Just Quotes (page 460)
Well, we were always going to fail that one," said Ron gloomily as they ascended the marble staircase. He had just made Harry feel rather better by telling him how he told the examiner in detail about the ugly man with a wart on his nose in the crystal ball, only to look up and realize he had been describing the examiner's reflection.
J. K. Rowling
I watched the enormity of the clouds for several minutes. What I wanted to experience in the water, I realized, was how life of the reef was layered and intertwined. I now had many individual pieces at hand: named images, nouns. How were they related? What were the verbs? Which syntaxes were indigenous to the place? I asked a dozen knowledgeable people. No one was inclined to elaborate- or they didn’t know. “Did you see the octopus?” Someone shouted after the dive. Yes, I thought, but who...
Barry Lopez
A bunch of different people appear, and they’ve got their own situations and reasons and excuses, and each one is pursuing his or her own brand of justice or happiness. As a result, nobody can do anything. Obviously. I mean, it’s basically impossible for everybody’s justice to prevail or everybody’s happiness to triumph, so chaos takes over. And then what do you think happens? Simple – a god appears in the end and starts directing traffic. “You go over there, and you come here, and you get...
Haruki Murakami
I don't know everything," she said. Her eyes were filling with tears. "If I knew everything, would I have gotten into this mess in the first place? I certainly don't know why you assume I'm going to drop everything and fly off to Antigua with you. I don't even know what I'm doing her. I don't know why we haven't talked in two weeks. And the worst part is, if I do go to Antigua with you, I don't know if I'll ever want to come back. I'm pretty sure I'll want to stay there with you forever." She...
Meg Cabot
Neutrinos, they are very small.
They have no charge and have no mass
And do not interact at all.
The earth is just a silly ball
To them, through which they simply pass,
Like dustmaids down a drafty hall
Or photons through a sheet of glass.
They snub the most exquisite gas,
Ignore the most substantial wall,
Cold shoulder steel and sounding brass,
Insult the stallion in his stall,
And, scorning barriers of class,
Infiltrate you and me. Like tall
And painless guillotines they fall
Down through...
John Updike
The sense of wishing to be known only for what one really is is like putting on an old, easy, comfortable garment. You are no longer afraid of anybody or anything. You say to yourself, 'Here I am --- just so ugly, dull, poor, beautiful, rich, interesting, amusing, ridiculous -- take me or leave me.' And how absolutely beautiful it is to be doing only what lies within your own capabilities and is part of your own nature. It is like a great burden rolled off a man's back when he comes to want...
David Grayson