Steven Raaymakers > Steven's Quotes

“‎That's when you know you've found somebody really special. When you can just shut the fuck up for a minute and comfortably share silence.”
― Quentin Tarantino, Pulp Fiction: A Quentin Tarantino Screenplay

“You know how they say you only hurt the ones you love? Well, it works both ways.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

“The closer men came to perfecting for themselves a paradise, the more impatient they became with it, and with themselves as well. They made a garden of pleasure, and became progressively more miserable with it as it grew in richness and power and beauty; for then, perhaps, it was easier to see something was missing in the garden, some tree or shrub that would not grow. When the world was in darkness and wretchedness, it could believe in perfection and yearn for it. But when the world became bright with reason and riches, it began to sense the narrowness of the needle's eye, and that rankled for a world no longer willing to believe or yearn.”
― Walter M. Miller Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz

“To minimize suffering and to maximize security were natural and proper ends of society and Caesar. But then they became the only ends, somehow, and the only basis of law—a perversion. Inevitably, then, in seeking only them, we found only their opposites: maximum suffering and minimum security.”
― Walter M. Miller Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz

“I'm not so sure he's mad, Father. Just a little devious in his sanity.”
― Walter M. Miller Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz

“Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make!”
― Bram Stoker

“Once again...welcome to my house. Come freely. Go safely; and leave something of the happiness you bring.”
― Bram Stoker, Dracula

“..the world seems full of good men--even if there are monsters in it.”
― Bram Stoker, Dracula

“I sometimes think we must be all mad and that we shall wake to sanity in strait-waistcoats.”
― Bram Stoker, Dracula

“Doctor, you don't know what it is to doubt everything, even yourself. No, you don't; you couldn't with eyebrows like yours.”
― Bram Stoker, Dracula

“My revenge is just begun! I spread it over centuries, and time is on my side.”
― Bram Stoker

“I pray you, be seated and sup how you please. You will I trust, excuse me that I do not join you, but I have dined already, and I do not sup.”
― Bram Stoker, Dracula

“I comforted him as well as I could. In such cases men do not need much expression. A grip of the hand, the tightening of an arm over the shoulder, a sob in unison, are expressions of sympathy dear to a man's heart.”
― Bram Stoker, Dracula

“It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

“There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up.”
― John Holmes

“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.”
― Friedrich W. Nietzsche

“Dancing in all its forms cannot be excluded from the curriculum of all noble education; dancing with the feet, with ideas, with words, and, need I add that one must also be able to dance with the pen?”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“Do not be so open-minded that your brains fall out.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”
― Andrzej Sapkowski, The Last Wish

“Only Evil and Greater Evil exist and beyond them, in the shadows, lurks True Evil. True Evil, Geralt, is something you can barely imagine, even if you believe nothing can still surprise you. And sometimes True Evil seizes you by the throat and demands that you choose between it and another, slightly lesser, Evil.”
― Andrzej Sapkowski, The Last Wish

“People," Geralt turned his head, "like to invent monsters and monstrosities. Then they seem less monstrous themselves. When they get blind-drunk, cheat, steal, beat their wives, starve an old woman, when they kill a trapped fox with an axe or riddle the last existing unicorn with arrows, they like to think that the Bane entering cottages at daybreak is more monstrous than they are. They feel better then. They find it easier to live.”
― Andrzej Sapkowski, The Last Wish

“To be neutral does not mean to be indifferent or insensitive. You don't have to kill your feelings. It's enough to kill hatred within yourself.”
― Andrzej Sapkowski, Krew elfów

“We know each other,” he agreed. “They say that you follow in my steps.”
“I go my own way. But you, you had never, until just now, looked behind you. You turned back today for the first time.”
Geralt remained silent. Tired, he had nothing to say. “How... How will it happen?” he asked her at last, coldly and without emotion. “I will take you by the hand,” she replied, looking him straight in the eye. “I will take you by the hand and lead you across the meadow, through a cold and wet fog.” “And after? What is there beyond the fog?” “Nothing,” she replied, smiling. “After that, there is nothing.”
― Andrzej Sapkowski

“And why not?' the merchant replied seriously. 'Why not have doubts? It's nothing but a human and good thing'.

'What?'

'Doubt. Only an evil man, master Geralt, is without it. And no one escapes his destiny'.”
― Andrzej Sapkowski

“By first believing in Santa Claus, then the Easter Bunny, then the Tooth Fairy, Rant Casey was recognizing that those myths are more than pretty stories and traditions to delight children. Or to modify behavior. Each of those three traditions asks a child to believe in the impossible in exchange for a reward. These are stepped-up tests to build a child's faith and imagination. The first test is to believe in a magical person, with toys as the reward. The second test is to trust in a magical animal, with candy as the reward. The last test is the most difficult, with the most abstract reward: To believe, trust in a flying fairy that will leave money.

From a man to an animal to a fairy.

From toys to candy to money. Thus, interestingly enough, transferring the magic of faith and trust from sparkling fairy-dom to clumsy, tarnished coins. From gossamer wings to nickels... dimes... and quarters.

In this way, a child is stepped up to greater feats of imagination and faith as he or she matures. Beginning with Santa in infancy, and ending with the Tooth Fairy as the child acquires adult teeth. Or, plainly put, beginning with all the possibility of childhood, and ending with an absolute trust in the national currency. ”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey

“You heard him say it? 'Pain's the only evil I know about.' You heard that?"
The monk nodded solemnly.
"And that society is the only thing that determines whether an act is wrong or not? That too?"
"Yes."
"Dearest God, how did those two heresies get back into the world after all this time? Hell has limited imaginations down there. 'The serpent deceived me, and I did eat.”
― Walter M. Miller Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz

“Listen, my dear Cors, why don't you forgive God for allowing pain? If He didn't allow it, human courage, bravery, nobility, and self-sacrifice would all be meaningless things.”
― Walter M. Miller Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz

“It is not the pain that is pleasing to God, child. It is the soul's endurance in faith and hope and love in spite of bodily afflictions that pleases Heaven.”
― Walter Miller, A Canticle for Leibowitz

“Fire, loveliest of the four elements of the world, and yet an element too in Hell. While it burned adoringly in the core of the Temple, it had also scorched the life from a city, this night, and spewed its venom over the land. How strange of God to speak from a burning bush, and of Man to make a symbol of Heaven into a symbol of Hell.”
― Walter M. Miller Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz

“I mean Jesus never asked a man to do a damn thing that Jesus didn’t do.”
― Walter M. Miller Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz