Won Quotes (page 77)
They always believe that 'things are in a bad way now,' but they 'haven't any faith in these idealists.' One minute they call Wilson 'just a dreamer, not practical'- a year later they rail at him for making his dreams realities. They haven't clear logical ideas on one single subject except a sturdy, stolid opposition to all change. They don't think uneducated people should be highly paid, but they won't see that if they don't pay the uneducated people their children are going to be uneducated...
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Here’s a free tip,” his father says: “The feds aren’t terribly impressed by infantile egoism. In fact, if Objectivism were at the center of human philosophical discourse rather than the fringes, we wouldn’t be here—the Big Zap would have arrived decades ago. But I’m going to be generous and let you write down the ghost of Ayn Rand as a brain fart. I won’t bring her up again if you don’t.
Cory Doctorow
Teaching Fire a LessonFire is hot. That's what it does. If you get burned by fire, you can be annoyed at yourself, but being angry at fire doesn't do you much good. And trying to teach the fire a lesson so it won't be hot next time is certainly not time well spent. Our inclination is to give fire a pass, because it's not human. But human beings are similar, in that they're not going to change any time soon either.
Seth Godin
He told me how he had first met her during the war and then lost her and won her back, and about their marriage and then about something tragic that had happened to them at St-Raphael about a year ago. This first version that he told me of Zelda . and a French naval aviator falling in love was truly a sad story and I believe it was a true story. Later he told me other versions of it as though trying them for use in a novel, but none was as sad as this first one and I always believed the first...
Ernest Hemingway
The sacrifices they had made persuaded the French people that they alone had won the war, and their government did nothing to correct this impression. The Canadians buried at Vimy Ridge, the British sailors lost at sea, Australians and New Zealanders who had fallen at Gallipoli, the Indian Corps which had frozen at Armentirres in the first winter of the war, Americans killed at Champagne and Argonne, all these were forgotten.
Len Deighton
I didn't start running because somebody asked me to become a runner. Just like I didn't become a novelist because someone asked me to. One day, out of the blue, I wanted to write a novel. And one day, out of the blue, I started to run-simply because I wanted to. I've always done whatever I felt like doing in life. People may try to stop me, and convince me I'm wrong, but I won't change.
Haruki Murakami
Once we're able to see this world as an illusion and a phantasm, then we can see everything that happens to us as a dream, as something that pretended to exist while we were sleeping. And we will become subtly and profoundly indifferent towards all of life's setbacks and calamities. Those who die turned a corner, which is why we've stopped seeing them; those who suffer pass before us like a nightmare, if we feel, or like an unpleasant daydream, if we think. And even our own suffering won't be...
Fernando Pessoa
There must be evidence somewhere, you know. I know you've all worked like beavers, but I'm going to work like a king beaver. and I've got one big advantage over the rest of you."More brains?" suggested Sir Impey, grinning."No - I should hate to suggest that, Biggy. But I do believe in Miss Vane's innocence."Damn it, Wimsey, didn't my eloquent speeches convince you that I was a whole-hearted believer?"Of course they did. I nearly shed tears. Here's old Biggy, I said to myself, going to retire...
Dorothy L. Sayers