Absolute Quotes (page 22)
Cram them full of non-combustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they feel stuffed, but absolutely 'brilliant' with information. Then they’ll feel they’re thinking, they’ll get a sense of motion without moving. And they’ll be happy, because facts of that sort don’t change. Don’t give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy.
Ray Bradbury
Existence is beyond the power of words. To define: Terms may be used. But are none of them absolute. In the beginning of heaven and earth there were no words, Words came out of the womb of matter; And whether a man dispassionately. Sees to the core of life. Or passionately. Sees the surface, The core and the surface. Are essentially the same, Words making them seem different. Only to express appearance. If name be needed, wonder names them both: From wonder into wonder. Existence opens.
Lao Tzu
Other generations perceived a plethora of swords hanging over their heads. But generally what they feared were shadows, for neither they nor their gods could actually end the world. Fate might reap an individual, a family, or even a whole nation, but not the entire world. Not then. We, in the mid-twenty-first century, are the first to look up at a sword we ourselves forged, and know, with absolute certainty, it is real...
David Brin
When, over the following months, Minta Randall found that Eustace apparently reciprocated her profoundest and most secret feelings, she thought she had never lived before, or knew what life could hold, or what absolute power one heart could exert upon another. She perceived no trace, fossil, or echo of this wild sensation anywhere around her, and concluded that she and Eustace had invented it together, which would be, she thought, just like them.
Annie Dillard
Belgarath and Garion effortlessly hurdled over the driftwood and loped off into the fog. "It's going to be a wet day," Garion noted soundlessly as he ran alongside the great silver wolf."Your fur won't melt."I know, but my paws get cold when they're wet."I'll have Durnik make you some little booties."That would be absolutely ridiculous, Grandfather," Garion said indignantly.
David Eddings
Whoever controls the volume of money in our country is absolute master of allindustry and commerce...when you realize that the entire system is very easilycontrolled, one way or another, by a few powerful men at the top, you will nothave to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate.
James A. Garfield
How can a novelist achieve atonement when, with her absolute power of deciding outcomes, she is also God? There is no one, no entity or higher form that she can appeal to, or be reconciled with, or that can forgive her. There is nothing outside her. In her imagination she has set the limits and the terms. No atonement for God, or novelists, even if they are atheists. It was always an impossible task, and that was precisely the point. The attempt was all.
Ian Mcewan