Lucas Goldenberg > Lucas's Quotes

“Best way to live in California is to be from somewheres else.”
― Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men

“I was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan

“The worst thing that could possibly happen to anybody would be to not be used for anything by anybody. Thank you for using me, even though I didn't want to be used by anybody.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan

“The crowd, having been promised nothing, felt cheated, having received nothing.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan

“It has always seemed strange to me...The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.”
― John Steinbeck, Cannery Row

“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote

“I used to advertise my loyalty and I don't believe there is a single person I loved that I didn't eventually betray.”
― Albert Camus, The Fall

“People hasten to judge in order not to be judged themselves.”
― Albert Camus, The Fall

“We are all exceptional cases. We all want to appeal against something! Each of us insists on being innocent at all cost, even if he has to accuse the whole human race and heaven itself.”
― Albert Camus, The Fall

“Most people imagine that a man suffers because out of the blue, Death snatches away the woman he loves. But his real suffering is less futile; it comes from the discovery that grief, too, cannot last. Even grief is vanity!”
― Albert Camus, Caligula

“What is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying.”
― Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

“Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable.”
― Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

“Man is always prey to his truths. Once he has admitted them, he cannot free himself from them.”
― Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

“In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion."

[The Minotaur]”
― Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

“There is scarcely any passion without struggle.”
― Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

“Man stands face to face with the irrational. He feels within him his longing for happiness and for reason. The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world.”
― Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

“If you want to overcome the whole world, overcome yourself.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Demons

“God is necessary, and therefore must exist... But I know that he does not and cannot exist... Don't you understand that a man with these two thoughts cannot go on living?”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Demons

“There are seconds, they come only five or six at a time, and you suddenly feel the presence of eternal harmony, fully achieved. It is nothing earthly; not that it's heavenly, but man cannot endure it in his earthly state. One must change physically or die. The feeling is clear and indisputable. As if you suddenly sense the whole of nature and suddenly say: yes, this is true. God, when he was creating the world, said at the end of each day of creation: 'Yes, this is true, this is good.' This . . . this is not tenderheartedness, but simply joy. You don't forgive anything, because there is no longer anything to forgive. You don't really love — oh, what is here is higher than love! What's most frightening is that it's so terribly clear, and there's such joy. If it were longer than five seconds — the soul couldn't endure it and would vanish. In those five seconds I live my life through, and for them I would give my whole life, because it's worth it. To endure ten seconds one would have to change physically . . . .”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Demons

“In sinning, each man sins against all, and each man is at least partly guilty for another's sin. There is no isolated sin.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Demons

“My friend, the truth is always implausible, did you know that? To make the truth more plausible, it's absolutely necessary to mix a bit of falsehood with it. People have always done so.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Demons

“I do not wish you much happiness--it would bore you; I do not wish you trouble either; but, following the people's philosophy, I will simply repeat: 'Live more' and try somehow not to be too bored; this useless wish I am adding on my own.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Demons

“It must be true that the whole second half of a man's life is most often made up only of habits accumulated during the first half.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Demons

“Full freedom will come only when it makes no difference whether to live or not to live. That’s the goal for everyone.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Demons

“One must be a great man indeed to be able to hold out even against common sense."
"Or else a fool.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Demons

“Man is unhappy because he doesn't know he's happy; only because of that.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Demons

“At three in the morning the blood runs slow and thick, and slumber is heavy. The soul either sleeps in blessed ignorance of such an hour or gazes about itself in utter despair. There is no middle ground. At three in the morning the gaudy paint is off that old whore, the world, and she has no nose and a glass eye. Gaiety becomes hollow and brittle, as in Poe’s castle surrounded by the Red Death. Horror is destroyed by boredom. Love is a dream.”
― Stephen King, 'Salem's Lot

“Ive seen the meanness of humans till I dont know why God aint put out the sun and gone away.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Outer Dark

“Don't take in no strangers while I'm gone.
She sighed deeply. They ain't a soul in this world but what is a stranger to me, she said.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Outer Dark

“In a world darksome as this'n I believe a blind man ort to be better sighted than most.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Outer Dark