Being Used Quotes (page 52)
Grades are a problem. On the most general level, they're an explicit acknowledgment that what you're doing is insufficiently interesting or rewarding for you to do it on your own. Nobody ever gave you a grade for learning how to play, how to ride a bicycle, or how to kiss. One of the best ways to destroy love for any of these activities would be through the use of grades, and the coercion and judgment they represent. Grades are a cudgel to bludgeon the unwilling into doing what they don't...
Derrick Jensen
The ufo is nothing more than an assertion of herself by the Goddess into history, saying to science and paternalistically governed and driven organizations: You have gone far enough. We are going to turn the world upside down. Your science is going to be shown up for what it is, nothing more than a pleasant metaphor usefully extrapolated into the production of toys for healthy children. That's what science is good for. It is not some meta-theory at whose feet every point of view from...
Terence McKenna
Things have changed, ofcourse. There are counsellors at the ready. Kindness and understanding. Life is harder for some, we're told. Not their fault, even if the blows are purely imgainery. Felt just as keenly by the recipient, or the non recipient, as the case may be. But good use can be made of everything, if you are willing.
Alice Munro
It started embarrassing me. I began to feel like such a nasty little egomaniac." She reflected. "I don't know. It seemed like such poor taste, sort of, to want to act in the first place. I mean all the ego. And I used to hate myself so, when I was in a play, to be backstage after the play was over. All those egos running around feeling terribly charitable and warm. Kissing everybody and wearing their makeup all over the place, and then trying to be horribly natural and friendly when your...
J. D. Salinger
Much stronger boys in her class soon learned that it could be quite unpleasant to fight with that skinny girl. Unlike other girls in the class, she never backed down, and she would not for a second hesitate to use her fists or any weapon at hand to protect herself. She went around with the attitude that she would rather be beaten to death than take any shit.
Steig Larsson
All around us lies what we neither understand nor use. Our capacities, our instincts for this our present sphere are but half developed. Let us confine ourselves to that till the lesson be learned; let us be completely natural; before we trouble ourselves with the supernatural. I never see any of these things but I long to get away and lie under a green tree and let the wind blow on me. There is marvel and charm enough in that for me.
Margaret Fuller
I’m not like the rest of you; I never made any plans about what I’d do when I grew up; I never thought of being married, as you did. I couldn’t seem to imagine myself anything but stupid little Beth, trotting about at home, of no use anywhere but there. I never wanted to go away, and the hard part now is leaving you all. I’m not afraid, but it seems as if I should be homesick for you even in heaven.
Louisa May Alcott
Byron: The luxuries of this place have made me soft. The metal point's gone from my pen, there's nothing left but the feather.
Gutman: That may be true. But what can you do about it?
Byron: Make a departure.
Gutman: From yourself?
Byron: From my present self to myself as I used to be!
Gutman: That's the furthest departure a man could make!
Tennessee Williams
I told her that I can't be doing with the Wonder part of these trips, but she said it should be the icing on the cake... I've never liked wedding cake due to the amount of icing, but then imagine a wedding cake without it; just a dark, stodgy, horrible dry sponge. The icing covers up the mess, and that's how I feel about most of the Wonders. They use them to get people to visit a place that you probably wouldn't think about visiting.
Karl Pilkington
He wished to ignore all but here and now, to be as though he had only just entered the world and were destined to be eternal. Bus his memory survived, even though he never deliberately made use of it; and though the things which had been Isabels were destoryed, he could not guard against chance reminders. Chance had found many gaps in his defenses this morning.
Aldous Huxley