Bryan Smith > Bryan's Quotes

“Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders.”
― William Faulkner, Light in August

“Clocks slay time... time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life.”
― William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

“Next to music, beer was best.”
― Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

“Resentment is the most precious flower of poverty.”
― Carson McCullers

“And like: “Why should one want to wake up dead anyway?” If the glorious birth-to-death hassle is the only hassle we are ever to have . . . if our grand and exhilarating Fight of Life is such a tragically short little scrap anyway, compared to the eons of rounds before and after—then why should one want to relinquish even a few precious seconds of it?”
― Ken Kesey, Sometimes a Great Notion

“she followed their expert lead and laughed along—they knew the secret of black, that it could not be made blacker, and if neither could it be made lighter, it could still be made funnier.”
― Ken Kesey, Sometimes a Great Notion

“Before reaching the final line, however, he had already understood that he would never leave that room, for it was foreseen that the city of mirrors (or mirages) would be wiped out by the wind and exiled from the memory of men at the precise moment
when Aureliano Babilonia would finish deciphering the parchments, and that everything written on them was unrepeatable since time immemorial and forever more, because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

“One minute of reconciliation is worth more than a whole life of friendship!”
― Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

“I sometimes think that there is a link between the decline in humanity and the increase in prosperity and comfort. Property and comfort are what people seek, but the costs to character are often terrifying.”
― Mo Yan, Red Sorghum

“Finally, she mused that human existence is as brief as the life of autumn grass, so what was there to fear from taking chances with your life?”
― Mo Yan, Red Sorghum

“He felt free -- fear is all that stands in the way of freedom”
― Mo Yan, Red Sorghum

“If you love people, they kill you. If you need people, they kill you. They do I tell you!”
― Colleen McCullough, The Thorn Birds

“We all have contempt for whatever there's too many of. Out here it's sheep, but in the city it's people.”
― Colleen McCullough, The Thorn Birds