Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
On my first day in New York a guy asked me if I knew where Central Park was. When I told him I didn't he said, 'Do you mind if I mug you here?'.
Hopefully women can work with [Ivanka Trump ] to influence up the chain of command. I think it's good for us, for women. It's a glimmer of hope.
So the poor instead of bread made do with a picture of the bleeding scourged and nailed-up Christ and prayed to that image of their helplessness
The work of Henry James has always seemed divisible by a simple dynastic arrangement into three reigns: James I, James II, and the Old Pretender
You must want to enough. Enough to take all the rejections, enough to pay the price of disappointment and discouragement while you are learning.
I can never understand why people who have not seen me for a while ask if I am still writing. They might as well ask me if I am still breathing.
The greater a man is in power above others, the more he ought to excel them in virtue. None ought to govern who is not better than the governed.
The poverty from which I have suffered could be diagnosed as 'Soho' poverty. It comes from having the airs and graces of a genius and no talent.
The Holy Spirit has his own personality .He therefore moves in at will when we least expect it, and sometimes when we are least deserving of it.
(...) And metaphors like cats behind your smile, Each one wound up to purr, each one a pride, Each one a fine gold beast you've hid inside (...)
All of us, no matter how we look born into this world, feel something like the Hunchback. It doesn't matter if you have a beautiful face or not.
Ah, art! Ah, life! The pendulum swinging back and forth, from complex to simple, again to complex. From romantic to realistic, back to romantic.
We should have stayed on the moon. We should have made moon the base, instead of building space stations, which are fragile and which fly apart.
I've only written one science-fiction book: 'Fahrenheit 451.' That book is a book based on real facts and my hatred of people who destroy books.
Anyone can express himself or herself, but what writers and poets want to do in their work, more than simply express themselves, is communicate.
A lot of people think of political activism as some grim duty, and I think we do have an obligation to be citizens - to be informed and engaged.
Hope is not like a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky.... hope is an ax you break down doors with in an emergency.
I happen to love science... Scientists are all slightly mad. There is truth in the stereotype of the mad scientist. They are mad with curiosity.
For you to be successful, sacrifices must be made. It's better that they are made by others but failing that, you'll have to make them yourself.
What's the point of prolonging your life if you don't enjoy it? It's your body. Do whatever you want with it. Better to wear out than rust over.
Almost any biography will have its useful suggestions for making life a success, but none better or more unfailing than the biography of Christ.
I can't claim to 'understand' 'Byzantium,' if any dance work can be 'understood,' but whenever I see it, I sense that it's charged with meaning.
I don't like writing - it's so difficult to say what you mean. It's much easier to edit other people's writing and help them say what they mean.
If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion.
I encourage students to pursue an idea far enough so they can see what the cliches and stereotypes are. Only then do they begin to hit pay dirt.
This is the real problem feminism faces. Too many people are willfully ignorant about what the word means and what the movement aims to achieve.
The wild hawk to the wind-swept sky The deer to the wholesome wold; And the heart of a man to the heart of a maid, As it was in the days of old.
I've taken my fun where I've found it, An' now I must pay for my fun, For the more you 'ave known o' the others The less will you settle to one.
Long words, fat talk they may tell us something about ourselves. Has the passion for fat in the language increased as self-confidence has waned?
Scientists have been struck by the fact that things that break down virtually never get lost, while things that get lost hardly ever break down.
A map is the dead body of where you've been. A map is the unborn baby of where you're going. There are no maps. Maps are pictures of what isn't.
When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home.
Players, Sir! I look on them as no better than creatures set upon tables and joint stools to make faces and produce laughter, like dancing dogs.
Smoking is a shocking thing - blowing smoke out of our mouths into other people's mouths, eyes, and noses, and having the same thing done to us.
The coquette has companions, indeed, but no lovers,--for love is respectful and timorous; and where among her followers will she find a husband?
None of the projects or designs which exercise the mind of man are equally subject to obstructions and disappointments with the pursuit of fame.
When the eye or the imagination is struck with an uncommon work, the next transition of an active mind is to the means by which it was performed
The animadversions of critics are commonly such as may easily provoke the sedatest writer to some quickness of resentment and asperity of reply.
Men who could willingly resign the luxuries and sensual pleasures of a large fortune cannot consent to live without the grandeur and the homage.
Women are so much in love with compliments that rather than want them, they will compliment one another, yet mean no more by it than the men do.
I always wanted to get married. I was very drawn to the idea of a partner with whom you went through life, a mate who was always in your corner.
You don't want somebody who doesn't know his own heart, do you? You'll find someone who's brave enough to love you. Someday. One day. Not today.
Those of us who are writers and have to perform to communities that aren't used to coming to book events, I would recommend taking some theater.
In my youth, daydreaming nurtured me, provided a safe haven. I'd sleep for twelve hours and even when awake escape to the safe place in my mind.
An ending was an ending. No matter how many pages of sentences and paragraphs of great stories led up to it, it would always have the last word.
The most welcome guest in society will ever be the one to whose mind everything is a suggestion, and whose words suggest something to everybody.
I think I needed to be really hurt on the outside so the hurt on the inside would realize that it wasn’t on its own and that it had to come out.
The writer cannot make the seas of distraction stand still, but he [or she] can at times come between the madly distracted and the distractions.
Around the outskirts of the city, cut off from town by the black oval of the river, everything was in darkness. Everyone ugly was in bed by now.
I've written about women's lives, and I just want to write about them from being a woman. I don't need feminism on top of that when I'm writing.