Know Me Quotes (page 125)
Oho, now I know what you are. You are an advocate of Useful Knowledge.... Well, allow me to introduce myself to you as an advocate of Ornamental Knowledge. You like the mind to be a neat machine, equipped to work efficiently, if narrowly, and with no extra bits or useless parts. I like the mind to be a dustbin of scraps of brilliant fabric, odd gems, worthless but fascinating curiosities, tinsel, quaint bits of carving, and a reasonable amount of healthy dirt. Shake the machine and it goes...
Robertson Davies
Great pals we've always been. In fact there was a time when I had an idea I was in love with Cynthia. However, it blew over. A dashed pretty and lively and attractive girl, mind you, but full of ideals and all that. I may be wronging her, but I have an idea that she's the sort of girl who would want a fellow to carve out a career and what not. I know I've heard her speak favourably of Napoleon. So what with one thing and another the jolly old frenzy sort of petered out, and now we're just...
P. G. Wodehouse
For that moment I touched an emotion beyond the common range of men, yet one the poor brutes we dominate know only too well. I felt as a rabbit might feel returning to his burrow, and suddenly confronted by the work of a dozen busy navvies digging the foundations of a house. I felt the first inkling of a thing that presently grew quite clear in my mind, that oppressed me for many days, a sense of dethronement, a persuasion that I was no longer master, but an animal among animals; under the...
H. G. Wells
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
Max—you have a bigger mission than finding the flock's parents. Focus on helping the whole world,
not just your friends.
I held my wings steady, coasting for a long, long way on a warm updraft. It was like floating on a
cloud, the best feeling you can imagine. I wish you could try it with me. Maybe next time.
You know, Voice, I thought finally, my friends are my world.
James Patterson
The opportunity of a lifetime is to pick yourself. Quit waiting to get picked; quit waiting for someone to give you permission; quit waiting for someone to say you are officially qualified and pick yourself. It doesn’t mean you have to be an entrepreneur or a freelancer, but it does mean you stand up and say, ‘I have something to say. I know how to do something. I’m doing it. If you want me to do it with you, raise your hand.
Seth Godin
But in the end I understood this language. I understood it, I understand it, all wrong perhaps. That is not what matters. It told me to write the report. Does this mean I am freer now than I was? I do not know. I shall learn. Then I went back into the house and wrote, It is midnight. The rain is beating on the windows. It was not midnight. It was not raining.
Samuel Beckett
It's a fine thing for a man and a woman to have a common interest," Daniel began in a pontificating voice. "Makes a strong marriage."I can't tell you how many times Daniel's assisted me in surgery," Anna put in mildly. He huffed. "I've washed a few bloody knees in my time with these three."And there was the time Rena broke Alan's nose," Caine put in."It was supoosed to be yours," his sister reminded him."That didn't make it hurt any less." Alan shifted his eyes to his sister while his wife...
Nora Roberts
She'd done the first, the second and the third, when her father came in. He stopped in the doorway, held up a hand. "Wait, don't tell me. I know you. The face is very familiar." He narrowed his eyes as she rolled hers. "I'm sure I've seen you before, somewhere. Tibet? Mazetlan? At the dinner table a year or two ago."It hasn't been more than a week." She reached up as he bent to kiss her. "But I've mised you, too. I've been swamped here."So I've heard." He flipped open the magazine to her...
Nora Roberts
No, give me the past. It doesn’t change; it’s all there in black and white, and you can get to know about it comfortably and decorously and, above all, privately - by reading. … As reading becomes more and more habitual and widespread, an ever-increasing number of people will discover that books will give them all the pleasures of social life and none of its intolerable tedium.
Aldous Huxley