Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Librarians are hot. They have knowledge and power over their domain...It is no coincidence how many librarians are portrayed as having a passionate interior, hidden by a cool layer of reserve. Aren't books like that? On the shelf, their calm covers belie the intense experience of reading one. Reading inflames the soul. Now, what sort of person would be the keeper of such books?
I want a future where women and girls get to be the subject of their own sexuality, not the object of somebody else’s. That we are the main characters in our own play, not props in somebody else’s—which is how women’s sexuality is treated now. Whatever the outside attitudes about sexuality it’s always about somebody’s agenda for us, and I want a world where we can have our own.
Who doesn't love a compliment? But every compliment comes with a warning: Beware—Do Not Overuse. Go ahead, sniff your compliment. Take a little sip. But don't chew, don't swallow. If you do, you risk abandoning the good work that inspired the compliment in the first place. If that happens, maybe it was the compliment and not the job well done that you were aiming for all along.
Why do we wrap things? Usually to protect them. The more fragile they are, the more important the wrapping. Your dream is prey to many perils. It may shatter under the blows of criticism, evaporate with competition's heat, sink to the bottomless depths of others' indifference. Tend to your dream. Protect it as you would a fallen nestling. Until the day when it—and you—will fly.
The job of conservatives is to keep the Republican Party driving on the right-hand side of the road. There are many ways we do this. We argue, we publish, we lobby, we campaign for conservative candidates. Another thing we do is, when the GOP goes off the rails on really key issues - size of government, the National Question, Wilsonian adventures - we stay home on election day.
There is a reason why one man is born black and with other disadvantages, while another is born white with great advantages. The reason is that we once had an estate before we came here, and were obedient; more or less, to the laws that were given us there. Those who were faithful in all things there received greater blessings here, and those who were not faithful received less
If you want help in starting to write memoirs, you don't want to fall into the clutches of a famous writer who has been hired to teach at a writing workshop solely because of his name's ability to attract students, rather than because of any teaching skill. You should not have to grapple with someone who secretly thinks you should be writing about his life rather than your own.
It may be that a second wave of the sexual revolution might at last accomplish its aim of freeing half the race from its immemorial subordination--and in the process bring us all a great deal closer to humanity. It may be that we shall even be able to retire sex from the harsh realities of politics, but not until we have created a world we can bear out of the desert we inhabit.
I love this place; I love mountains and big skies and forests. And the weather is still supremely beautiful even though the lower peaks are powdered with fresh snow. But Heavens! What sun. It never has an ending. I am basking at this minute - half past four - too hot without a hat, & the sky is that transparent blue only to be seen in autumn - the forest trees steeped in light.
I leaned forward and kissed him. His eyes widened, then his lips parted and he kissed me back, mouth warm and firm against mine and that floating feeling washed over me and through me, and it was so amazing that when it ended, I just stayed there, my face so close to his I could feel his breath, see those incredible amber eyes, and that was all I could see, all I wanted to see.
Tori walked toward the bed. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her give Derek a once-over. "You know, from this angle, he doesn't look too bad," she said. I glared at her. "I'm just saying . . ." I leaned over Derek, calling him as loudly as I dared. "Personally, I'm more a running back girl myself," Tori said. "But if you like the linebacker type, he's--" My glower shut her up
Isn't is lovely to be all together again?" Raffin said, throwing one arm around Po and the other around Bann. -------- She wanted them near, even if they were subsumed by their own affairs, she needed them at sword practice in the morning, at dinner at night, moving and shifting around her, there and gone, back again, arguing, teasing, acting like people who knew who they were.
The biggest truth to face now - what is probably making me unfunny now for the remainder of my life - is that I don't think people give a damn whether the planet goes or not. It seems to me as if everyone is living as members of Alcoholics Anonymous do, day by day. And a few more days will be enough. I know of very few people who are dreaming of a world for their grandchildren.
If I were a physics teacher or a science teacher, it'd be on my mind all the time as how the hell we really got this way. It's a perfectly natural human thought and, okay, if you go into the science class you can't think this. Well, alright, as soon as you leave you can start thinking about it again without giving aid and comfort to the lunatic fringe of the Christian religion.
Why do girls always feel like they have to apologize for giving an opinion or taking up space in the world? Have you ever noticed that?" Nicole asked. "You go on websites and some girl leaves a post and if it's longer than three sentences or she's expressing her thoughts about some topic, she usually ends with, 'Sorry for the rant' or 'That may be dumb, but that's what I think.
Two things, Christian reader, particularly excite the will of man to good. A principle of justice is one, the other the profit we may derive therefrom. All wise men, therefore, agree that justice and profit are the two most powerful inducements to move our wills to any undertaking. Now, though men seek profit more frequently than justice, yet justice is in itself more powerful.
As one might expect in a society with mass communications and mass markets, the pseudo-ethic says that whatever is popular, is right. Where the traditional ethic derives its sanction from the superiority of a few, the pseudo-ethic derives its sanction from the inferiority of a great many. The pseudo-ethic is keyed, not to the spiritually gifted, but to the spiritually ungifted.
