Marie > Marie's Quotes

“The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.”
― James D. Nicoll

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein

“A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.”
― Steve Martin

“Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH', the paint wouldn't even have time to dry.”
― Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

“Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.”
― Anthony G. Oettinger

“Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.”
― George Burns

“I must have a prodigious amount of mind; it takes me as much as a week, sometimes, to make it up!”
― Mark Twain

“In a series of events, all of which had been a bit thick, this, in his opinion, achieved the maximum of thickness.”
― P.G. Wodehouse

“The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.”
― Terry Pratchett, Diggers

“Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.”
― Robert A. Heinlein

“It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent

“History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“A literary academic can no more pass a bookstore than an alcoholic can pass a bar.”
― Amanda Cross

“You know what the fellow said – in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”
― Graham Greene, The Third Man

“If a cricketer, for instance, suddenly decided to go into a school and batter a lot of people to death with a cricket bat, which he could do very easily, I mean, are you going to ban cricket bats?”
― Prince Philip

“Professors of literature collect books the way a ship collects barnacles, without seeming effort.”
― Amanda Cross, Death in a Tenured Position

“A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”
― Mark Twain

“Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?”
― Henry Ward Beecherr

“But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?”
― Mark Twain

“Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.”
― Flannery O'Connor

“I just got out of the hospital. I was in a speed reading accident. I hit a book mark and flew across the room.”
― Steven Wright

“Whereas story is processed in the mind in a straightforward manner, poetry bypasses rational thought and goes straight to the limbic system and lights it up like a brushfire. It's the crack cocaine of the literary world.”
― Jasper Fforde, First Among Sequels

“When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.”
― Herman Wouk

“She's the sort of woman who lives for others - you can tell the others by their hunted expression.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

“When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.”
― Ambrose Bierce

“Does a bibliophile ever have enough room on his shelves? The answer is obvious: get more shelves.”
― Will Thomas, Some Danger Involved

“This is a lovely party," said the Bursar to a chair, "I wish I was here.”
― Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies

“Readers may be divided into four classes: I. Sponges, who absorb all they read, and return it nearly in the same state, only a little dirtied. II. Sand-glasses, who retain nothing, and are content to get through a book for the sake of getting through the time. III. Strain-bags, who retain merely the dregs of what they read. IV. Mogul diamonds, equally rare and valuable, who profit by what they read, and enable others to profit by it also.”
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Notes and Lectures upon Shakespeare and Some of the Old Poets and Dramatists: With Other Literary Remains of S. T. Coleridge. Volume 1