Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I'm never happy with what I've written. You imagine, before you start, there's a cathedral, and the moment it starts on the page, it's a garden shed. And then you just try to make it the best shed you can.
I remember people saying: 'You look funny, your hair is so black, you have a flat nose,' but I didn't think of it being racism, and I still don't. But there was a sense of difference, of being an outsider.
Atoms of Element 118 fill an outer shell with electrons, creating a special type of element called a noble gas. Noble gases are natural turning points on the table, ending one row and pointing to the next.
Repentance, however difficult to be practiced, is, if it be explained without superstition, easily understood. Repentance is the relinquishment of any practice from the conviction that it has offended God.
High people, sir, are the best; take a hundred ladies of quality, you'll find them better wives, better mothers, more willing to sacrifice their own pleasures to their children, than a hundred other woman.
It seems not more reasonable to leave the right of printing unrestrained, because writers may be afterwards censured, than it would be to sleep with doors unbolted, because by our laws we can hang a thief.
I have to get my will in order. I have to get the Macondo Foundation going. I want to invest the money and resources that I've gotten from working so hard so that it's shared and it has its life beyond me.
Living in Edinburgh, I consider myself particularly lucky - we have the biggest book festival in the world, a plethora of fascinating libraries and museums, and some of the greatest architecture in Europe.
My family spans many world religions, ethnicities and nationalities. The truth is that I don't have one identity. I'm Scottish, British, European, Humanist, Atheist and in part at least, culturally Jewish.
I have to admit, an unrequited love is so much better than a real one. I mean, it's perfect... As long as something is never even started, you never have to worry about it ending. It has endless potential.
It was like when you're a little kid and you run into your teacher or librarian at the grocery store or Wal-mart and it's just so startling, because it never occurred to you they existed outside of school.
I tried to hold myself apart, showing only what I wanted, doling out bits and pieces of who I was. But that only works out for so long. Eventually, even the smallest fragments can't help but, make a whole.
I find that the more I depend on real life, the less interesting the story is. It's much more common for me to take something that almost-happened, or I wish had happened, and then follow that possibility.
People cannot be free unless they are willing to sacrifice some of their interests to guarantee the freedom of others. The price of democracy is the ongoing pursuit of the common good by all of the people.
Why do people not listen when you say no? Why do they think you are too stupid or too young to understand? Why do they think you are too shy to reply? Why do they keep badgering you until you will say yes?
Each child brings so much joy and hope into the world, and that is reason enough for being here. As you grow older, you will contribute something else to this world, and only you can discover what that is.
Come away with me, Astrid. (Zarek) Why should I? (Astrid) Because I love you, and even if I’m lying on the sun itself I’ll be freezing there without you. I need my star so that I can hear laughter. (Zarek)
Fine. Let’s begin with something even you can’t screw up.” – Death “Way to build up my crappy confidence there. You should volunteer for the suicide hotline.” – Nick “What makes you think I don’t?” – Death
All that matters to me is the man in front of me right now. (Tory) I’m not a man, Soteria. (Acheron) I know. But if you think your godhood excuses you from putting the toilet seat down, think again. (Tory)
You have to remember that what we’re dealing with here are Sumerian gallu demons. The next to the lowest form of demon on the demon food chain. They’re simple demons really. Lowly. You know…morons. (Jaden)
You rang, Mino- well, you’re not really the Minor Master anymore, are you? What should I call you? (Asmodeus) Think of a polite term, demon. (Jericho) Mister Master it is. What can I do for you? (Asmodeus)
My demon ate them. (Nick) What happened to the jocks? (Acheron) Riiiight. And I suppose the Big Bad Wolf will be coming in right behind you to finish up? Or is it the Gingerbread Man I need to fear? (Nick)
Ewwww-eee-wwww. Hey Ash, you vant to suck my blud? (Fang) No, thanks. The last thing I want is to catch parvo from you, or some other freaky dog disease that makes me lift my leg around hydrants. (Acheron)
My friend died. (Astrid) Died how? (Zarek) Mmm, he had parvo. (Astrid) Isn’t that a dog’s disease? (Zarek) Yes. It was tragic. (Astrid) Hey! I resent that. (Sasha) Behave or I will give you parvo. (Astrid)
Even if one is neither vain nor self-obsessed, it is so extraordinary to be oneself - exactly oneself and no one else - and so unique, that it seems natural that one should also be unique for someone else.
