Marlene Leach > Marlene's Quotes

“Those who, in debate, appeal to their qualifications, argue from memory, not from understanding.”
― Leonardo da Vinci

“The same feeling of not belonging, of futility, wherever I go: I pretend interest in what matters nothing to me, I bestir myself mechanically or out of charity, without ever being caught up, without ever being somewhere. What attracts me is elsewhere, and I don’t know where that elsewhere is.”
― Emil M. Cioran, The Trouble With Being Born

“I feel as if I were a piece in a game of chess, when my opponent says of it: That piece cannot be moved.”
― Soren Kierkegaard

“(He) mourned mankind, and the blindness of men, who thought that the Kosmos had rules and limits that would shelter them from their own freedom. There were no shelters. There were no final purposes. Futility, and freedom, were Absolute”
― Bruce Sterling, Schismatrix

“Show me a man or a woman alone and I'll show you a saint. Give me two and they'll fall in love. Give me three and they'll invent the charming thing we call 'society'. Give me four and they'll build a pyramid. Give me five and they'll make one an outcast. Give me six and they'll reinvent prejudice. Give me seven and in seven years they'll reinvent warfare. Man may have been made in the image of God, but human society was made in the image of His opposite number, and is always trying to get back home.”
― Stephen King , The Stand

“You wear a mask for so long, you forget who you were beneath it.”
― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

“Have we reached the ultimate stage of absurdity where some people are held responsible for things that happened before they were born, while other people are not held responsible for what they themselves are doing today?”
― Thomas Sowell

“Sometimes forgetting is the gift that we give ourselves”
― Dathan Auerbach, Penpal

“Truth to tell, at any point in our lives we’ve forgotten more than we know about our own history. The world moves on, and so do we, and what was once important fades away.”
― Dathan Auerbach, Penpal

“We want so badly to be happy – to live the kinds of lives that we always hoped we’d live – that we give gifts to ourselves by remembering things not as they were, but as we wish they were.”
― Dathan Auerbach, Penpal

“Those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“and”
― Emily Shiner, You Can't Hide

“The one thing that adults don't realize about kids is that when we have our noses tucked in a book, we can still easily listen to whatever is going on around us. Books are magic. Invisibility cloaks. As soon as I pick a book up and start to read, it's like I completely disappear from sight”
― Emily Shiner, The Hotel

“the”
― Emily Shiner, The Promise

“sometimes there are times when I wonder if I’m carving off too much of myself. Is there a point of no return where you give and you give until one day you look down at yourself and realize you’ve given so much that you’re no longer who you were—you’re a shell, or a stump, or something collapsed on the ground?”
― Emily Shiner, The Hotel

“Don't talk unless you can improve the silence.”
― Jorge Luis Borges

“America may be unique in being a country which has leapt from barbarism to decadence without touching civilization.”
― John O'Hara

“The lesson of history is that no one learns.”
― Steven Erikson, Deadhouse Gates

“America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, 'It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be.' It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: 'if you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?' There will also be an American flag no larger than a child’s hand – glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register.

Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say Napoleonic times. Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

“Because I kept fucking up, because it seemed so hard to not fuck up, I lived a life where I had less than what I desired. So instead of wanting more, sometimes I just made myself want even less. Sometimes I made myself believe that I wanted nothing.”
― Kevin Wilson, Nothing to See Here

“You took care of people by not letting them know how badly you wanted your life to be different.”
― Kevin Wilson, Nothing to See Here

“That's the way with a cat, you know -- any cat; they don't give a damn for discipline. And they can't help it, they're made so. But it ain't really insubordination, when you come to look at it right and fair -- it's a word that don't apply to a cat. A cat ain't ever anybody's slave or serf or servant, and can't be -- it ain't in him to be. And so, he don't have to obey anybody. He is the only creature in heaven or earth or anywhere that don't have to obey somebody or other, including the angels. It sets him above the whole ruck, it puts him in a class by himself. He is independent. You understand the size of it? He is the only independent person there is. In heaven or anywhere else. There's always somebody a king has to obey -- a trollop, or a priest, or a ring, or a nation, or a deity or what not -- but it ain't so with a cat. A cat ain't servant nor slave to anybody at all. He's got all the independence there is, in Heaven or anywhere else, there ain't any left over for anybody else. He's your friend, if you like, but that's the limit -- equal terms, too, be you king or be you cobbler; you can't play any I'm-better-than-you on a cat -- no, sir! Yes, he's your friend, if you like, but you got to treat him like a gentleman, there ain't any other terms. The minute you don't, he pulls freight.”
― Mark Twain

“You're battling every single day, aren't you?”
― Mizuki Tsujimura, Lonely Castle in the Mirror

“The musty smell that hit your nostrils whenever you ventured into the far corner of a tiny bookstore, the place where few people ever went. A smell she loved.”
― Mizuki Tsujimura, Lonely Castle in the Mirror

“So I am no longer alone. I’ve been hoping something like this will happen for such a long time. Though I know it never will.”
― Mizuki Tsujimura, Lonely Castle in the Mirror

“I sometimes find myself dreaming.
A new transfer student has started at our school, and everyone wants to be friends with them. The most cheerful, kind and athletic person in our class. And smart, too.
Out of all my classmates this new student picks me out with a generous smile, as dazzling as the sun, and says, ‘Kokoro-chan, it’s been such a long time.’
The other students can’t believe it. ‘What?’ they say, looking at me meaningfully. ‘Do you two already know each other?’
In another world, we were already friends.”
― Mizuki Tsujimura, Lonely Castle in the Mirror