Britton > Britton's Quotes

“I think of myself as a bad writer with big ideas, but I'd rather be that than a big writer with bad ideas.”
― Michael Moorcock, Elric: The Stealer of Souls

“You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.”
― Jack London

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions."

In 1984, Huxley added, "people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us".”
― Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

“If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think, they'll hate you.”
― Harlan Ellison

“Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self Reliance

“When evening comes, I return home and go into my study. On the threshold I strip off my muddy, sweaty, workday clothes, and put on the robes of court and palace, and in this graver dress I enter the antique courts of the ancients and am welcomed by them, and there I taste the food that alone is mine, and for which I was born. And there I make bold to speak to them and ask the motives of their actions, and they, in their humanity, reply to me. And for the space of four hours I forget the world, remember no vexation, fear poverty no more, tremble no more at death: I pass indeed into their world.”
― Niccolo Machiavelli

“Power attracts the corruptible. Suspect any who seek it.”
― Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse: Dune

“Don't you get it? We are The Walking Dead!”
― Robert Kirkman, The Walking Dead, Vol. 5: The Best Defense

“You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.”
― William Faulkner

“Sun keeps rising. Days keep passing. World keeps spinning. Time, it just keeps moving forward. Weeks, months, even years go by... while you try to make sense of it all. Try to find where you belong. Try to look ahead to a better future. But the truth is the path ahead has only grown darker. It's harder to see. You can feel so lost, so alone, so desperate for something, anything that might show you the way.”
― Robert Kirkman

“Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world...would do this, it would change the earth.”
― William Faulkner

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little.”
― Jean Jacques Rousseau

“If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.”
― Mark Twain

“Never close your lips to those whom you have already opened your heart.”
― Charles Dickens

“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.”
― Philip K. Dick, I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon

“I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.”
― Plato, The Republic

“What greater gift than the love of a cat.”
― Charles Dickens

“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”
― Mark Twain

“He never sleeps, the judge. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West

“No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.”
― Charles Dickens

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).”
― Mark Twain

“Things change. And friends leave. Life doesn't stop for anybody.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“Do you hate people?”

“I don't hate them...I just feel better when they're not around.”
― Charles Bukowski, Barfly

“Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”
― Arthur C. Clarke

“Comics deal with two fundamental communicating devices: words and images. Admittedly this is an arbitrary separation. But, since in the modern world of communication they are treated as independent disciplines, it seems valid. Actually, the are derivatives of a single origin and in the skillful employment of words and images lies the expressive potential of the medium.”
― Will Eisner, Comics and Sequential Art

“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes...you're Doing Something.”
― Neil Gaiman

“Philosophy is an amazing tissue of really fine thinking and incredible, puerile mistakes. It's like one of those rubber 'bones' they give dogs to chew, damned good for the mind's teeth, but as food - no bloody good at all.”
― Olaf Stapledon, Odd John

“Education is the movement from darkness to light.”
― Allan Bloom