Animals are murdered to produce meat; vegetables are torn up, peeled, and chopped; most of what we eat is treated with fire; and chewing is designed remorselessly to finish what killing and cooking began. People naturally prefer that none of this should happen to them. Behind every rule of table etiquette lurks the determination of each person present to be a diner, not a dish.
Almost all major scientific projects today are huge collaborations, yet we still have this public obsession with the idea of the individual scientific genius. One of my goals as a science communicator is to celebrate the collaborative dimensions of science, which I think will be critical for facing the ecological and resource challenges ahead. In a sense, we are all corals now.
Having a love ethic, as opposed to simply being in love, or having a lover, means love is the way you actively choose to engage with the world - whether you're in a relationship or not. It's not about disappearing into existing structures, norms, and privileges. It's precisely about breaking with the existing structures, values, and norms that prohibit real love in our culture.
He'll pinch a cigarette between his fingers. He'll take a drag, blow that drag between his lips. He'll look at the firl with eyes the colour of the sky before it turns black and he will see heaven, and the pictures of all those other girls floating inside his head will blow away like the clouds of the cigarette and he'll see only the girl inside himself and the world will stop.
Love all the seasons, because every season has its own treasures! Winter does not own the treasures of the spring; the spring does not own the treasures of the winter! If you know only the autumn, you are poor; if you know only the summer, you are poor! To be rich, love all the seasons and live all the seasons! Wise man is the one who knows all the treasures of all the seasons!
I miss the Stella girls telling me what I am. That I'm sweet and placid and accommodating and loyal and nonthreatening and good to have around. And Mia. I want her to say, "Frankie, you're silly, you're lazy, you're talented, you're passionate, you're restrained, you're blossoming, you're contrary." I want to be an adjective again. But I'm a noun. A nothing. A nobody. A no one.
It remains a mystery to me why some of that [pulp] fiction should be judged inferior to the rafts and rafts of bad social [literary] fiction which continues to be treated by literary editors as if it were somehow superior, or at least worthier of our attention. The careerist literary imperialism of the Bloomsbury years did a lot to produce fiction's present unseemly polarities.
Pythagoras used to say that life resembles the Olympic Games: a few people strain their muscles to carry off a prize; others bring trinkets to sell to the crowd for gain; and some there are, and not the worst, who seek no other profit than to look at the show and see how and why everything is done; spectators of the life of other people in order to judge and regulate their own.
If I'm ever working on a set and anyone talks about a master shot, I say there is no master shot. Before I even went to film school, I learned about movies by being in a British feature film, where everything was shot master shot, mid-shot, close-up. But I reject the idea of a master shot. You don't shoot everything mechanically; you find imaginative ways that serve the action.
I think Laurie's Keller story 'We are growing', resonates because when you have that amount of independence, you're starting to ask yourself questions that the grownups in your life have been answering for you. Before that, you are a good kid, or you are a funny kid, because you're told that's who you are. But when it's just you and the book, you have to figure out who you are.
Many bad golfers marry, feeling that a wife's loving solicitude may improve their game. But they are rugged, thick-skinned men, not sensitive and introspective. It is one of the chief merits of golf that non-success at the game induces a certain amount of decent humilty, which keeps a man from pluming himself too much on any petty triumphs he may achieve in other walks of life.
Alexander, you broke my heart. But for carrying me on your back, for pulling my dying sled, for giving me your last bread, for the body you destroyed for me, for the son you have given me, for the twenty-nine days we lived like Red Birds of Paradise, for all our Naples sands and Napa wines, for all the days you have been my first and last breath, for Orbeli- I will forgive you.
I know that the only completely happy life for man and for woman is their life, first together, and then with their children. I am a firm believer that no marriage can be really happy, and no home a happy one for the children as well, unless man puts woman first and woman puts man first, each for the other the giver of every good gift. Children are the fruit of this total love.
Sun and moon have no light left, earth is dark; Our women's world is sunk so deep, who can help us? Jewelry sold to pay this trip across the seas, Cut off from my family I leave my native land. Unbinding my feet I clean out a thousand years of poison, With heated heart arouse all women's spirits. Alas, this delicate kerchief here Is half stained with blood, and half with tears.
Life is a game in which the rules are constantly changing; nothing spoils a game more than those who take it seriously. Adultery? Phooey! You should never subjugate yourself to another nor seek the subjugation of someone else to yourself. If you follow that Crispian principle you will be able to say Phooey, too, instead of reaching for your gun when you fancy yourself betrayed.
Some people, they can't just move on, you know, mourn and cry and be done with it. Or at least seem to be. But for me... I don't know. I didn't want to fix it, to forget. It wasn't something that was broken. It's just...something that happened. And like that hole, I'm just finding ways, every day, of working around it. Respecting and remembering and getting on at the same time.
The draft is a monstrous violation of individual liberty, and even a good motive cannot make it otherwise. In a free society no one should be compelled to take up arms, or be forced to kill or risk being killed... But who can blame prospective volunteers from doubting that there is a threat from Iraq? The Bush administration has yet to make a persuasive argument to that effect.
