Magdi > Magdi's Quotes

“Why do they always teach us that it's easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? It's the hardest thing in the world--to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of courage. I mean, what we really want.”
― Ayn Rand

“If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery--isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is.”
― Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

“I have loved women even to madness, but I have always loved liberty better.”
― Giacomo Casanova

“Who are you then?"
"I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, First Part

“Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.”
― Groucho Marx, The Essential Groucho: Writings For By And About Groucho Marx

“There is no such thing as destiny. We ourselves shape our lives.”
― Casanova

“Nora: "How do you feel?"
Nick: "Terrible. I must've gone to bed sober.”
― Dashiell Hammett, The Thin Man

“When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'.”
― Groucho Marx

“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.”
― Groucho Marx

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can never live long enough to make them all yourself.”
― Groucho Marx

“If you're not having fun, you're doing something wrong.”
― Groucho Marx

“He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot.”
― Groucho Marx

“It was from a weekly visit to the cinema that you learned (or tried to learn) how to strut, to smoke, to kiss, to fight, to grieve. Movies gave you tips about how to be attractive (...). But whatever you took home from the movies was only part of the larger experience of losing yourself in faces, in lives that were not yours - which is the more inclusive form of desire embodied in the movie experience. The strongest experience was simply to surrender to, to be transported by, what was on the screen”
― Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation and Other Essays

“Literature has been our salvation, literature has inspired and guided lovers, routed despair and can perhaps in this case save the world.”
― John Cheever

“You're drunk, and I'm drunk, and I'm just exactly drunk enough to tell you anything you want to know. That's the kind of girl I am. If I like a person, I'll tell them anything they want to know. Just ask me. Go ahead, ask me.”
― Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest

“The problem with putting two and two together is that sometimes you get four, and sometimes you get twenty-two.”
― Dashiell Hammett, The Thin Man

“I don t mind a reasonable amount of trouble.”
― Dasheill Hammett

“Dreams come true. Without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them. ”
― John Updike

“What art offers is space – a certain breathing room for the spirit.”
― John Updike

“My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it is on your plate.”
― Thornton Wilder

“Be the flame, not the moth.”
― Giacomo Casanova

“one who makes no mistakes makes nothing”
― Giacomo Casanova

“If you have not done things worthy of being written about, at least write things worthy of being read.”
― Giacomo Casanova

“The sweetest pleasures are those which are hardest to be won.”
― Casanova, The Story of My Life

“We ourselve are the authors of almost all our woes and griefs, of which we so unreasonably complain.”
― Casanova

“Learn to value yourself, which means: fight for your happiness.”
― Ayn Rand

“[Dean] “My dear fellow, who will let you?”

[Roark] “That’s not the point. The point is, who will stop me?”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.”
― Ayn Rand

“If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing.”
― Ayn Rand

“The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.”
― Ayn Rand