Author Quotes

A man's motive in the small actions of daily life, like resting a moment on his pitchfork in the sun and listening intently, may be the most important thing about that man.

Although intelligence tests are usually speed tests for the sake of convenience, it is debatable whether speed has any rightful place in the basic concept of intelligence.

Isabel Briggs Myers

Southerners ask intimate questions in the way monkeys groom each other for lice, not to pry but to make you feel cared for.

Art is a misleading, deceptive superstition; in it we think that we have before us the last, innermost essence of humanity itself; and yet, it merely foists upon us a beautiful product of man, in which are set down all of the egotistical, self-satisfying thoughts and emotions which remain sterile and ineffective in the world of action. And I, imbecile, esteem this product more highly than the human being himself, whom God has created.

Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder

Old and ruined, all rotted and broken up These plum trees function gorgeously A few days every year In a way nobody else does.

I did not deceive him, he did not deceive me, I did not leave him, he did not leave me, I freed him, he freed me.

My grandfather was the great solace. He didn't have a lot of formal education, but he had a feeling for words and a sense of the past, a sense of being involved in something larger than his own immediate concerns.

Blood is thicker than water, of course, but it isn't ink to write your will with.

We don't all have to believe in the same feminism. Feminism can be pluralistic so long as we respect the different feminisms we carry with us, so long as we give enough of a damn to try to minimize the fractures among us. Feminism will better succeed with collective effort, but feminist success can also rise out of personal conduct.

Sweet Genevieve,
The days may come, the days may go,
But still the hands of memory weave The blissful dreams of long ago.

George Cooper (poet)

How could an argument soothe or settle a controversy when every word is a nest for a bird of doubt? (meaning of words as inferences)

Let not my death be long,
But light
As a bird's swinging;
Happy decision in the height
Of song —
Then flight
From off the ultimate bough!
And let my wing be strong,
And my last note the first
Of another's singing.
See to it, Thou!

The combination of song, prayer, and poetry is a natural form of expression for many Navajo people. A person who is able to 'talk beautifully' is well thought of and considered wealthy...

Fear, guilt, despair, and moon-struck phrensy rush
On voluntary death: the wise and brave,
When the fierce storms of fortune round 'em roar,
Combat the billows with redoubled force:
Then, if they perish ere the port is gain'd,
They sink with decent pride; and from the deep
Honour retrieves them, bright as rising stars.

I admit that the generation which produced Stalin, Auschwitz and Hiroshima will take some beating; but the radical and universal consciousness of the death of God is still ahead of us; perhaps we shall have to colonize the stars before it is finally borne in upon us that God is not out there.

R. J. Hollingdale

When the whole world is writing letters, it's easy to lap into the quiet within, tell the story of an hour, keep alive the narrating inner life. To be alone in the presence of one's thought is not a value, only a common practice.

You thought you were found but you realize that you were lost, and someday you may discover that you're lost now.

The moments of beauty, the moments when you feel blessed, are only moments; but memory and imagination, treasuring them, can string them together... Everything else passes away; that which you love remains.

Brian Morton (American writer)

Don't forget that even our most obscene vices nearly always bear the seal of sullen greatness.

Gesualdo Bufalino

I have so fiercely dreamed of you And walked so far and spoken of you so, Loved a shade of you so hard That now I've no more left of you.

They say that there is no reality before it has been given shape by words rules regulations. They say that in what concerns them everything has to be remade starting from basic principles. They say that in the first place the vocabulary of every language is to be examined, modified, turned upside down, that every word must be screened.

In the country Sunday is the day on which you do exactly as much work as you do on other days but feel guilty all the time you are doing it because Sunday is a day of rest.

Betty MacDonald

Not in hewn stones, nor in well-fashioned beams,
Not in the noblest of the builder's dreams,
But in courageous men of purpose great,
There is the fortress, there the living State.

Alcaeus of Mytilene

He held the book up to his nose. It smelled like Old Spice talcum powder. Books that smelled that way were usually fun to read. He threw the book onto his bed and went to his suitcase. After rummaging about for awhile, he came up with a long, narrow box of chocolate-covered mints. He loved to eat candy while he read, and lots of his favorite books at home had brown smudges on the corners of the pages.

Indifference pretends to create peace, but it is based on not caring, a silent resignation. It is a movement away, a separation fed by a subtle fear of the heart. We pull back, believing that what happens to others is not our concern. Our courage leaves us. Indifference is a misguided way of defending ourselves.