verbava > verbava's Quotes

“Tonight, I've finally learned to tell fantasy from reality. And, knowing the difference, I choose fantasy.”
― David Henry Hwang, M. Butterfly

“Glenn used to say the reason you can't really imagine yourself being dead was that as soon as you say, 'I'll be dead,' you've said the word I, and so you're still alive inside the sentence. And that's how people got the idea of the immortality of the soul - it was a consequence of grammar.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Year of the Flood

“I’m so confused it almost feels calm.”
― Shane Jones, Light Boxes

“It's so hard to forget pain, but it's even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Diary

“Hell isn't other people. Hell is yourself.”
― Ludwig Wittgenstein

“Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Human understanding is fallible, and we see through a glass, darkly. Any religion is a shadow of God. But the shadows of God are not God.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Year of the Flood

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
― Oscar Wilde

“I read like a wolf eats.
I read myself to sleep every night.”
― Gary Paulsen

“Consider it this way: what would you say if a blond homecoming queen fell in love with a short Japanese businessman? He treats her cruelly, then goes home for three years, during which time she prays to his picture and turns down marriage from a young Kennedy. Then, when she learns he has remarried, she kills herself. Now I believe you should consider this girl to be a deranged idiot, correct? But because it's an Oriental who kills herself for a Westerner–ah!–you find it beautiful.”
― David Henry Hwang, M. Butterfly

“When I pronounce the word Future,
the first syllable already belongs to the past.

When I pronounce the word Silence,
I destroy it.”
― Wisława Szymborska, Poems New and Collected

“Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.”
― Robertson Davies, The Enthusiasms of Robertson Davies

“Boredom and stupidity and patriotism, especially when combined, are three of the greatest evils of the world we live in.”
― Robertson Davies, World of Wonders

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
― George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman

“A trap is only a trap if you don't know about it. If you know about it, it's a challenge.”
― China Miéville, King Rat

“I am free of all prejudice. I hate everyone equally. ”
― W.C. Fields

“I'm not interested to believe in something, but to understand the people who believe.”
― László Krasznahorkai

“Gallimard: You have to do what I say! I'm conjuring you up in my mind!
Song: Rene, I've never done what you've said. Why should it be any different in your mind?”
― David Henry Hwang, M. Butterfly

“Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.”
― Isaac Asimov, Foundation

“Gallimard: It's... a pure sacrifice. He's unworthy, but what can she do? She loves him... so much. It's a very beautiful story.
Song: Well, yes, to a Westerner.
Gallimard: Exuse me?
Song: It's one of your favotite fantasies, isn't it? The submissive Oriental woman and the cruel white man.”
― David Henry Hwang, M. Butterfly

“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

“If you want a definition of what a coward is, it’s needing to push a whole class of people down so that you can walk on top of them.”
― Andrea Dworkin, Life and Death

“I really think I write about everyday life. I don't think I'm quite as odd as others say I am. Life is intrinsically, well, boring and dangerous at the same time. At any given moment the floor may open up. Of course, it almost never does; that's what makes it so boring.”
― Edward Gorey

“Onego czasu wziął Chrystus uczni swoich i szedł z nimi do miasta Jeruzalem. A gdy wyszli z miasta Betlejem, a było gorąco, usiedli na górze wysokiej w cieniu upragnionym i w kości grać poczęli. I wziął kości Piotr, i rzucił je, i wyrzucił dziesiątkę, i ucieszyło się serce Piotra, a zasmuciło serce Jana. A wziął kości Jan, a rzucił je i wyrzucił dwunastkę; i ucieszyło się serce Jana, a zasmuciło serce Piotra. A wziął kości Pan, a potrząsnął nimi i rzucił; i wyrzucił trzynastkę; i zasmuciło się serce Jana. Rzekł tedy: „Panie, nie czyń cudów, azaliż jest to uczciwa gra na gotówkę...”
― Marek Hłasko, Następny do raju

“You couldn’t leave words lying around where our enemies might find them.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Year of the Flood

“It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Books say: She did this because. Life says: She did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren't. I'm not surprised some people prefer books.”
― Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot

“It's hard to say. Sometimes people have had terrible childhoods. And sometimes they just haven't found their special place in life. And sometimes they're dogs from hell and must be destroyed.”
― Charles Addams

“I wish people weren't so set on being themselves, when that means being a bastard.”
― Robertson Davies, The Rebel Angels

“I desire therefore I exist.”
― Angela Carter, The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman