Goodness Quotes (page 401)
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In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
Carl Sagan
Most people unfamiliar with the men in a new town might search for love until they find it. I picked out some guy on my second day in LA, who worked at the local bicycle shop, and handed my virginity to him. “You can fill a tire? Sounds good to me. Let’s call it a date.” Needless to say he wasn’t Mr. Right.
Kathy Griffin
The novelist makes his statements by selection, and if he is any good, he selects every word for a reason, every detail for a reason, every incident for a reason, and arranges them in a certain time-sequence for a reason. He demonstrates something that cannot possibly be demonstrated any other way than with a whole novel.
Flannery O'Connor
Whenever you want to cheer yourself up, consider the good qualities of your companions, for example, the energy of one, the modesty of another, the generosity of yet another, and some other quality of another; for nothing cheers the heart as much as the images of excellence reflected in the character of our companions, all brought before us as fully as possible. Therefore, keep these images ready at hand.
Marcus Aurelius
Any historian of warfare knows that it is in good part a comedy of errors and a museum of incompetence; but if for every error and every act of incompetence one can substitute an act of treason, we can see how many points of fascinating interpretation are open to the paranoid imagination: treason in high places can be found at almost every turning -- and in the end the real mystery, for one who reads the primary works of paranoid scholarship, is not how the United States has been brought to...
Richard Hofstadter
Funny business, a woman's career. The things you drop on your way up the ladder-- so you can move faster-- you forget you'll need them when you go back to being a woman. That's one career all females have in common whether we like it or not. Being a woman. Sooner or later, we've got to work at it, no matter what other careers we've had or wanted. And in the last analysis nothing is any good unless you can look up just before dinner-- or turn around in bed-- and there he is. Without that...
Bette Davis
Nobody is fit to rule anybody else. It is not alleged that Mankind is perfect, or that merely through his/her natural goodness (or lack of same) he/she should (or should not) be permitted to rule. Rule as such causes abuse. There are no superpeople nor privileged classes who are above 'imperfect Mankind' and are capable or entitled to rule the rest of us. Submission to slavery means surrender of life.
Albert Meltzer
Howl said, "I think we ought to live happily ever after," and she thought he meant it. Sophie onew that living happily ever after with Howl would make a good deal more eventful than any store made it sound, though she was determined to try. "It should be hair-raising,"added Howl. "And you'll exploit me," Sophie said. "And then you'll cut up all my suits to teach me," added Howl.
Diana Wynne Jones
Like all of us sinners, General Betrishchev was endowed with many virtues and many defects. Both the one and the other were scattered through him in a sort of picturesque disorder. Self-sacrifice, magnanimity in decisive moments, courage, intelligence--and with all that, a generous mixture of self-love, ambition, vanity, petty personal ticklishness, and a good many of those things which a man simply cannot do without.
Nikolai Gogol
Maybe I don't need a relationship after all, she thought. Maybe thinking about these conversations was just as good as having them. She could sit in her Honda in the dark and experience whatever kind of life she wanted. Sometimes you think, Hey, maybe there's something else out there. But there really isn't. This is what being alive feels like, you know? The place doesn't matter. You just live.
Chuck Klosterman