Taking Quotes (page 148)
Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistance. Talent will not. There is nothing more common then unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not. Unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not. The world if full of educated derelicts. Persistence and Determination alone are Omnipotent.
Joe Strummer
I took a bite of cookie and chewed. “Hmmm,” I said, trying not to spit crumbs. “Clear vanilla notes, too-sweet chocolate chips, distinct flavor of brown sugar. A decent cookie, not spectacular. Still, a good-hearted cookie, not pretentious.” I turned to Fang. “What say you?”
“It’s fine.”
Some people just don’t have what it takes to appreciate a cookie.
James Patterson
The first time I hung out with [David Blaine], he took me to this condemned building, and it had a pizza oven and he crawled into the pizza oven and turned the heat on to 400 degrees or something like that, and he stayed in it for I guess a half hour. He came out, and except for one or two second-degree burns, he was unscathed. You meet a lot of musicians and filmmakers and actors, but it's rare to meet someone who can step inside a pizza oven and take the heat. I was intrigued by that.
Harmony Korine
- Might it console you to know that I expect nothing but torture from her return? That I regard you as a bird of paradise?
She shook her head.
- That my admiration for you is painfully strong?
- I want Van – she cried – and not intangible admiration.
- Intangible? You goose. You my gauge it, you may brush it once very lightly with the knuckles of you gloved hand. I said knuckles. I said once. That will do. I can't kiss you. Not even your burning face. Good-bye, pet. Tell Edmond to take a nap...
Vladimir Nabokov
I felt like praying or something, when I was in bed, but I couldn't do it. I can't always pray when I feel like it. In the first place, I'm sort of an atheist. I like Jesus and all, but I don't care too much for most of the other stuff in the Bible. Take the Disciples, for instance. They annoy the hell out of me, if you want to know the truth. They were all right after Jesus was dead and all, but while He was alive, they were about as much use to Him as a hole in the head. All they did was...
J. D. Salinger
Go back and rid the word of that book. Fill it with words before spring comes, or winter will never end for you. And I will take not only your life for the Adderhead's but your daughter's, too, because she helped you bind the book. Do you undersand, Bluejay"Why two?" asked Mo hoarsely. "How can you ask for two lives in return for one?
Cornelia Funke
Yes, Baby...I've been drinkin'...I shouldn't come by I know...but I found myself in trouble, darlin'...and I have no place else to go. Honey I'm guilty..yes I'm guilty...and I'll be guilty for the rest of my life. How come I never do, what I'm supposed to do. Nothin' I try to do ever turns out right. You know how it is with me baby, I just can't stand myself...it takes a whole lotta medicine, darlin'...for me to pretend that I'm somebody else.
Randy Newman
A lifetime's experience urges me to utter a warning cry: do anything else, take someone's golden retriever for a walk, run away with a saxophone player. Perhaps what's wrong with being a writer is that one can't even say 'good luck'--luck plays no part in the writing of a novel. No happy accidents as with the paint pot or chisel. I don't think you can say anything, really. I've always wanted to juggle and ride a unicycle, but I dare say if I ever asked the advice of an acrobat he would...
J. G. Ballard