anarki > anarki's Quotes

“Your memory is a monster; you forget—it doesn't. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you—and summons them to your recall with will of its own. You think you have a memory; but it has you!”
― John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany

“When someone you love dies, and you're not expecting it, you don't lose her all at once; you lose her in pieces over a long time—the way the mail stops coming, and her scent fades from the pillows and even from the clothes in her closet and drawers. Gradually, you accumulate the parts of her that are gone. Just when the day comes—when there's a particular missing part that overwhelms you with the feeling that she's gone, forever—there comes another day, and another specifically missing part.”
― John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany

“Yes, death. Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no to-morrow. To forget time, to forget life, to be at peace. You can help me. You can open for me the portals of death's house, for love is always with you, and love is stronger than death is.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Canterville Ghost

“The earth has its music for those who will listen”
― Reginald Vincent Holmes, Fireside Fancies

“If you care about something you have to protect it – If you’re lucky enough to find a way of life you love, you have to find the courage to live it.”
― John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany

“Never confuse faith, or belief—of any kind—with something even remotely intellectual.”
― John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany

“It is your responsibility to find fault with me, it is mine to hear you out. But don't expect me to change.”
― John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany

“Owen meany who rarely wasted words and who had the conversation-stopping habit of dropping remarks like coins into a deep pool of water... remarks that sank, like truth, to the bottom of the pool where they would remain untouchable.”
― John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany

“And in our Scripture class, Owen said, "IT'S TRUE THAT THE DISCIPLES ARE STUPID - THEY NEVER UNDERSTAND WHAT JESUS MEANS, THEY'RE A BUNCH OF BUNGLERS, THEY DON'T BELIEVE IN GOD AS MUCH AS THEY WANT TO BELIEVE, AND THEY EVEN BETRAY JESUS. THE POINT IS, GOD DOESN'T LOVE US BECAUSE WE'RE SMART OR BECAUSE WE'RE GOOD. WE'RE STUPID AND WE'RE BAD AND GOD LOVES US ANYWAY - JESUS ALREADY TOLD THE DUMB-SHIT DISCIPLES WHAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN. "THE SON OF MAN WILL BE DELIVERED INTO THE HANDS OF MEN, AND THEY WILL KILL HIM..." REMEMBER? THAT WAS IN MARK, RIGHT?"
"Yes, but let's not say "dumb-shit disciples" in class, Owen," Mr. Merrill said.”
― John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night

“And yet another moral occurs to me now: Make love when you can. It's good for you.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night

“We'd been apart so long--I'd been dead so long," she said in English. "I thought surely you'd built a new life, with no room in it for me. I'd hoped that."
"My life is nothing but room for you." I said. "It could never be filled by anyone but you.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night

“I am eternally grateful for my knack of finding in great books, some of them very funny books, reason enough to feel honored to be alive, no matter what else might be going on.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake

“I will say, too, that lovemaking, if sincere, is one of the best ideas Satan put in the apple she gave to the serpent to give to Eve. The best idea in that apple, though, is making jazz.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake

“The first something to be implied by all the nothing was in fact two somethings, who were God and Satan. God was male. Satan was female. They implied each other, and hence were peers in the emerging power structure, which was itself nothing but an implication. Power was implied by weakness.
Satan [...] couldn't undo anything God had done. She could at least try to make existence for His little toys less painful. She could see what He couldn't: To be alive was to be either bored or scared stiff. So she filled an apple with all sorts of ideas that might at least relieve the boredom, such as rules for games with cards and dice, and how to fuck [...] Satan had a serpent give Eve the apple. Eve took a bite and handed it to Adam. He took a bite, and then they fucked."
[...]
"All Satan wanted to do was help, and she did in many cases. And her record for promoting nostrums with occasionally dreadful side effects is no worse than that of the most reputable pharmaceutical houses of the present day.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“I never asked to be born in the first place.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake

“But he is tired. He puts the pistol to his head again. He says, “I never asked to be born in the first place.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake

“if there is a god, he sure hates people”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake

“You can't make anyone love you. You just have to reveal who you are and take your chances. (105)”
― Sheldon B. Kopp, If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him! The Pilgrimage of Psychotherapy Patients

“A thousand plastic flowers don't make a desert bloom. A thousand empty faces don't fill an empty room".”
― Fritz Perls

“...nobody can stand truth if it is told to him. Truth can be tolerated only if you discover it yourself because then, the pride of discovery makes the truth palatable.”
― Fritz Perls

“I do my thing and you do your thing.
I am not in this world to live up to your expectations,
And you are not in this world to live up to mine.
You are you, and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful.
If not, it can't be helped.”
― Fritz Perls

“We are never so defenseless against suffering as when we love.”
― Sigmund Freud

“Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires.”
― Sigmund Freud, New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis

“Out of your vulnerabilities will come your strength.”
― Sigmund Freud

“No, our science is no illusion. But an illusion it would be to suppose that what science cannot give us we can get elsewhere.”
― Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion

“Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility.”
― Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents

“Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise.”
― Sigmund Freud

“A woman should soften but not weaken a man.”
― Sigmund Freud

“In so doing, the idea forces itself upon him that religion is comparable to a childhood neurosis, and he is optimistic enough to suppose that mankind will surmount this neurotic phase, just as so many children grow out of their similar neurosis.”
― Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion