Literature Quotes - Page 34

I had a quick grasp of the secret to sanity, it had become the ability to hold the maximum of impossible combinations in one's mind.

Emotion is messy, contradictory... and true.

A little bit of attention can go a long way.

Princes and governments are far more dangerous than other elements within society.

Because our choices are largely based on survival. But if life is eternal, life is not a question.

Free societies are societies in which the right of dissent is protected.

I have the fault of being a little more sincere than is proper.

There is also this benefit in brag, that the speaker is unconsciously expressing his own ideal. Humor him by all means, draw it all out, and hold him to it.

Lust and greed are more gullible than innocence.

We are prepared for insults, but compliments leave us baffled.

Let us not be too particular; it is better to have old secondhand diamonds than none at all.

Now the novels that are read are purely entertainment – well done, very polished, with a very effective technique – but not literature, just entertainment.

At first, I only laughed at myself. Then I noticed that life itself is amusing. I've been in a generally good mood ever since.

I see journalists as the manual workers, the laborers of the word. Journalism can only be literature when it is passionate.

Life without literature is a life reduced to penury.

During the many centuries that magic, here on this planet, was presumed to have worked, there were at least as many theories as to how magic worked as there were cultures and religions.

There's naught, no doubt, so much the spirit calms as rum and true religion.

The Grateful Dead are our religion. This is a religion that doesn't pay homage to the God that all the other religions pay homage to.

Where there is politics or economics, there is no morality.

Modesty is not only an ornament, but also a guard to virtue.

People who've had very unhappy childhoods are pretty good at inventing themselves. If nobody invents you for yourself, nothing is left but to invent yourself for others.

The Public - a thing I cannot help looking upon as an enemy, and which I cannot address without feelings of hostility.

Literature has been the salvation of the damned, literature has inspired and guided lovers, routed despair and can perhaps in this case save the world.

A taste for literature and a turn for business, united in the same person, never fails to make a great man.

A person places themselves on a level with the ones they praise.