Made Quotes (page 52)
she took her hand and raised her brush. For a moment it stayed trembling in a painful but exciting ecstacy in the air. Where to begin?--that was the question at what point to make the first mark? One line placed on the canvas committed her to innumerable risks, to frequent and irrevocable decisions. All that in idea seemed simple became in practice immediately complex; as the waves shape themselves symmetrically from the cliff top, but to the swimmer among them are divided by steep gulfs, and...
Virginia Woolf
Under the Mountain dark and tall. The King has come unto his hall! His foe is dead, the Worm of Dread, And ever so his foes shall fall. The sword is sharp, the spear is long, The arrow swift, the Gate is strong; The heart is bold that looks on gold; The dwarves no more shall suffer wrong. The dwarves of yore made mighty spells, While hammers fells like ringing bells. In places deep, where dark things sleep, In hollow halls beneath the fells.-from The Hobbit (Dwarves Battle Song)
J. R. R. Tolkien
The Constitution. . . illustrates the complexity of the American system: that it serves the interests of a wealthy elite, but also does enough for small property owners, for middle-income mechanics and farmers, to build a broad base of support. The slightly prosperous people who make up this base of support are buffers against the blacks, the Indians, the very poor whites. They enable the elite to keep control with a minimum of coercion, a maximum of law--all made palatable by the fanfare of...
Howard Zinn
...The editors of (i)Life(i) rejected Kersz'a photographs when he arrived in the United States in 1937 because, they said, his images 'spoke too much'; they made us reflect, suggested a meaning? a different meaning from the literal one. Ultimately, Photography is subversive not when it frightens, repels, or even stigmatizes, but when it is (i)pensive(i), when it thinks.
Roland Barthes
You've sort of made up for it tonight,' said Harry. 'Getting the sword. Finishing off the Horcux. Saving my life.' 'That makes me sound a lot cooler than I was,' Ron mumbled.'Stuff like that always sounds cooler than it really was,' said Harry. 'I've been trying to tell you that for years.'Simultaneously they walked forwards and hugged, Harry gripping the still sopping back of Ron's jacket.
J. K. Rowling
Historical fact: people stopped being human in 1913. That was the year Henry Ford put his cars on rollers and made his workers adopt the speed of the assembly line. At first, workers rebelled. They quit in droves, unable to accustom their bodies to the new pace of the age. Since then, however, the adaptation has been passed down: we've all inherited it to some degree, so that we plug right into joysticks and remotes, to repetitive motions of a hundred kinds.
Jeffrey Eugenides
If you like, you can all think of it as my gift to you. I never had much else to give. You can get on and play your own lives as you like, while I just keep moving. This story of it all can be another gift. I’ve made an arrangement with Adam. When I’ve finished, which is almost now, I’m going to put the bundle of papers in the garden of the Old Fort, before I move on. Adam’s going to get them and take them to his father. And if you read it and don’t believe it’s real, so much the better. It...
Diana Wynne Jones