Knowing Things Quotes (page 90)
The will of God is sweet tonight, altogether ‘good and acceptable and perfect.’ The considerate love of the Lord Jesus for us seems such a kind thing now. I know it has always been so, but somehow I didn’t see how wise it was when it didn’t seem kind… Remind me of this when I cannot regard His love as considerate some time.
Jim Elliot
That's what's so stupid about the whole magic thing, you know. You spend twenty years learning the spell that makes nude virgins appear in your bedroom, and then you're so poisoned by quicksilver fumes and half-blind from reading old grimoires that you can't remember what happens next.
Terry Prachett
Can anything be imagined so ridiculous, that this miserable and wretched creature [man], who is not so much as master of himself, but subject to the injuries of all things, should call himself master and emperor of the world, of which he has not power to know the least part, much less to command the whole?
Michel de Montaigne
and half of learning to play is learning what not to playand she's learning the spaces she leaves have their own things to sayand she's trying to sing just enough so that the air around her movesand make music like mercy that gives what it is and has nothing to proveshe crawls out on a limb and begins to build her homeand it's enough just to look around and to know that she's not aloneup up up up up up up points the spire of the steeplebut god's work isn't done by godit's done by people
Ani DiFranco
Money is the root of all evil.' Then we hear, 'A fool and his money are soon parted.' What are they talking about? If money is so evil, shouldn't it be, 'A wise man and his money are soon parted'? And another thing, how does a fool get money in the first place? I know some fools who have a lot of money, but they won't tell me how they got it, and I won't tell them.
George Burns
Do you know the only value life has is what life puts upon itself? And it is of course overestimated, for it is of necessity prejudiced in its own favour. Take that man I had aloft. He held on as if he were a precious thing, a treasure beyond diamonds of rubies. To you? No. To me? Not at all. To himself? Yes. But I do not accept his estimate. He sadly overrates himself. There is plenty more life demanding to be born. Had he fallen and dripped his brains upon the deck like honey from the comb,...
Jack London
C.-C.: My dear Arnold, we all hope that you have before you a distinguished political career. You can't learn too soon that the most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency. ARNOLD: But supposing it doesn't come off? Women are incalculable. C.-C.: Nonsense! Men are romantic. A woman will always sacrifice herself if you give her the opportunity. It is her favourite form of self-indulgence. ARNOLD: I never know whether you're a humorist or a cynic,...
W. Somerset Maugham
I had more positive views. Which made me feel that although I hadn't been taught to assimilate, a person perhaps assimilated without knowing it. I was doing it now. You did it alone, and not with other or for them. And assimilating possibly wasn't so hard and risky and didn't need to be permanent. This state of mind conferred another freedom on me and was like starting life over, or as I've already said, becoming someone else -- but someone who was not stalled but moving, which was the nature...
Richard Ford
And that's your fantasy? That I come into your house naked and have sex with you?"After that, you tell me that you have sent Eric on his way, that you want to be mine forever, and that to share my life you will permit me to make you a vampire like me."The silence now was thick, and the fun had drained out of the fantasy. Then Bill added, "You know what I'd say when you told me this? I'd tell you I would never do such a thing. Because I love you.
Charlaine Harris
"You see, I do a little in this way myself," he explained; "here is my most prized piece." He took from his pocket a snuffbox, which looked to be of eighteenth-century workmanship. Inside the lid was an enamel picture of Leda and the Swan, and when a knob was pushed to and fro the swan thrust itself between Leda's legs, which jerked in mechanical ecstasy. A nasty toy, I thought, but Urky doted on it. "We single gentlemen like to have these things," he said. "What do you do, Darcourt? Of...
Robertson Davies