Author Quotes

Well, it's not so easy to give an answer when you ask a stupid question!

Hans Christian Andersen

A fanatic's willingness to kill or be killed in the service of a cause cannot prove the rightness of that cause.

I am a little thing, a tiny little thing on the vast prairies. I know nothing. My mouth is dirty. I cannot tell what I want. My feet are sunk in the black swampy land, but I am a lover. I love life. In the end love shall save me.

Sherwood Anderson

Whenever a government feels the need of promising peace and prosperity to its citizens by means of a proclamation, it is time to be on guard and expect the opposite.

These wretched kings,
Of whom all men speak ill, have oft some good in them.

François Andrieux

The men went to Catraeth, swift was their host, the pale mead was their feast and it was their poison.

In order to win, we pay with energy and effort and discipline. If we lose, we pay in disappointment, discontent, and lack of fulfillment.

The land of easy mathematics where he who works adds up and he who retires subtracts.

One can make one's life a complete misery, worrying about burglaries and shipwrecks, but ask anyone, anyone you know... earth-shattering disasters and fabulous inheritances all seems to take place exclusively in the newspapers.

We are all creatures of our ancestry! There is no right and wrong, objectively.

What goes on when people overfetishize safety is that they're relapsing into that old frame of mind that what we're doing is BAD.

Twentieth pupil of the centuries knows its stuff and bird-changed this century like Jesus climbs the sky.

Guillaume Apollinaire

Zeus, the father of the Olympic Gods, turned mid-day into night, hiding the light of the dazzling Sun; and sore fear came upon men.

Whatsoever Venus bids
Is a joy excelling,
Never in an evil heart
Did she make her dwelling.

The best thing for a man to do is to be born and, being born, to die at once.

But that he wrought so high the specious tale,
As manifested plainly 'twas a lie.

Ludovico Ariosto

If a man owes me money, I never seem to forget. But if I do the owing, I somehow never remember.

Behold the patient uncomplaining, Not asking whether losing, gaining, Not offering unsought advice, But really being very nice. Behold the patient quite relaxed, With nerves, this once, not overtaxed, Serene, almost unrecognized, Not fighting back — anesthetized.

Ye generous maids, revenge your sex's wrong; Let not the mean destroyer e'er approach Your sacred charms. Now muster all your pride, Contempt and scorn, that, shot from Beauty's eye, Confounds the mighty impudent, and smites The front unknown to shame.

It is not difficult to find a religious justification for killing.

Karen Armstrong

I am Arnaut who love the wind,
And chase the hare with the ox,
And swim against the torrent.

Experience is bitter, but its teachings we retain; It has taught me this--who once has loved, loves never on earth again!

A tainted society has invented psychiatry to defend itself against the investigations of certain superior intellects whose faculties of divination would be troublesome.

So I cradle this average violin that knows
Only forgotten showtunes, but argues
The possibility of free declamation anchored
To a dull refrain....

The heathen spirit is wingless. It cannot lift itself to heights from which the totality of being is visible, and it therefore loses itself in details.