an increasing percentage of our attention.
When I ate slowly and deliberately, giving myself time to consider whether I actually wanted that next bite, I often discovered that I didn't.
Most mutations involve typos: Something bumps a cell's elbow as it's copying DNA, and the wrong letter appears in a triplet - CAG becomes CCG.
Memory is like all other human powers, with which no man can be satisfied who measures them by what he can conceive, or by what he can desire.
It is scarcely credible to what degree discernment may be dazzled by the mist of pride, and wisdom infatuated by the intoxication of flattery.
To be prejudiced is always to be weak; yet there are prejudices so near to laudable that they have been often praised and are always pardoned.
Credulity is the common failing of inexperienced virtue; and he who is spontaneously suspicious may justly be charged with radical corruption.
He that has once concluded it lawful to resist power, when it wants merit, will soon find a want of merit, to justify his resistance to power.
I am a friend to subordination, as most conducive to the happiness of society. There is a reciprocal pleasure in governing and being governed.
I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government rather than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.
I am passionate about higher education and am hugely impressed by Portsmouth's mission to encourage students from every walk of life to excel.
To this day, on my cheat days from my diet, which are New Year's Eve and my birthday, I buy luxury foods that are very indicative of my class.
Even my mom. I have to tell her, "If you want a snack, don't go to bed with potato chips. Eat a handful of pistachios and a handful of dates."
I was so thrilled that I was having a girl, because I just am so girly myself, but I think the teenage years are going to be very interesting.
It was such a weird thing how a breakup stretched much wider than you expected. You didn't just lose a person, but their entire world as well.
You can write songs about your comic books and the girl or boy you sort of know and your mom and dad and it's all right there in front of you.
Suddenly a pair of searchlights lanced out from the frigate. They swept across the dark expanse - bright knives slicing the night into pieces.
They walked with a pedatory grace.... one of them ripped off their hood and said, "my name is Tally Youngblood and is a special circumstance".
Mistakes and prejudices are as interesting as anything else. They reveal a lot about the mind set and culture of the time under consideration.
In an unmolested market economy - one where all dealings are consensual - the 'allocation' of wealth and income is the result of transactions.