Notable quotes, excerpts, and profound lines.

[Angst]

Originally Posted by Rainmaker

...
There is, also, a Pratchett quote about "half full vs half empty" that it is marvelous!

I have to say, Adams and Pratchett are the funniest mates i've ever read.

There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who, when presented with a glass that is exactly half full, say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!

-Terry Pratchett

[covingtoncat73]

"He rather liked people. It was a major failing in a demon.
Oh, he did his best to make their short lives miserable, because that was his job, but nothing he could think up was half as bad as the stuff they thought up themselves. They seemed to have a talent for it. It was built into the design, somehow. They were born into a world that was against them in a thousand little ways, and then devoted most of their energies to making it worse."

From Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

[BenG]

Samuel Johnson's supposed remarks to an aspiring writer:

"Your book is both good and original. Unfortunately the parts that are original are not good and the parts that are good are not original."

[WT Sharpe]

.....Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
..........— H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells (1866-1946), British novelist, historian. The Outline of History (1920), chapter 41.

[BenG]

“The scene is memory and is therefore non-realistic. Memory takes a lot of poetic license. It omits some details; others are exaggerated, according to the emotional value of the articles it touches, for memory is seated predominantly in the heart.”
― Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie

[kennyc]

Romance is the glamour which turns the dust of everyday life into a golden haze.
- Elinor Glyn

[BenG]

Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.
H. G. Wells, The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman (1914)

[Angst]

"Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten."

--G.K. Chesterton

So sharing a wickedly clever put down of a work of literature right up there with "The covers of this book are too far apart." by Ambrose Bierce . This dialog from The Coast of Utopia by Tom Stoppard that I am currently reading:

Polevoy (to Chaadaev): But no doubt you have read Kukolnik's play?

Chaadev: No . . . I started to read it but after a while I seemed to lose interest, and I was still on the title.

I'll have to remember that for use the next time my local library book club picks a book I reallly can't muster any interest in.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by Hamlet53

So sharing a wickedly clever put down of a work of literature right up there with "The covers of this book are too far apart." by Ambrose Bierce . This dialog from The Coast of Utopia by Tom Stoppard that I am currently reading:


I'll have to remember that for use the next time my local library book club picks a book I reallly can't muster any interest in.

These days, I suppose the equivalent for most of us would be, "This book has too many kilobytes."

[kennyc]

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

- Frank Herbert
The author of Dune was born on this day 10/8 in 1920.

[astrangerhere]

"Some people are born to make great art and others are born to appreciate it. . . . It's a kind of talent in itself, to be an audience, whether you are a spectator in the gallery or you are listening to the voice of the world's greatest soprano. Not everyone can be an artist. There have to be those who witness the art, who love and appreciate what they have been privileged to see."

Ann Patchett, Bel Canto (2001)

[kennyc]

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
- Benjamin Franklin

[dreams]

"There was no such thing as meaningless violence. Every violent act had a meaning for the person who committed it. Only when you dared accept this truth could you hope to turn society in another direction."

- Inspector Kurt Wallander in "The Fifth Woman" by Henning Mankell

[BenG]

“Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.”
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind