Then Quotes (page 197)
-
-
-
Well, it's a choice like any other, even though it's stupid to believe we can control the world and to allow ourselves to be lulled into a false sense of security that leaves us totally unprepared for life; because then, when you least expect it, an earthquake throws up a range of mountains, a bolt of lightning kills a tree that was preparing for its summer rebirth, or a hunting accident puts paid to the life of an honest man.
Paulo Coelho
But down through the centuries, man has developed a mind that separates him from the world of reality, the world of natural laws. This mind tries too hard, wears itself out, and ends up weak and sloppy. Such a mind, even if of high intelligence, is inefficient. It drives down the street in a fast-moving car and thinks its at the store, going over a grocery list. Then it wonders why accidents occur.
Benjamin Hoff
But once you fully apprehend the vacuity of a life without struggle you are equipped with the basic means of salvation. Once you know this is true, that the heart of man, his body and his brain, are forged in a white-hot furnace for the purpose of conflict (the struggle of creation) and that with the conflict removed, the man is a sword cutting daisies, that not privation but luxury is the wolf at the door and that the fangs of this wolf are all the little vanities and laxities that Success...
Tennessee Williams
I love you, I know this must come as something of a surprise, since all I’ve ever done is scorn you and degrade you and taunt you, but I have loved you for several hours now, and every second, more. I thought an hour ago that I loved you more than any woman has ever loved a man, but a half hour after that I knew that what I felt before was nothing compared to what I felt then. But ten minutes after that, I understood that my previous love was a puddle compared to the high seas before a storm.
William Goldman
Why must you have this map?" she asks. "Even with a map, you will never leave this Town."She brushes away the bread crumbs that have fallen on her lap and looks toward the Pool."Do you want to leave here?" she asks again. I shake my head. Do I mean this as a "no", or is it only that I do not know?"I just want to find out about the Town," I say. "The lay of the land, the history, the people, ... I want to know who made the rules, what has sway over us. I want even to know what lies beyond."She...
Haruki Murakami
It happened, you see, after the war, when I saw people making money while the others were dying in the trenches. You saw it and you couldn't do anything about it. Then later I was at the League of Nations, and there I saw the light. I really saw the world was ruled by the Golden Calf, by Mammon! Oh, no kidding! Implacably. Social consciousness certainly came to me late.
Louis-Ferdinand Celine
(Joan,1941) She wrote me a letter asking,"How can I read it?,Its so hard." I told her to start at the beginning and read as far as you can get until you're lost. Then start again at the beginning and keep working through until you can understand the whole book. And thats what she did
Richard P. Feynman
I would like to visit the factory that makes train horns, and ask them how they are able to arrive at that chord of eternal mournfulness. Is it deliberately sad? Are the horns saying, Be careful, stay away from this train or it will run you over and then people will grieve, and their grief will be as the inconsolable wail of this horn through the night? The out-of-tuneness of the triad is part of its beauty.
Nicholson Baker
When I lie waking all alone, Recounting what I have ill done, My thoughts on me then tyrannize, Fear and sorrow me surprise, Whether I tarry still or go, Methinks the time moves very slow, All my griefs to this are jolly, Naught so sad as melancholy.'Tis my sole plague to be alone, I am a beast, a monster grown, I will no light nor company, I find it now my misery. The scene is turn'd, my joys are gone, Fear, discontent, and sorrows come. All my griefs to this are folly, Naught so fierce as...
Robert Burton
I dream that I have found us both again,
With spring so many strangers' lives away,
And we, so free,
Out walking by the sea,
With someone else's paper words to say....
They took us at the gates of green return,
Too lost by then to stop, and ask them why-
Do children meet again?
Does any trace remain,
Along the superhighways of July?
Thomas Pynchon
Life's existential tasks have lost the interest of reality; illusion cannot build a sanctuary for the divine growth of inwardness which ripens to decisions. One man is curious about another, every one is undecided, and their way of escape is to say that some one must come who will do something--and then they will bet on him.
Soren Kierkegaard