My first feeling was that there was no way to continue. Writing isn't like math;in math, two plus two always equals four no matter what your mood is like. With writing, the way you feel changes everything.
You walk into someone's house and they're dying, or they've got a family member who is dying. Your needs are minor; you're there to serve and to advise and to educate. You're not there to provide yourself.
Trusting each other is the beginning of a certain secular faith, a faith that allows us to live in families and communities and nations. Democracy, above all other forms of government, requires this faith.
Flow is an optimal state in which you feel totally engaged in an activity...In a state of flow, you're neither bored nor anxious, and you don't question your own adequacy. Hours pass without your noticing.
I finally figured out that not every crisis can be managed. As much as we want to keep ourselves safe, we can't protect ourselves from everything. If we want to embrace life, we also have to embrace chaos.
Why don't I just pretend I'm on camera, Plutarch?" I say. "Yes! Perfect. One is always much braver with an audience," he says. "Look at the courage Peeta just displayed!" It's all I can do not to slap him.
only a matter of time before it broke through our fragile web of denial, forcing us to confront the truth and acknowledge who we are: two people in love – a love that nobody else could possibly understand.
"I'm sorry," she said humbly. "I haven't wanted to lie to you." "I should hope so. You're the worst liar I've ever met." He thought about it for a moment, then added, " - or the best. Now I'm all confused.
When I first watched Bette Davis in 'All About Eve', I was struck by how much I felt that she is Margo Channing and that she's Bette Davis, where she was able to do both, where you're like, 'What an icon.'
The idea that feeling confident and feeling misunderstood are mutually exclusive really bugs me. So a lot of what 'Rookie' is about is just showing that you can be both, and you can like whatever you want.
I no longer get into stupid thought wormholes about identity and stuff. At one time, I did have some impostor syndrome about acting, but then I remembered I've been doing this since I was little, actually.
Echo is very important to me. I love the repetition of motifs, or the slight alteration of what's been said before. This is part of how one creates a mood, a psychological caul, in fact, around the reader.
Sebald, Naipaul, and Joyce are three of my biggest influences, all of them for their formal freedom and their ability to create mood. So those comparisons are immensely flattering and, of course, unearned.
It's challenging, in a way, but if you depict anyone with all the colors of human emotion and show those moments - with their families, with their children - the worst of us have elements of real humanity.
I suppose what makes me most glad is that we all recognize each other in this metaphysical space of silence and happening, and get some sense, for a moment, that we are full of paradise without knowing it.
My point is that true leaders...understand the possible consequences of their decisions, and are willing to bear that weight. The question is whether that's a step you're willing to take." -Carlist Rieekan
I don't know what it means to manage the human imagination, but I do know that imagination is the main source of value in the new economy. And I know we'd better figure out the answer to my question-quick.
Ludwig Wittgenstein once said that names are the only things that exist in the world. Maybe that's true, but the problem is that as time passes by, names do not remain the same - even if they don't change.
If Bacchus ever had a color he could claim for his own, it should surely be the shade of tannin on drunken lips, of John Keat's 'purple-stained mouth,' or perhaps even of Homer's dangerously wine-dark sea.
Like John Kennedy in 1960, Obama combines youth, vigor, and good looks with the promise of political change. Like Kennedy, he grew up in unusual circumstances that distance him from ordinary American life.
Kidney donors don't have to be close relatives of recipients, but they do need to have the right blood type. And kidneys from living donors tend to last many years longer than kidneys from deceased donors.
Illness is a part of every human being's experience. It enhances our perceptions and reduces self-consciousness. It is the great confessional; things are said, truths are blurted out which health conceals.
To communicate is our chief business; society and friendship our chief delights; and reading, not to acquire knowledge, not to earn a living, but to extend our intercourse beyond our own time and province.
One wanted, she thought, dipping her brush deliberately, to be on a level with ordinary experience, to feel simply that's a chair, that's a table, and yet at the same time, It's a miracle, it's an ecstasy.
The citizen lives in each of us. In the days of Brezhnev, Andropov, Gorbachev and Yeltsin, I was constantly trying to suppress the responsible citizen in me. I told myself that I was, after all, an artist.