Bell Virula > Bell's Quotes

“You begin saving the world by saving one man at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics.”
― Charles Bukowski, Women

“I wanted her to know just how much I loved her while also letting her know that she bore not one particle of blame for not loving me back.
But I wouldn’t say that. It was rosepetals I wanted to throw, not a poison dart.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“This,” I said pleasantly, “is known as getting it on.”
― Richard Bachman, Rage

“Mother used to say that however miserable one is, there’s always something to be thankful for. And each morning, when the sky brightened and light began to flood my cell, I agreed with her.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“This faulty light fitting at the front door with the dangerously flickering bulb looks rather festive. Who says I don't do Christmas?”
― R.D. Ronald

“I understand that fear is my friend, but not always. Never turn your back on Fear. It should always be in front of you, like a thing that might have to be killed. My father taught me that, along with a few other things that have kept my life interesting.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century

“Analysing novels meant ripping oot their soul and it destroyed my enjoyment of them. Ah couldnae allow masel tae be trained tae thing that way. Only by refusing tae study literature was ah able tae maintain ma passion for it.”
― Irvine Welsh, Skagboys

“A single feat of daring can alter the whole conception of what is possible.”
― Graham Greene, The Heart of the Matter

“I call to mind flatness and dampness; and then all is madness - the madness of a memory which busies itself among forbidden things.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Pit and the Pendulum

“I'd take a look at my own self in the mirror and wonder how it was possible that anybody could manage such an enormous thing as being what he was.”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

“Sometimes it takes more courage not to let yourself see. Sometimes knowledge is damaging - not enlightenment but enleadenment. If one recognizes the difference and prepares oneself - it is extraordinarily brave. Because when it comes to certain human miseries, the only witnesses should be the pavement and maybe the trees.

(Gareth van Meer)”
― Marisha Pessl

“You are a slow learner, Winston."
"How can I help it? How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four."
"Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning; and consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics. He is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do. For myself, as no doubt for most of my friends, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom. The supporters of this system claimed that it embodied the meaning - the Christian meaning, they insisted - of the world. There was one admirably simple method of confuting these people and justifying ourselves in our erotic revolt: we would deny that the world had any meaning whatever.”
― Aldous Huxley, Ends and Means

“I learned to pick up each piece, one at a time, from my pile of potential matches and try to fit it from any angle into the socket, then discard it and move on. Each failure is meaningless. It's not me, it's the pieces, and I have to, absolutely must, try each and every piece every possible way until I find one that fits. They aren't failures, they're steps, small bits of progress.”
― Craig Clevenger, Dermaphoria

“There's a guy, Anatole Broyard, of the N. Y. Times Book Review, who's still chasing Kerouac's corpse with a stiletto.”
― Allen Ginsberg

“Dear Jesus, do something.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire

“Defenestration,” I said. “‘The act of throwing someone through a window.”
― Scott Heim, Mysterious Skin: A Novel

“One can tell a child everything, anything. I have often been struck by the fact that parents know their children so little. They should not conceal so much from them. How well even little children understand that their parents conceal things from them, because they consider them too young to understand! Children are capable of giving advice in the most important matters. How can one deceive these dear little birds, when they look at one so sweetly and confidingly? I call them birds because there is nothing in the world better than birds!”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot