Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Even the most solid of things, and the most real, the best-loved and the well-known, are only hand shadows on the wall. Empty space and points of light.
Any measurement must take into account the position of the observer. There is no such thing as measurement absolute, there is only measurement relative.
A close family member once offered his opinion that I exhibit the phone manners of a goat, then promptly withdrew the charge - out of fairness to goats.
They're now turning those seeds into intellectual property, so they have a virtual lock on the seeds upon which we all depend for our food and survival.
Faithfulness to the past can be a kind of death above ground. Writing of the past is a resurrection; the past then lives in your words and you are free.
It's time to teach our daughters that their ability to be good people depends on their being good people, not on whether or not they're sexually active.
While falling in love is fun, it's not everything, and it's not the antidote to an unfulfilled life, despite what Reese Witherspoon movies may tell you.
In seeking comfort, we generally find a quiet corner in life where there is a minimum of conflict, and then we are afraid to step out of that seclusion.
I have tested my nerve by reaching a little too closely toward a lengthy alligator on the Gulf Coast and a saucer-sized tarantula in a Houston car park.
My view of an excellent novel was probably set in the golden age of fiction in the 19th century: narrative, character and voice are of equal importance.
The secret of high finance...if you really need a loan, you won't qualify. And if you don't need a loan, all the lenders will line up to give you money.
I was surprised by how warm the response was, even among studio heads, who said they really, we do have to do something about glamourization of smoking.
Please send me your last pair of shoes, worn out with dancing as you mentioned in your letter, so that I might have something to press against my heart.
We who didn't inherit political power nor are made to acquire riches like nothing better than that which expands and solidifies the power of the spirit.
Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. Who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom, but we hope it, we know it.
There is nothing new on earth / For a person who lives long and experiences much. / In my years of youthful wandering / I have seen crystallized people.
We are surrounded by abysses, but the greatest of all depths is in our own heart, and an irresistible leaning leads us there. Draw thyself from thyself!
Man is not born to solve the problem of the universe, but to find out what he has to do; and to restrain himself within the limits of his comprehension.
I look upon all four Gospels as thoroughly genuine, for there shines forth from them the reflected splendor of a sublimity proceeding from Jesus Christ.
How can we know ourselves? Never by reflection, but only through action. Begin at once to do your duty and immediately you will know what is inside you.
Our heart oft times wakes when we sleep, and God can speak to that, either by words, by proverbs, by signs and similitudes, as well as if one was awake.
Anytime you turn on your own concept of God, you are no longer a free man. No one needs to put chains on your body, because the chains are on your mind.
My loving sister Mary has always shared the pain and pleasure of my heartbeat in a unique and special way. We have sung our sad and warm songs together.
This is love, she thought, isn't it? When you notice someone's absence and hate that absence more than anything? More, even, than you love his presence?
Each day has been chained to the previous one. But the weeks have wings. Anyone who believes that a second is faster than a decade did not live my life.
Sometimes it’s heartbreaking to see your siblings as the people they’ve become. Maybe that’s why we all stay away from each other as a matter of course.
There is no point in being overwhelmed by the appalling total of human sufferring; such a total does not exist. Neither poverty nor pain is accumulable.
Without the faintest possibility of finding a job, I decided to devote myself to literature: it was about time to find out what I was worth as a writer.
anyone who gets up early by inclination or has been forced to rise early out of necessity finds it intolerable that others should go on sleeping soundly
Tormented by the cursed ambition always to put a whole book in a page, a whole page in a sentence, and this sentence in a word. I am speaking of myself.
the thing I would wish for anybody I loved would be the possibility of never coming to the end of discovery. I think it is what makes life worth living.
Joy is big. Joy lives in your own drunken electrons, billions of them, spinning and dancing without end in their own intimate Universe, longing for You.
Why didn't Eternity have this deformed age aborted ? Its birthmark is the stamp of a newspaper, its medium is printer's ink, and in its veins flows ink.
The cult of the individual is killing us. I think Twitter signals the death of western civilisation, but people have been saying that since Demosthenes.
To me the book is like having a kid. I have to let it go out in the world, and great things will happen. Maybe they won't, but it has to keep on moving.
We all live in fear of getting blocked no matter what kind of art we're trying to do. It happens all the time, but I prefer to think of it as a bad day.
Progress is hard to measure in any creative endeavor, I think. It's often a matter of instinct, of feeling your way through what works and what doesn't.
I find that when I write for children, I am more hopeful, less cynical. I don't use different words or a different sentence structure. I just hope more.
By health I mean the power to live a full, adult, living, breathing life in close contact with... the earth and the wonders thereof - the sea - the sun.
Tragedy brings change, and that's what I'm interested in most - how people plunge into change and try to fight, then eventually move with it with grace.
I was wholly invested in my friendships. I might have tested them sometimes, but only to reassure myself that they were permanent. A mistake, of course.
We women. as glue for the family. lead lives that are important and conflicted. What we women choose to give up for our families is important and valid.
Nobody's strong enough to be a parent. We just do it, blindly, going forward on faith and love and hope. That's all it is...Being afraid...and going on.
Americans... are forever searching for love in forms it never takes, in places it can never be. It must have something to do with the vanished frontier.
The only thing I ever learned was that some people are lucky and other people aren't and not even a graduate of the Harvard Business School can say why.
I would not be interested in writing if I didn't feel that what I wrote was an act of good citizenship or an attempt, at any rate, to be a good citizen.
They drove a long way through the snowy woods, till they came to the town of Pepin. Mary and Laura had seen it once before, but it looked different now.
I try not to worry about rewriting books that worked well the first time. I'm too busy writing new books to worry about things that are already in print
That's what you get for telling the truth. Someone calls you a liar. Most people will accept a likely lie to an unlikely truth. In fact, they prefer it.
Jean-Claude gave a low theatrical bow, never taking his eyes from her. "After you, my sweet. A lady should always walk before a gentleman, never behind.