Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Adrian had always found it amusing that a guy could be drilling Stacia up her ass while she considered herself to be a virgin. Her intent had been to present herself as such when she found "Mr. Right."
Happiness is strange; it comes when you are not seeking it. When you are not making an effort to be happy, then unexpectedly, mysteriously, happiness is there, born of purity, of a loveliness of being.
Look what is happening in the world - we are being conditioned by society, by the culture we live in, and that culture is the product of man. There is nothing holy, or divine, or eternal about culture.
The first thing to realize in meditation is that there is no authority, that the mind must be completely free to examine, to observe, to learn. And so there is no following, no accepting, no obedience.
I hope you'll have the kind of life where what you stand for is so important that it makes some people outright hostile. You won't know how strong your beliefs really are until you have to defend them.
Never has good weather felt so bad. Never have flowers inspired so much fear. Never has the warm caress of a sunbeam seemed so ominous. The weather is sublime, it's glorious, it's the end of the world.
This world could not exist if it were not so simple. The ground has been tilled a thousand years, yet its powers remain ever the same; a little rain, a little sun, and each spring it grows green again.
Only that type of story deserves to be called moral that shows us that one has the power within oneself to act, out of the conviction that there is something better, even against one's own inclination.
I'm sorry I stood there like a half-wit, Count Petroff," she told him matter-of-factly, "but I was a bit--surprised. After all, it's not everyday that I see a man who's prettier than I am." (Alexandra)
I realized that a lot of the things I had been telling myself about not being good enough just weren't true, and 'Queen of Denmark' gave me the chance to prove to myself that I could do something real.
I felt like a failure for so long because I wasn't able to access myself in the way I knew I would have if I was going to make music that mattered. I knew I was going to have to learn how to be honest.
There was no let-up. The tempo was always moderate but steady. If a new guy decided to pick up the pace, that's where it stayed, whether he finished with the group or not. You showed off at your peril.
Experience is the Lord's school, and they who are taught by Him usually learn by the mistakes they make that in themselves they have no wisdom; and by their slips and falls, that they have no strength.
While in Israel, Mitt Romney said something every sane person knows to be true: There is great cultural and political meaning in the fact that Israel has prospered while the Palestinians have festered.
Straddling the top of the world, one foot in China and the other in Nepal, I cleared the ice from my oxygen mask, hunched a shoulder against the wind, and stared absently down at the vastness of Tibet.
Living on a planet of fixed size requires compromise, and while we are the only party capable of negotiating, we are not the only party at the table. We've never claimed more, and we've never had less.
Choosing leaf or flesh, factory farm or family farm, does not in itself change the world, but teaching ourselves, our children, our local communities, and our nation to choose conscience over ease can.
As an author, you need to keep talking to your audience to remind yourself what they like and what they don't like. You spend most of your life locked in a room, and you need to be social occasionally.
I suppose identity depends on memory. And if my memory is blotted out, then I wonder if I exist - I mean, if I am the same person. Of course, I don't have to solve that problem. It's up to God, if any.
Writer’s block results from too much head. Cut off your head. Pegasus, poetry, was born of Medusa when her head was cut off. You have to be reckless when writing. Be as crazy as your conscience allows.
I believe, literally, in the God of the Old Testament, whom I understand as the Lord of the Jews and the Protestants. I'm a Christian Zionist, as well as a Christian feminist and a Christian socialist.
It is a maxim received in life that, in general, we can determine more wisely for others than for ourselves. The reason of it is so dear in argument that it hardly wants the confirmation of experience.
Knowing that we'd meet Ruby at the point where she stopped believing, I knew I was also going to have to deal with what you do with your capacity for belief if you don't have an object for your belief.
I think crime fiction is a great way to talk about social issues, whether 'To Kill A Mockingbird' or 'The Lovely Bones;' violence is a way to open up that information you want to get out to the reader.
When I'm writing, my neural pathways get blocked. I can't read. I can barely hold a conversation without forgetting words and names. I wish I could wear the same clothes and eat the same food each day.
