Actuality Quotes (page 81)
The statistical method shows the facts in the light of the ideal average but does not give us a picture of their empirical reality. While reflecting an indisputable aspect of reality, it can falsify the actual truth in a most misleading way. This is particularly true of theories which are based on statistics. The distinctive thing about real facts, however, is their individuality. Not to put too fine a point on it, once could say that the real picture consists of nothing but exceptions to the...
Carl Jung
Sebastian looked alarmed at her stiffness, but Eric took it in and chuckled. "Riding astride would have been easier," he said. "You put twice the strain on yourself with that unnatural position."Oh, I know," she replied with a grimace. "Every muscle told me about it this morning, and I actually DID have a hot soak before I went to bed."Sebastian looked blankly at the two of them for a moment, then blinked and looked relieved. "Oh, you're saddle sore! I'm sorry--
Mercedes Lackey
Dr. Gregory goes much further; he actually recommends dissimulation, and advises an innocent girl to give the lie to her feelings, and not dance with spirit, when gaiety of would make her feet eloquent without making her gestures immodest. In the name of truth and common sense, why should not one woman acknowledge that she can take more exercise then another?
Mary Wollstonecraft
He knew that any given thing on the face of the earth could reveal the history of all things. One could open a book to any page, or look at a person's hand; one could turn a card, or watch the flight of birds... whatever the thing observed, one could find a connection with his experience of the moment. Actually, it wasn't that those things, in themselves, revaled anything at all; it was just that people, looking at what was ocurring around them, could find a means of penetration to the Soul...
Paulo Coelho
An unliterary man may be defined as one who reads books once only...The re-reader is looking not for actual surprises (which can come only once) but for a certain surprisingness. The point has often been misunderstood. . .In the only sense that matters the surprise works as well the twentieth time as the first. It is the quality of unexpectedness, not the fact that delights us.
C. S. Lewis
Right at this moment, I only want silence. I believe that the end of life is silence in the love people have for you. I've actually been running through what people have said about the end. Religion says that the end is one thing, because it serves their purpose. But great thinkers alike haven't always agreed. Shakespeare knew how to say it better than anyone else. Hamlet says 'The rest is silence.' And when you think of the noises of everyday life, you realize how particularly desirable that...
Vincent Price
So, when I write a piece of fiction I select my characters and settings and so on because they have a bearing, at least to me, on the old unanswerable philosophical questions. And as I spin out the action, I’m always very concerned with springing discoveries -- actual philosophical discoveries. But at the same time I’m concerned -- and finally more concerned -- with what the discoveries do to the character who makes them, and to the people around him. It’s that that makes me not really a...
John Gardner
What does it mean that I am in this endless universe, thinking that I'm a man sitting under the stars on the terrace of the earth, but actually empty and awake throughout the emptiness and awakedness of everything? It means that I'm empty and awake, that I know I'm empty and awake, and that there's no difference between me and anything else.
Jack Kerouac
What are the years from twenty to forty? Fettered and bound by personal and emotional relationships. That's bound to be. That's living. But later there's a new stage. You can think, observe life, discover something about other people and the truth about yourself. Life becomes real--significant. You see it as a whole. Not just one scene--the scene you, as an actor, are playing. No man or woman is actually himself (or herself) till after forty-five. That's when individuality has a...
Agatha Christie
Upon the whole, therefore, she found, what has been sometimes found before, that an even to which she had looked forward with impatient desire, did not in taking place, bring all the satisfaction she had promised herself. It was consequently necessary to name some other period for the commencement of actual felicity; to have some other point on which her wishes and hopes might be fixed, and by again enjoying the pleasure of anticipation, console herself for the present, and prepare for...
Jane Austen
Come on, people. Doesn't anybody remember how to take a big old knife, whack open a pumpkin, scrape out the seeds, and bake it? We can carve a face onto it, but can't draw and quarter it? Are we not a nation known worldwide for our cultural zest for blowing up flesh, on movie and video screens and/or armed conflict? Are we in actual fact too squeamish to stab a large knife into a pumpkin? Wait till our enemies find out.
Barbara Kingsolver
He was trying to be everywhere at once," the redhead told the human. "Trying to make sure Alice had nothing to do, actually." He shook his head as he looked at the tiny blackhaired girl. "Alice doesn‘t need anyone‘s help." The vampire named Alice shot a glare at Jasper. "Overprotective fool," she said in her clear soprano voice. Jasper met her stare with a half smile, seeming to forget for a second that I existed.
Stephenie Meyer