Michael Faris > Michael's Quotes

“I am reading six books at once, the only way of reading; since, as you will agree, one book is only a single unaccompanied note, and to get the full sound, one needs ten others at the same time.”
― Virginia Woolf, The Letters of Virginia Woolf: Volume Three, 1923-1928

“You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.”
― Saul Bellow

“People can lose their lives in libraries. They ought to be warned.”
― Saul Bellow

“I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Player Piano

“Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night

“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.”
― Franz Kafka

“Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion.”
― Edward Abbey

“Things are finally going my way. In fact, they’re going great! I have a chance to live after all! LOG ENTRY: SOL 37 I am fucked, and I’m gonna die!”
― Andy Weir, The Martian

“My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die!”
― William Goldman, The Princess Bride

“We are made of stardust; why not take a few moments to look up at the family album?”
― Natalie Angier, The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science

“It’s the same with people who say, ‘Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’ Even people who say this must realize that the exact opposite is true. What doesn’t kill you maims you, cripples you, leaves you weak, makes you whiny and full of yourself at the same time. The more pain, the more pompous you get. Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you incredibly annoying.”
― Rob Sheffield, Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time

“Unexpected intrusions of beauty. This is what life is.”
― Saul Bellow, Herzog

“A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.”
― Saul Bellow, To Jerusalem and Back

“The Guide says there is an art to flying", said Ford, "or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“Even a soul submerged in sleep
is hard at work and helps
make something of the world.”
― Heraclitus, Fragments

“May your bones be washed by the saltwater, your spirit return to the sand and the love we have for you be forever around us.”
― Claire Fuller, Swimming Lessons

“Don't look at me in that tone of voice.”
― Dorothy Parker

“I am not one and simple, but complex and many.”
― Virginia Woolf, The Waves

“Intimacy is the capacity to be rather weird with someone - and finding that that's ok with them.”
― Alain de Botton

“Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.”
― Napoleon Bonaparte

“Technology offers the illusion of companionship without the demands of intimacy, and communication without emotional risk, while actually making people feel lonelier and more overwhelmed.

“A song that became popular on YouTube in 2010, ‘Do You Want to Date My Avatar?’ ends with the lyrics ‘And if you think I’m not the one, log off, log off, and we’ll be done.’ ”

from a review of Alone Together by S. Turkle”
― Michiko Kakutani

“As Hannah Arendt wrote in her 1951 book, The Origins of Totalitarianism, “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.”
― Michiko Kakutani, The Death of Truth: Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump

“A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“I will tell you what Jeanne was like. She was like a piano in a country where everyone has had their hands cut off.”
― Angela Carter

“Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“The planet is fine. The people are fucked.”
― George Carlin

“My imagination functions much better when I don't have to speak to people.”
― Patricia Highsmith

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