Liarock > Liarock's Quotes

“Life is trouble. Only death is not. To be alive is to undo your belt and *look* for trouble.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“Every man has his folly, but the greatest folly of all … is not to have one.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“the highest point a man can attain is not Knowledge, or Virtue, or Goodness, or Victory, but something even greater, more heroic and more despairing: Sacred Awe!”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“How simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. . . . All that is required to feel that here and now is happiness is a simple, frugal heart.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis

“Free yourself from one passion to be dominated by another and nobler one. But is not that, too, a form of slavery? To sacrifice oneself to an idea, to a race, to God? Or does it mean that the higher the model the longer the longer the tether of our slavery?”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“Beauty is merciless. You do not look at it, it looks at you and does not forgive.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis

“What a strange machine man is! You fill him with bread, wine, fish, and radishes, and out comes sighs, laughter, and dreams.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis

“The sole way to save oneself is to save others. Or to struggle to save others -even that is sufficient.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco

“The truth is that we all are one, that all of us together create god, that god is not man's ancestor, but his descendant.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco

“Once, I saw a bee drown in honey, and I understood.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco

“We have but a single moment at our disposal. Let us transform that moment into eternity. No other form of immortality exists”
― Nikos Kazantzakis

“You know all about love, but that is not enough. You must also learn that hate comes from God as well, that it too is in the Lord's service. And in times like these, with the world fallen to the state it has, hate serves God more than love.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Saint Francis

“Keep your distance, boss! Don't make men too bold, don't go telling them we're equal, we've got the same rights, or they'll go straight and trample on your rights; they'll steal your bread and leave you to die of hunger. Keep your distance, boss, by all the good things I wish you!”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“Animals don't behave like men,' he said. 'If they have to fight, they fight; and if they have to kill they kill. But they don't sit down and set their wits to work to devise ways of spoiling other creatures' lives and hurting them. They have dignity and animality.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“Skills can be taught. Character you either have or you don't have.”
― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

“Don't lie about it. You made a mistake. Admit it and move on. Just don't do it again. Ever”
― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

“Good food is very often, even most often, simple food.”
― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

“So who the hell, exactly, are these guys, the boys and girls in the trenches? You might get the impression from the specifics of my less than stellar career that all line cooks are wacked-out moral degenerates, dope fiends, refugees, a thuggish assortment of drunks, sneak thieves, sluts and psychopaths. You wouldn't be too far off base. The business, as respected three-star chef Scott Bryan explains it, attracts 'fringe elements', people for whom something in their lives has gone terribly wrong. Maybe they didn't make it through high school, maybe they're running away from something-be it an ex-wife, a rotten family history, trouble with the law, a squalid Third World backwater with no opportunity for advancement. Or maybe, like me, they just like it here. ”
― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

“An ounce of sauce covers a multitude of sins.”
― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

“Early moralists who believed that taking too much pleasure at the table led inexorably to bad character-or worse, to sex-were (in the best-case scenario, anyway) absolutely right.”
― Anthony Bourdain, The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones

“The Golden Rule of Habit Change: You can't extinguish a bad habit, you can only change it.”
― Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

“Typically, people who exercise, start eating better and becoming more productive at work. They smoke less and show more patience with colleagues and family. They use their credit cards less frequently and say they feel less stressed. Exercise is a keystone habit that triggers widespread change.”
― Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

“Change might not be fast and it isn't always easy. But with time and effort, almost any habit can be reshaped.”
― Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

“It’s sarcasm, Josh.”

“Sarcasm?”

“It’s from the Greek, sarkasmos. To bite the lips. It means that you aren’t really saying what you mean, but people will get your point. I invented it, Bartholomew named it.”

“Well, if the village idiot named it, I’m sure it’s a good thing.”

“There you go, you got it.”

“Got what?”

“Sarcasm.”

“No, I meant it.”

“Sure you did.”

“Is that sarcasm?”

“Irony, I think.”

“What’s the difference?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea.”

“So you’re being ironic now, right?”

“No, I really don’t know.”

“Maybe you should ask the idiot.”

“Now you’ve got it.”

“What?”

“Sarcasm.”
― Christopher Moore, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal

“Blessed are the dumbfucks.”
― Christopher Moore, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal

“Love: the sickest of Irony’s sick jokes. The place where logic and order go to die.”
― Christopher Moore, Coyote Blue

“Love needs room to grow. Like a rose. Or a tumor.”
― Christopher Moore, Fool

“Canada is a myth people made up to entertain children, like the Tooth Fairy. There’s no such place.”
― Christopher Moore

“It's hard for me, a Jew, to stay in the moment. Without the past, where is the guilt? And without the future, where is the dread? And without guilt and dread, who am I?”
― Christopher Moore, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal

“You're trying to be tricky. What's morality?"
"It's the difference between what's right and what you can rationalize."
"Must be a human thing."
"Exactly.”
― Christopher Moore