Situations Quotes (page 8)
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I cannot countenance the traditional belief that postulates a natural dichotomy between the objectivity of the scientist and the subjectivity of the writer, as if the former were endowed with a 'freedom' and the latter with a 'vocation' equally suitable for spiriting away or sublimating the actual limitations of their situation. What I claim is to live to the full contradiction of my time, which may well make sarcasm the condition of truth.
Roland Barthes
But women are very differently situated with respect to eachother - for they are all rivals (...) Is it then surprising that when the sole ambition of woman centres in beauty, and interest gives vanity additional force, perpetual rivalships should ensue? They are all running the same race, and would rise above the virtue of morals, if they did not view each other with a suspicious and even envious eye.
Mary Wollstonecraft
And so sometimes when you feel strange, when a pang tugs at your heart or it seems like the moment has already happened- or when you look up in the sky and are surprised at the sight of bright Jupiter between clouds, and everything suddenly seems stuffed with a vast significance-consider that some other person somewhere is entangled with you in time, and is trying to give some push to the situation, some little help to make things better. Then put your shoulder to whatever wheel you have at...
Kim Stanley Robinson
I would like to carve my novel in a piece of wood. My characters—I would like to have them heavier, more three-dimensional ... My characters have a profession, have characteristics; you know their age, their family situation, and everything. But I try to make each one of those characters heavy, like a statue, and to be the brother of everybody in the world.
Georges Simenon
What about a man who sits down to wonder
Why life has cheated him?
Thinks about his situation
Hangs his head and cries
Will we pretend, his problems don't exist?
He's reaching out for help-will we selfishly resist?
What about your brother? He's crying
What about your brother? He's dying
What about your brother?
Mitch Albom
To qualify as a Seeker, it was necessary to show a high serendipity factor. In my experimental behaviour pool as a child, I had exhibited such a factor, and had been selected for special training forthwith. I had taken additional courses in Philosophical, Alpha-humerals, Incidental Tetrachotomy, Apunctual Synchronicity, Homoontogenesis, and other subjects, ultimately qualifying as a Prime Esemplastic Seeker. In other words, I put two and two together in situations where other people were not...
Brian Aldiss
and if he could survivethe experience without completely losing heart, then perhapsthere was some hope for him after all. By sticking with thecab, he wasn't trying to make the best of a bad situation. Hewas looking for a way to make things happen, and until he understoodwhat those things were, he wouldn't have the right torelease himself from his bondage.
Paul Auster
When I think of highly plotted novels I think of detective fiction or mystery fiction, the kind of work that always produces a few dead bodies. But these bodies are basically plot points, not worked-out characters. The book's plot either moves inexorably toward a dead body of flows directly from it, and the more artificial the situation the better. Readers can play off their fears by encountering the death experience in a superficial way. A mystery novel localizes the awesome force of the...
Don DeLillo
To the European, it is a characteristic of the American culture that, again and again, one is commanded and ordered to 'be happy.' But happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. One must have a reason to 'be happy.' Once the reason is found, however, one becomes happy automatically. As we see, a human being is not one in pursuit of happiness but rather in search of a reason to become happy, last but not least, through actualizing the potential meaning inherent and dormant in a given...
Viktor E. Frankl