Ifs And Quotes (page 452)
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No time spent with a book is ever entirely wasted, even if the experience is not a happy one: there’s always something to be learned. It’s just that, every now and again, you hit a patch of reading that makes you feel as if you’re pootling about… But what can you do about it? We don’t choose to waste our reading time; it just happens. The books let us down.
Nick Hornby
The student is half afraid to meet one of the great philosophers face to face. He feels himself inadequate and thinks he will not understand him. But if he only knew, the great man, just because of his greatness, is much more intelligible than his modern commentator. The simplest student will be able to understand, if not all, yet a very great deal of what Plato said; but hardly anyone can understand some modern books on Platonism.
C. S. Lewis
Did you ever want to set someone's head on fire, just to see what it looked like? Did you ever stand in the street and think to yourself, I could make that nun go blind just by giving her a kiss? Did you ever lay out plans for stitching babies and stray cats into a Perfect New Human? Did you ever stand naked surrounded by people who want your gleaming sperm, squirting frankincense, soma and testosterone from every pore? If so, then you're the bastard who stole my drugs Friday night. And I'll...
Warren Ellis
What is more, sir," his lordship went on, "I believe I have a good idea of what you mean by 'professionalism.' It appears to mean getting one's way by cheating and manipulating. It appears to mean serving the dictates of greed and advantage rather than those of goodness and the desire to see justice prevail in the world. If that is the 'professionalism' you refer to, sir, I don't care much for it and have no wish to acquire it.
Kazuo Ishiguro
The principle tragedy of my life is, like all tragedies, an irony of Destiny. I reject real life as if it were a condemnation; I reject dreams as if they were an ignoble liberation. […]
After the end of the stars uselessly whitened in the morning sky and the breeze became less cold in the barely orange tinged in the yellow of the light on the scattered low clouds, I, who hadn’t slept, could finally, slowly raise my body, exhausted from nothing from the bed from which I had thought the...
Fernando Pessoa
In perpetrating a revolution, there are two requirements: someone or something to revolt against and someone to actually show up and do the revolting. Dress is usually casual and both parties may be flexible about time and place, but if either faction fails to attend, the whole enterprise is likely to come off badly.
Woody Allen
Coincidence obeys no laws and if it does we don't know what they are. Coincidence, if you'll permit me the simile, is like the manifestation of God at every moment on our planet. A senseless God making senseless gestures at his senseless creatures. In that hurricane, in that osseous implosion, we find communion.
Roberto Bolano
What does Christianity mean today? National Socialism is a religion. All we lack is a religious genius capable of uprooting outmoded religious practices and putting new ones in their place. We lack traditions and ritual. One day soon National Socialism will be the religion of all Germans. My Party is my church, and I believe I serve the Lord best if I do his will, and liberate my oppressed people from the fetters of slavery. That is my gospel.
Joseph Goebbels
IAGO
Can’t help it? Nonsense! What we are is up to us. Our bodies are like gardens and our willpower is like the gardener. Depending on what we plant—weeds or lettuce, or one kind of herb rather than a variety, the garden will either be barren and useless, or rich and productive. If we didn’t have rational minds to counterbalance our emotions and desires, our bodily urges would take over. We’d end up in ridiculous situations. Thankfully, we have reason to cool our raging lusts. In my opinion,...
William Shakespeare
More striking still, it appeared that, if the process of concentration goes on at the same rate, at the end of another century we shall have all American industry controlled by a dozen corporations and run by perhaps a hundred men. Put plainly, we are steering a steady course toward economic oligarchy, if we are not there already.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
My name,' said the mattress, 'is Zem. We could discuss the weather a little.' Marvin paused again in his weary circular pplod. 'The dew,' he observed, 'has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning.' He resumed his walk, as if inspired by this conversational outburst to fresh heights of gloom and despondency. He plodded tenaciously. If he had had teeth he would have gritted them at this point. He hadn't. He didn't. The mere plod said it all. The mattress flolloped around.
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