Simon > Simon's Quotes

“Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the 'transcendent' and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don't be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Letters to a Young Contrarian

“What do you most value in your friends?
Their continued existence.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

“A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do.”
― Bob Dylan

“Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.”
― Francis Bacon

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“Nobody likes being alone that much. I don't go out of my way to make friends, that's all. It just leads to disappointment. ”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it's time for them to be hurt.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“What makes us the most normal," said Reiko, "is knowing that we're not normal.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“Heard joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he's depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. Doctor says, "Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up." Man bursts into tears. Says, "But doctor...I am Pagliacci.”
― Alan Moore, Watchmen

“None of you understand. I'm not locked up in here with YOU. You're locked up in here with ME.”
― Alan Moore, Watchmen

“No. Not even in the face of Armageddon. Never compromise.”
― Alan Moore, Watchmen

“Nite Owl II: But the country's disintegrating. What's happened to America? What's happened to the American dream?

The Comedian: It came true. You're lookin' at it.”
― Alan Moore, Watchmen

“As I see it, part of the art of being a hero is knowing when you don't need to be one anymore.”
― Alan Moore, Watchmen

“A live body and a dead body contain the same number of particles. Structurally, there's no discernible difference. Life and death are unquantifiable abstracts. Why should I be concerned?”
― Alan Moore, Watchmen

“I live my life free of compromise, and step into the shadows without complaint or regret.”
― Alan Moore, Watchmen

“American love — like coke in green glass bottles...they don't make it anymore.”
― Alan Moore, Watchmen

“Never despair. Never surrender.”
― Alan Moore, Watchmen

“I'm 65 years old. Everyday the future looks a little bit darker. But the past, even the grimy parts of it, well, it just keeps on getting brighter all the time.”
― Alan Moore, Watchmen

“What does fighting crime mean, exactly? Does it mean upholding the law when a woman shoplifts to feed her children, or does it mean struggling to uncover the ones who, quite legally, have brought about her poverty?”
― Alan Moore, Watchmen

“You see, Doctor, God didn't kill that little girl. Fate didn't butcher her and destiny didn't feed her to those dogs. If God saw what any of us did that night he didn't seem to mind. From then on I knew... God doesn't make the world this way. We do.”
― Alan Moore, Watchmen

“It was Kovacs who said "Mother" then, muffled under latex. It was Kovacs who closed his eyes. It was Rorschach who opened them again.”
― Alan Moore, Watchmen

“There's zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Spend your free time the way you like, not the way you think you're supposed to.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Introversion- along with its cousins sensitivity, seriousness, and shyness- is now a second-class personality trait, somewhere between a disappointment and a pathology. Introverts living in the Extrovert Ideal are like women in a man's world, discounted because of a trait that goes to the core of who they are. Extroversion is an enormously appealing personality style, but we've turned it into an oppressive standard to which most of us feel we must conform.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.”
― Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

“[E]xceptional claims demand exceptional evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

“Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not rely soley upon science and reason, because these are necessary rather than sufficient factors, but we distrust anything that contradicts science or outrages reason. We may differ on many things, but what we respect is free inquiry, openmindedness, and the pursuit of ideas for their own sake.”
― Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

“What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

“One must state it plainly. Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody—not even the mighty Democritus who concluded that all matter was made from atoms—had the smallest idea what was going on. It comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge (as well as for comfort, reassurance and other infantile needs). Today the least educated of my children knows much more about the natural order than any of the founders of religion, and one would like to think—though the connection is not a fully demonstrable one—that this is why they seem so uninterested in sending fellow humans to hell.”
― Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

“Philosophy begins where religion ends, just as by analogy chemistry begins where alchemy runs out, and astronomy takes the place of astrology.”
― Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything