T > T's Quotes

“Besides, isn't it confoundedly easy to think you're a great man if you aren't burdened with the slightest idea that Rembrandt, Beethoven, Dante or Napoleon ever lived?”
― Stefan Zweig, Chess Story

“I like it when somebody gets excited about something. It's nice.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“As happens sometimes, a moment settled and hovered and remained for much more than a moment. And sound stopped and movement stopped for much, much more than a moment.”
― John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men

“People never notice anything.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“And so it goes...”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

“All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

“All this happened, more or less.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

“I've often wondered what people mean when they talk about an experience. I'm a technologist and accustomed to seeing things as they are. I see everything they are talking about very clearly; after all, I'm not blind. I see the moon over the Tamaulipas desert--it is more distinct than at other times, perhaps, but still a calculable mass circling around our planet, an example of gravitation, interesting, but in what way an experience? I see the jagged rocks, standing out black against the moonlight; perhaps they do look like the jagged backs of prehistoric monsters, but I know they are rocks, stone, probably volcanic, one should have to examine them to be sure of this. Why should I feel afraid? There aren't any prehistoric monsters any more. Why should I imagine them? I'm sorry, but I don't see any stone angels either; nor demons; I see what I see--the usual shapes due to erosion and also my long shadow on the sand, but no ghosts. Why get womanish? I don't see any Flood either, but sand lit up by the moon and made undulating, like water, by the wind, which doesn't surprise me; I don't find it fantastic, but perfectly explicable. I don't know what the souls of the damned look like; perhaps like black agaves in the desert at night. What I see are agaves, a plant that blossoms once only and dies. Furthermore, I know (however I may look at the moment) that I am not the last or the first man on earth; and I can't be moved by the mere idea that I am the last man, because it isn't true. Why get hysterical? Mountains are mountains, even if in a certain light they may look like something else, but it is the Sierra Madre Oriental, and we are not standing in a kingdom of the dead, but in the Tamaulipas desert, Mexico, about sixty miles from the nearest road, which is unpleasant, but in what way an experience? Nor can I bring myself to hear something resembling eternity; I don't hear anything, apart from the trickle of sand at every step. Why should I experience what isn't there?”
― Max Frisch, Homo Faber

“Everything happened exactly as I had intended it shouldn’t.”
― Max Frisch, Homo Faber

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“In the face of pain there are no heroes.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“I may not have been sure about what really did interest me, but I was absolutely sure about what didn't.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“I had only a little time left and I didn't want to waste it on God.”
― Albert Camus, L'Étranger

“Since we're all going to die, it's obvious that when and how don't matter.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“I looked up at the mass of signs and stars in the night sky and laid myself open for the first time to the benign indifference of the world.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“I have no choice of living or dying, you see, sir, but I do have a choice of how I do it.”
― John Steinbeck, The Moon Is Down

“But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’— that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”
― George W. Bush

“Die wohlfeilste Art des Stolzes hingegen ist der Nationalstolz. Denn er verrät in dem damit Behafteten den Mangel an individuellen Eigenschaften, auf die er stolz sein könnte, indem er sonst nicht zu dem greifen würde, was er mit so vielen Millionen teilt. Wer bedeutende persönliche Vorzüge besitzt, wird vielmehr die Fehler seiner eigenen Nation, da er sie beständig vor Augen hat, am deutlichsten erkennen. Aber jeder erbärmliche Tropf, der nichts in der Welt hat, darauf er stolz sein könnte, ergreift das letzte Mittel, auf die Nation, der er gerade angehört, stolz zu sein. Hieran erholt er sich und ist nun dankbarlich bereit, alle Fehler und Torheiten, die ihr eigen sind, mit Händen und Füßen zu verteidigen.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, Aphorismen zur Lebensweisheit: Bereicherte Ausgabe. Parerga und Paralipomena

“Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

“And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“There ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue. There's just stuff people do.”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

“And it was like knocking four quick times on the door of unhappiness.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“But in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill himself.”
― Albert Camus

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”
― Albert Camus