Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Women are not altogether in the wrong when they refuse the rules of life prescribed to the World, for men only have established them and without their consent.
The land of marriage has this peculiarity: that strangers are desirous of inhabiting it, while its natural inhabitants would willingly be banished from thence.
We referenced fictional characters as if they were people to learn from. As if real-life people were too nebulous, too private and unreal for us to understand.
The difference between the university graduate and the autodidact lies not so much in the extent of knowledge as in the extent of vitality and self-confidence.
We think of the romance novel as a lesser form of literature, but I don't think that's true. Love is a very important aspect of human life and worth exploring.
And in that sliver of time, I felt the power around me coalesce, malice-hard and sharp as crystal. That this analogy occurred to me should have been a warning.
The creative act is not pure. History evidences it. Sociology extracts it. The writer loses Eden, writes to be read and comes to realize that he is answerable.
I'm an Atheist. I don't believe in God, Gods, Godlets or any sort of higher power beyond the universe itself, which seems quite high and powerful enough to me.
The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning.
It's a question of not copying the masters, to look for something, good or bad, for oneself. To enter this liberated state of mind, one cannot copy the others.
See, when you mess something up, you learn for the next time. It's when people compliment you that you're in trouble. That means they expect you to keep it up.
You almost believe that you will never come to the end of a roll of tape; and when you do, there is a feeling, nearly, though very briefly, of shock and grief.
He who disguises tyranny, protection, or even benefits under the air and name of friendship reminds me of the guilty priest who poisoned the sacramental bread.
We are all either wheels or connectors. Whichever we are we must find truth and balance, which is a bicycle. Trust and balance are also essential to true love.
We expect forty-year-olds to have grown up at some point, and to be engaged and adult and take responsibility, and doing nothing would seem to go against that.
I sometimes think the Pussy-Willows grey Are Angel Kittens who have lost their way, And every Bulrush on the river bank A Cat-Tail from some lovely Cat astray.
Most modern calendars mar the sweet simplicity of our lives by reminding us that each day that passes is the anniversary of some perfectly uninteresting event.
In art, the public accept what has been, because they cannot alter it, not because they appreciate it. They swallow their classics whole, and never taste them.
As for modern journalism, it is not my business to defend it. It justifies its own existence by the great Darwinian principle of the survival of the vulgarest.
To stake all one's life on a single moment, to risk everything on one throw, whether the stake be power or pleasure, I care not - there is no weakness in that.
I remember her telling me once that rabbits were the gnomes in attendance to the Fairy Queen and that the stars were God's daisy chain. Perfect rot, of course.
I attribute my whole success in life to a rigid observance of the fundamental rule - Never have yourself tattooed with any woman's name, not even her initials.
What ho!" I said. "What ho!" said Motty. "What ho! What ho!" "What ho! What ho! What ho!" After that it seemed rather difficult to go on with the conversation.
Irrelevance is the feeling that an employee gets when they don't see how their job really makes a difference in someone else's life in some large or small way.
My peers are all in sensitive jobs - at the C.I.A., the National Security Council, working for the Department of Defense. They can't stand up for me in public.
doing and being are very closely tied together, and unless you are doing what you secretly want to do, you aren't able to be the sort of person you want to be.
Scientific reasoning is a dialogue between the possible and the actual, between proposal and disposal between what might be true, and what is in fact the case.
I think about the sincerity of my writing. I try to be true, to pose questions. Shake people up a bit and make them look in a direction they wouldn't normally.
I offer optimism. All my books have happy endings. I don't see any point in letting my readers down at the end. I'm an optimist - people feel that in my books.
The young always have the same problem - how to rebel and conform at the same time. They have now solved this by defying their parents and copying one another.
Abatement in the hostility of one's enemies must never be thought to signify they have been won over. It only means that one has ceased to constitute a threat.
Assoon as I stepped out of my mother's womb on to dry land, I realized that I had made a mistake?but the trouble with children is that they are not returnable.
All that God is, and all that God has, are at the disposal of player. Prayer can do anything that God can do, and as God can do anything, prayer is omnipotent.
I prayed fifteen years for the conversion of my oldest brother. When he seemed to be getting further and further away from any hope of conversion, I prayed on.
Whenever you are ready, or if you never are, my heart is yours, until Death do us part. Whatever that may mean when consorting with one of Death’s handmaidens.
You know," Shane said twenty minutes later, "I'd feel a whole lot better about the two of us if you didn't think I was the go-to guy for breaking and entering.
Myrnin turned away to pick up his Ben Franklin spectacles, balanced them on his nose, and looked over them to say, "Don't do drugs. I feel I ought to say that.
The rule of the Morrell family was over, and Richard owned a used-car lot and Monica worked at a nail salon, until one day she got run over by a bus. Very sad.
Spirituality is deeply personal. Yet, society has to face the fact that certain faiths celebrate spirituality through an overt expression of inner convictions.
Sandwich outdoors isn’t a sandwich anymore. Tastes different than indoors, notice? Got more spice. Tastes like mint and pinesap. Does wonders for the appetite.
We're going to become the martians when we land there. When we explore and build communities, we become the martians. That's a wonderful destiny for all of us.
That a man can change himself…and master his own destiny is the conclusion of every mind who is wide-awake to the power of right thought.”(Christian D. Larson)
If you will practice being fictional for a while, you will understand that fictional characters are sometimes more real than people with bodies and heartbeats.
I do not enjoy writing at all. If I can turn my back on an idea, out there in the dark, if I can avoid opening the door to it, I won't even reach for a pencil.
We have the ability to be the Athens of modern times as opposed to the militaristic Sparta. I remind you that the Athenians wrote poetry. The Spartans did not.
The happy individual is able to renew daily and with full consciousness all the basic expressions of human identity: work, love, communication, play, and rest.
Our job is not to predict the future. Rather, it's to suggest all the possible futures - so that society can make informed decisions about where we want to go.
I am as great as the thoughts I conceive. I am as great as the Universe I perceive. I am as great as the love of my heart. I am as great as the God in my Soul.
Have we not huddled in bunkers, while some premonition of tomorrow hung in the air and a comrade started singing? Oh, it felt so melancholy! And it was kitsch.
As a writer, I'm convinced that encouraging children to write fiction, to hook into that marvelous machine called the imagination, has to be good for everyone.