Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Fifteen minutes later I was an expert. That's all you need. I think I was even getting the upper hand, which is very simple with a guy. Anything seems to turn them on.
Former Governor [Jeb] Bush calling for an end all together of the Supplemental Nutrition Program, or what some people call food stamps program, as part of an overhaul.
One of the rules of history is that people do not write about what is too obvious to mention. And so the information, having never been recorded, is now lost for ever.
When I started work at Simon & Schuster in 1958, each of us got a bronze paperweight on which was written, in raised type, 'Give the reader a break,' Richard E. Simon.
To speak less of oneself than what one really is, is folly, not modesty; and to take that for current pay which is under a man's value, is pusillanimity and cowardice.
A man should keep for himself a little back shop, all his own, quite unadulterated, in which he establishes his true freedom and chief place of seclusion and solitude.
The great and glorious masterpiece of men is to live to the point. All other things-to reign, to hoard, to build-are, at most, but inconsiderable props and appendages.
So many books that have Christian characters but are written by atheists mercilessly pillory and mock and question the motives of people with faith. I'm past all that.
Jealousy isn't a pleasant quality, but if it isn't overdone (and if it's combined with modesty), apart from its inconvenience there's even something touching about it.
There are metaphysical problems, problems of human existence, that philosophy has never known how to grasp in all their concreteness and that only the novel can seize.
It’s hard to grieve in a town where everything that happens is God’s will. It’s hard to know what to do with your emptiness when you’re not supposed to have emptiness.
If it takes you seven years to write each novel, you need a patron. And I would rather have my corporate self as my patron than any arts council or bestower of grants.
I think writing is a very political act. I think that any writer who says it's not, is simply a writer who is disavowing the political connotations of what they write.
The shadows of Ina-Karekh are the place where nightmares dwell, but not their source. Never forget: the shadowlands are not elsewhere. We create them. They are within.
I have always loved astronomy, and being an astronomer once lurked in the back of my mind. But I was never good at algebra. In fact, I flunked it twice in high school.
My father used to say that you haven't learnt anything about politics unless you've been out of power for at least 10 years. That's why I am certain I am here to stay.
But I feel that you, in particular, are a person who cannot live without love." "Yet I am living without love." "Then you are either living a lie or not living at all.
The idea came to me that I was, am, and will be, but perhaps will not become. This did not scare me. There was for me in being an intensity I did not feel in becoming.
It gives men courage and ambition and the nerve for anything. It has the colour of gold, is clear as a glass and shines after dark as if the sunshine were still in it.
On the other hand, I was very much interested in the way people behaved, the human dance, how they seemed to move around each other. I wanted to play around with that.
If there's any single talent a writer needs, it's persistence. If you can keep at your writing and you can learn as you write, you can tell any story you want to tell.
What is one man's life compared to the eternity of time and space? No more than a snowflake that glitters in the sun for a moment before melting into the flow of time.
My dear fellow, the truth isn’t quite the sort of thing one tells to a nice, sweet, refined girl. What extraordinary ideas you have about the way to behave to a woman!
The American father is never seen in London. He passes his life entirely in Wall Street and communicates with his family once a month by means of a telegram in cipher.
MRS ALLONBY Is she such a mystery? LORD ILLINGWORTH She is more than a mystery - she is a mood. MRS ALLONBY Moods don't last. LORD ILLINGWORTH It is their chief charm.
The Bostonians take their learning too sadly: culture with them is an accomplishment rather than an atmosphere; their "Hub," as they call it, is the paradise of prigs.
I don’t know if you have had the same experience, but the snag I always come up against when I’m telling a story is this dashed difficult problem of where to begin it.
When somebody keeps telling you, 'This book is amazing,' you sort of have this pleasing instinct to say, 'Oh, let me make you happy again; let me do that trick again.'
There were people who read and there were the others. Whether you were the a reader or a non-reader was soon apparent. There was no greater distinction between people.
For the traditional fantasies, a lot more of my research comes from reading rather than doing. I like my worlds to feel real, so I do a lot of world building research.
If you could get all the people in the organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time.
It's like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.
Y'know, the real reason why I was such a failure in the sense of being unable to make any sort of a living was because I was really not motivated. I had no motivation.
The boundary between civilization and barbarism is difficult to draw: put one ring in your nose and you are a savage, put two rings in your ears and you are civilized.
I'm not a historian but I can get interested - obsessively interested - with any aspect of the past, whether it's palaeontology or archaeology or the very recent past.
Maybe my work is somewhat divided into family stories, things I know intimately, and then everybody else in the world - the strangers who I am totally fascinated with.
Parents had some kind of sin radar, Claire thought. They always called when you were in the middle of something you just knew they'd consider wrong. Or at least risky.
I'm a vampire, idiot. I don't have x-ray vision." "Some supernatural monster you are, remind me to trade you in for a werewolf, bro. Probably be more useful right now.
Did that remind anybody else of something?" "Yes," Eve said, tapping her lower lip with a bloodred fingernail. "How much I need to shave her head while she's sleeping.
Myrnin," she said. "He didn't show up at the rendezvous." "And? Dude's crazy, in case you didn't notice recently. He probally went of the chase butterflys or something
That’s when this warm feeling buzzes through you and you smile to yourself, knowing God’s watching you, knowing that He knows you’re trying to be strong to please Him.
I don't judge those who can't dream, those who need to pierce their arms to create different worlds under their skin, because I am fortunate in the tools of my escapes
The purpose of fiction is not to nail you to the ground as facts do, but to take you to the edge of the cliff and kick you off so you build your wings on the way down.
I could hear my heart beating. I could hear everyone's heart. I could hear the human noise we sat there making, not one of us moving, not even when the room went dark.
I still think the revolution is to make the world safe for poetry, meandering, for the frail and vulnerable, the rare and obscure, the impractical and local and small.
Broken lines do not know what they want. With their caprices they cut time up, abuse routes, slash the joyous flowers and split the peaceful fruits with their corners.
I am content and happy with my situation and like the flexibility that comes with being self-employed. And it's nice to know that I can contribute something to society
Whoever has gratitude will be given more, and he or she will have an abundance. Whoever does not have gratitude, even what he or she has will be taken from him or her.
By the sense of mystery I understand the experience of certain places and times when one's whole nature seems to be in touch with a presence, a genius loci, a potency.
Don't believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding, find out what you already know, and you'll see the way to fly.