Phang > Phang's Quotes

“Sex and death: the front door and the back door of the world.”
― William Faulkner, Soldiers' Pay

“The greatest calling of all is to have a literary life.”
― Lisa See, Peony in Love

“If you would tell me the heart of a man, tell me not what he reads, but what he rereads.”
― Francois Mauriac

“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”
― Jorge Luis Borges

“Of course motivation is not permanent. But then, neither is bathing; but it is something you should do on a regular basis.”
― Zig Ziglar, Raising Positive Kids in a Negative World

“We must take our sentences seriously, which means we must understand them philosophically, and the odd thing is that the few who do, who take them with utter sober seriousness, the utter sober seriousness of right-wing parsons and political saviors, the owners of Pomeranians, are the liars who want to be believed, the novelists and poets, who know that the creatures they imagine have no other being than the sounding syllables which the reader will speak into his own weary and distracted head. There are no magic words. To say the words is magical enough.”
― William H. Gass, The World Within the Word

“Be sure to enjoy language, experiment with ways of talking, be exuberant even when you don't feel like it because language can make your world a better place to live.”
― Deborah Levy, Pillow Talk in Europe and Other Places

“This is a work of fiction.
If certain characters resemble people in real life, it is because certain people in real life resemble characters from a novel.
Nobody, therefore, is entitled to feel included in this book.
Nobody, by the same token, to feel excluded.”
― Fernando Del Paso, Palinuro de México

“To be known so well by someone is an unimaginable gift. But to be imagined so well by someone is even better.”
― Ali Smith, Artful

“Happy is what you realize you are a fraction of a second before it's too late.”
― Ali Smith

“Life doesn't imitate art, it imitates bad television.”
― Woody Allen

“I would always rather be happy than dignified.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what."

[I saw hate in a graveyard -- Stephen Fry, The Guardian, 5 June 2005]”
― Stephen Fry

“Ignorance killed the cat; curiosity was framed!”
― C. J. Cherryh

“It's not all bad. Heightened self-consciousness, apartness, an inability to join in, physical shame and self-loathing—they are not all bad. Those devils have been my angels. Without them I would never have disappeared into language, literature, the mind, laughter and all the mad intensities that made and unmade me.”
― Stephen Fry, Moab Is My Washpot

“If you know someone who’s depressed, please resolve never to ask them why. Depression isn’t a straightforward response to a bad situation; depression just is, like the weather.

Try to understand the blackness, lethargy, hopelessness, and loneliness they’re going through. Be there for them when they come through the other side. It’s hard to be a friend to someone who’s depressed, but it is one of the kindest, noblest, and best things you will ever do.”
― Stephen Fry

“Women want love to be a novel. Men, a short story.”
― Daphne du Maurier

“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present.”
― Bill Keane

“When you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.”
― William Saroyan

“In the time of your life, live—so that in that good time there shall be no ugliness or death for yourself or for any life your life touches. Seek goodness everywhere, and when it is found, bring it out of its hiding place and let it be free and unashamed.

Place in matter and in flesh the least of the values, for these are the things that hold death and must pass away. Discover in all things that which shines and is beyond corruption. Encourage virtue in whatever heart it may have been driven into secrecy and sorrow by the shame and terror of the world. Ignore the obvious, for it is unworthy of the clear eye and the kindly heart.

Be the inferior of no man, or of any men be superior. Remember that every man is a variation of yourself. No man's guilt is not yours, nor is any man's innocence a thing apart. Despise evil and ungodliness, but not men of ungodliness or evil. These, understand. Have no shame in being kindly and gentle but if the time comes in the time of your life to kill, kill and have no regret.

In the time of your life, live—so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it.”
― William Saroyan, The time of your life

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches That Changed the World

“Warmaking doesn't stop warmaking. If it did, our problems would have stopped millennia ago.”
― Colman Mccarthy

“Do you think that I count the days? There is only one day left, always starting over: it is given to us at dawn and taken away from us at dusk.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre

“If you're lonely when you're alone, you're in bad company.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre

“I have decided to stick to love...Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

“Faith is taking the first step even when you can't see the whole staircase.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity. It would even seem that this is virtually a sociological-psychological law. The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other. The process at work here is not that particular human capacities, for instance, the intellect, suddenly atrophy or fail. Instead, it seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances. The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with him as a person, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison DBW Vol 8

“The opposite of poverty isn't property. The opposite of both poverty and property is community. For in community we become rich: rich in friends, in neighbours, in colleagues, in comrades, in brothers and sisters. Together, as a community, we can help ourselves in most of our difficulties. For after all, there are enough people and enough ideas, capabilities and energies to be had. They are only lying fallow, or are stunted and suppressed. So let us discover our wealth; let us discover our solidarity; let us build up communities; let us take our lives into our own
hands, and at long last out of the hands of the people who want to dominate and exploit us.”
― Jürgen Moltmann, The Source of Life: The Holy Spirit and the Theology of Life

“As Christians understand it, creation is a trinitarian process: God the Father creates through the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit. So all things are created `by God', are formed `through God' and exist `in God'.”
― Jürgen Moltmann, The Source of Life: The Holy Spirit and the Theology of Life

“God weeps with us so that we may one day laugh with him.”
― Jurgen Moltmann