Certain Quotes (page 35)
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But even with my minimal amount of fame, there are certain perks. Recently, I was at a movie premier, and at the party after the movie, Meryl Streep was loose, walking around the room like a normal person. Absolutely nothing was preventing me from lunging toward her and shrieking "Dingoes ate my baby! Dingoes ate my baby!
Augusten Burroughs
There was a tale he had read once, long ago, as a small boy: the story of a traveler who had slipped down a cliff, with man-eating tigers above him and a lethal fall below him, who managed to stop his fall halfway down the side of the cliff, holding on for dear life. There was a clump of strawberries beside him, and certain death above him and below. What should he do? went the question. And the reply was, Eat the strawberries.The story had never made sense to him as a boy. It did now.
Neil Gaiman
With much interest I sat watching him. Savage though he was, and hideously marred about the face--at least to my taste--his countenance yet had something in it which was by no means disagreeable. You cannot hide the soul. Through all his unearthly tattooings, I thought I saw the traces of a simple honest heart; and in his large, deep eyes, fiery black and bold, there seemed tokens of a spirit that would dare a thousand devils. And besides all this, there was a certain lofty bearing about the...
Herman Melville
At certain periods it becomes the dearest ambition of a man to keep a faithful record of his performances in a book; and he dashes at this work with an enthusiasm that imposes on him the notion that keeping a journal is the veriest pastime in the world, and the pleasantest. But, if he only lives twenty-one days, he will find out that only those rare natures that are made up of pluck, endurance, devotion to duty for duty's sake, and invincible determination, may hope to venture upon so...
Mark Twain
Here's a taxidermist's," Bill said. "Want to buy anything? Nice stuffed dog?" "Come on," I said. "You're pie-eyed."Pretty nice stuffed dogs," Bill said. "Certainly brighten up your flat."Come on." "Just one stuffed dog. I can take 'em or leave 'em alone. But listen, Jake. Just one stuffed dog."Come on."Mean everything in the world to you after you bought it. Simple exchange of values. You give them money. They give you a stuffed dog."We'll get one on the way back."All right. Have it your...
Ernest Hemingway
I lost the conviction that lights would always turn green for me, the pleasant certainty that those rather passive virtues which had won me approval as a child automatically guaranteed me not only Phi Beta Kappa keys but happiness, honor, and the love of a good man; lost a certain touching faith in the totem power of good manners, clean hair, and a proven competence on the Stanford-Binet scale. To such doubtful amulets had my self-respect been pinned, and I faced myself that day with the...
Joan Didion
I have always thought that in revolutions, especially democratic revolutions, madmen, not those so called by courtesy, but genuine madmen, have played a very considerable political part. One thing is certain, and that is that a condition of semi-madness is not unbecoming at such times, and often even leads to success.
Alexis de Tocqueville