In our past lies our future. By our own hands and decisions we will be damned and we will be saved. Whatever you do, put forth your best effort even if all you're doing is chasing a never ending rainbow. You might never reach the end of it, but along the way you'll meet people who will mean the world to you and make me...mories that will keep you warm on even the coldest nights
Shut up, sit down, and read. (Tory) Please? (Acheron) You need something? (Tory) You to be polite to me, Ms. I Own The World- Now Do What I Say You Pathetic Pleb. (Acheron) You don’t strike me as the kind of guy who takes orders anyway. (Tory) Yes, but a simple please goes a long way. I’m the one doing you a favor here. (Acheron) Fine. Please sit down, shut up, and read. (Tory)
Jean Jacques Rousseauis nothing but a fool in my eyes when he takes it upon himself to criticise society; he did not understand it, and approached it with the heart of an upstart flunkey.... For all his preaching a Republic and the overthrow of monarchical titles, the upstart is mad with joy if a Duke alters the course of his after-dinner stroll to accompany one of his friends.
His mother?" Gracie couldn't believe it. Suzy Denton looked much too young to be his mother. And much too respectable. "But you're not a-" She cut herself off in mid-sentence as she realized what she'd almost let slip. Suzy's wedding ring clicked against the steering wheel as she gave it a hard smack. "I'm going to kill him! He's been telling that hooker story again, hasn't he?
Really, the combination of the scabs and the ointment looks hideous. I can't help enjoying his distress. "Poor Finnick. Is this the first time in your life you haven't looked pretty?" I say. "It must be. The sensation's completely new. How have you managed it all these years?" he asks. "Just avoid mirrors. You'll forget about it," I say. "Not if I keep looking at you," he says.
Even heaven would become hell if you were alone in it, or away from a loved one. And even if you were with your loved one, but in hell, eventually you would cry to have you and your loved one together in heaven. So to create your own heaven on earth, make sure you and your loved one are in a place you both LOVE, because what could be heaven for one, could be hell for the other.
There is in us an instinct for newness, for renewal, for a liberation of creative power. We seek to awaken in ourselves a force which really changes our lives from within. And yet the same instinct tells us that this change is a recovery of that which is deepest, most original, most personal in ourselves. To be born again is not to become somebody else, but to become ourselves.
He had the uncanny capacity to know exactly what your weak point is, know what will make you feel small, to make you cringe," Joanna Hoffman said. "It's a common trait in people who are charismatic and know how to manipulate people. Knowing that he can crush you makes you feel weakened and eager for his approval, so then he can elevate you and put you on a pedestal and own you.
There is a very Simple Secret to being happy. Just let go of your 'demand' on this moment. Any time you have a demand on the moment to give you something or remove something, there is suffering. You're Arguing with 'What Is' - Your demands keep you chained to the 'dream-state' of the conditioned mind. The desire to 'control'... is, ultimately, our unwillingness to just be awake.
Sadly, as with so much about history's heroes, it's the spotting of potential fame that's the difficulty, whether it's publishing their poems, hanging their paintings, or buying their old underwear. Think of the great men whose lives passed in penury and hacking coughs due to public unawareness that their littlest possession would end up at Sothebys or the basement at Fort Knox.
The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory, is that conspiracy theorists believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is actually chaotic. The truth is that it is not The Iluminati, or The Jewish Banking Conspiracy, or the Gray Alien Theory. The truth is far more frightening - Nobody is in control. The world is rudderless.
Men are rapists, batterers, plunderers, killers; these same men are religious prophets, poets, heroes, figures of romance, adventure, accomplishment, figures ennobled by tragedy and defeat. Men have claimed the earth, called it 'Her'. Men ruin Her. Men have airplanes, guns, bombs, poisonous gases, weapons so perverse and deadly that they defy any authentically human imagination.
I know a planet where there is a certain red-faced gentleman. He has never smelled a flower. He has never looked at a star. He has never loved any one. He has never done anything in his life but add up figures. And all day he says over and over, just like you: 'I am busy with matters of consequence!' And that makes him swell up with pride. But he is not a man - he is a mushroom!
As a Black lesbian feminist comfortable with the many different ingredients of my identity, and a woman committed to racial and sexual freedom from oppression, I find I am constantly being encouraged to pluck out some one aspect of myself and present this as the meaningful whole, eclipsing or denying the other parts of self. But this is a destructive and fragmenting way to live.
Authors also create lovable, friendly characters, then proceed to do terrible things to them, like throw them in unsightly librarian-controlled dungeons. This makes readers feel hurt and worried for the characters. The simple truth is that authors like making people squirm. If this weren't the case, all novels would be filled completely with cute bunnies having birthday parties.
All who have been great and good without Christianity would have been much greater and better with it. If there be, amongst the sons of men, a single exception to this maxim, the divine Socrates may be allowed to put in the strongest claim. It was his high ambition to deserve, by deeds, not by creeds, an unrevealed heaven, and by works, not by faith, to enter an unpromised land.