Little Quotes (page 149)
He is a man, I think," he said, "who cares for nothing but a joke. He is a dangerous man."Lambert laughed in the act of lifting some macaroni to his mouth."Dangerous!" he said. "You don't know little Quin, sir!"Every man is dangerous," said the old man, without moving, "Who cares only for one thing. I was once dangerous myself.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
he fact people think that when you sell a lot of books you are not a serious writer is a great insult to the readership. I get a little angry when people try to say such a thing. There was a review of my last book in one American paper by a professor of Latin American studies and he attacked me personally for the sole reason that I sold a lot of books. That is unforgivable.
Isabel Allende
This philistinism of interpretation is more rife in literature than in any other art. For decades now, literary critics have understood it to be their task to translate the elements of the poem or play or novel or story into something else. Sometimes a writer will be so uneasy before the naked power of his art that he will install within the work itself - albeit with a little shyness, a touch of the good taste of irony - the clear and explicit interpretation of it. Thomas Mann is an example...
Susan Sontag
in Just- spring when the world is mud- luscious the little lame baloonman whistles far and wee and eddieandbill come running from marbles and piracies and it's spring when the world is puddle-wonderful the queer old baloonman whistles far and wee and bettyandisbel come dancing from hop-scotch and jump-rope and it's spring and the goat-footed baloon. Man whistles far and wee
E. E. Cummings
A noiseless patient spider, I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated, Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding, It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself, Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them. And you O my soul where you stand, Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space, Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them, Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold, Till the...
Walt Whitman
I can hear them on the floor below. They will find me in miuntes, or seconds. I scrawl the words on a dirty shred of newsprint. They are nearly illegible, but if he finds them, he will understand:'Not fast enough. Love you love Jamie. Don't go home'Not only do I break their hearts, I steal their refuge, too. I picture our little canyon abandoned, as it must be forever now. Or if not abandoned, a tomb.
Stephenie Meyer
Countless candles dribbled with hot wax, and their flames, like little flags, fluttered in the unchartered currents of air. Thousands of lamps, naked, or shuttered behind coloured glass, burned with their glows of purple, amber, grass-green, blue, blood red and even grey. The walls of Gormenghast were like the walls of paradise or like the walls of an inferno. The colours were devilish or angelical according to the colour of the mind that watched them. They swam, those walls, with the hues of...
Mervyn Peake
I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy, exhorting anyone whom I meet after my manner, and convincing him, saying: O my friend, why do you who are a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of Athens, care so much about laying up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation, and so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all? Are you not ashamed of this?
Socrates
Elevator buttons and morning air, The stranger's silence makes me want to take the stairs, If you were here we'd laugh about theirvacant stares, but right nowmy time is theirs. Seems like there's always someone who disapproves, We'll judge it like they know about me and you, And the verdict comes from those with nothing else to do, the jury's off, But my choice is you, So don't you worry your pretty little mind, People throw rocks at things that shine, And life makes love look hard, The...
Taylor Swift