Fairy tales opened up a door into my imagination - they don't conform to the reality that's around you as a child. I started reading when I was three and read everything, but I wanted to be an actress.
I think the female first-person is still dismissed, demonized, especially if the book does not end on an empowering note, especially if the main character is perceived as unlikeable, or too privileged.
there are risks you'll take for yourself because you know that if your plan goes wrong, it'll be too late for regrets. but if you risk the lives of others and fail, you'll have a lifetime to regret it.
Who was it who said that every virtue contains its corresponding vice? C.S. Lewis? Virginia Woolf? You forget. But it has always worried you that what the virtue of wit contained was the vice of scorn.
It was that sort of sleep in which you wake every hour and think to yourself that you have not been sleeping at all; you can remember dreams that are like reflections, daytime thinking slightly warped.
She crossed the room to him, put her arms around him, clung to him, turning her face to the side, learning all at once that it was awkward to show a person all of one's love when one's nose was broken.
Please, Katsa," he finally said. "At least talk to me". She swung around to face him. "What it there to talk about? You know how I feel, and what I think about it." "And what I feel? Doesn't it matter?
That was the one thing she knew now. Some chances came and went, and if you missed them, you could spend the rest of your life standing alone, waiting for an opportunity that had already passed you by.
I prefer to scare myself in the ordinary ways, Daddy. Like letting my children cross the country for college. Why bungee jump when you can put a kindergartener on a school bus? Now, that's real terror.
Because we grew up surrounded by big dramatic story arcs in books and movies, we think our lives are supposed to be filled with huge ups and downs. So people pretend there is drama where there is none.
Since Alice had never received any religious instruction, and since she had led a blameless life, she never thought of her awful luck as being anything but accidents in a very busy place. Good for her.
What I would really like to have been, given a perfect world, is a jazz pianist. I mean jazz. I don't mean rock and roll. I mean the never-the-same-twice music the American black people gave the world.
We who live in quiet places have the opportunity to become acquainted with ourselves, to think our own thoughts and live our own lives in a way that is not possible for those keeping up with the crowd.
The ratman froze, staring at me. "Why are you laughing?" His voice held just a hint of unease. Good. I was hoping that the vampires would come for me soon and save me. You've got to admit that's funny.
A new conception of life cannot be imposed on men; it can only be freely assimilated. And it can only be freely assimilated in two ways: one spiritual and internal, the other experimental and external.
Today, nobody sees, or wishes to see, that in our time the enslavement of the majority of men is based on money taxes, levied on land and otherwise, which are collected by government from the subjects.
And yet, now that years have passed, I recall it and wonder that it could distress me so much. It will be the same thing, too, with this trouble. Time will go by and I shall not mind about this either.
The figure of the enthusiast who has just discovered jogging or a new way to fix tofu can be said to stand or, more accurately, to tremble on the threshold of conversion, as the representative American
Look, I know this seems a little half-assed...' 'No, dude. I'd be thrilled if this plan were half-assed. This is, like, no-assed.' 'You're right. It's the most no-assed thing I've ever done in my life.
In our country we call this type of mother love teng ai. My son has told me that in men's writing it is composed of two characters. The first means pain; the second means love. That is a mother's love.
My love for him had never gone away but only changed, growing deeper like wine fermenting or pickles curing. It bore into me with the pervasiveness of water working its way to the center of a mountain.
I have been fortunate. I have done so many things and enjoyed so many things and had such a great life, not to imply that it is ending, but that there aren't many things that I feel I have left undone.
I don't read young adult or children's books, now that my grandchildren are beyond the age of my reading to them. I read reviews, and so I'm aware of what's out there. But I tend not to read the books.
When I was in graduate school, I had a teacher who said to me, 'Women writers should marry somebody who thinks writing is cute. Because if they really realised what writing was, they would run a mile.'
There's a part of me that wants to be known and make a comfortable living but still be able to go grocery shopping. My overall idea of success is having people I want to work with want to work with me.