Matters Quotes (page 111)
The problem was you had to keep choosing between one evil or another, and no matter what you chose, they sliced a little bit more off you, until there was nothing left. At the age of 25 most people were finished. A whole god-damned nation of assholes driving automobiles, eating, having babies, doing everything in the worst way possible, like voting for the presidential candidates who reminded them most of themselves
Charles Bukowski
When problems arise, you will usually find two types of people: whiners and winners. Whiners obstruct progress; they spend hours complaining about this point or that, without offering positive solutions. Winners acknowledge the existence of the problem, but they try to offer practical ideas that can help resolve the matter in a manner that is satisfactory to both parties.
George Foreman
That human life is but a first installment of the serial soul and that one's individual secret is not lost in the process of earthly dissolution, becomes something more than an optimistic conjecture, and even more than a matter of religious faith, when we remember that only commonsense rules immortality out.
Vladimir Nabokov
If an enthusiastic, ardent, and ambitous man marry a wife on whose name there is a stain, which, though it originate in no fault of hers, may be visited by cold and sordid people upon her, and upon his children also: and, in exact proportion to his success in the world, be cast in his teeth, and made the subject of sneers against him: he may-no matter how generous and good his nature- one day repent of the connection he formed in early life; and she may have the pain and torture of knowing...
Charles Dickens
Progo,' Meg asked. 'You memorized the names of all the stars - how many are there?'
How many? Great heavens, earthling. I haven't the faintest idea.'
But you said your last assignment was to memorize the names of all of them.'
I did. All the stars in all the galaxies. And that's a great many.'
But how many?'
What difference does it make? I know their names. I don't know how many there are. It's their names that matter.
Madeleine L'Engle