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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 99526a8 | Why don't you give up drinking?" "Because I don't choose. It doesn't matter what a man does if he's ready to take the consequences. Well, I'm ready to take the consequences. You talk glibly of giving up drinking, but it's the only thing I've got left now. What do you think life would be to me without it? Can you understand the happiness I get out of my absinthe? I yearn for it; and when I drink it I savour every drop, and afterwards I feel .. | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| dcbcf36 | A man who is a politician at forty is a statesman at three score and ten. It is at this age, when he would be too old to be a clerk or a gardener or a police-court magistrate, that he is ripe to govern a country. This is not so strange when you reflect that from the earliest times the old have rubbed it into the young that they are wiser than they, and before the young had discovered what nonsense this was they were old too, and it profited.. | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| 7990e6f | The artist gets a peculiar sensation from something he sees, and is impelled to express it and, he doesn't know why, he can only express his feeling by lines and colours. It's like a musician; he'll read a line or two, and a certain combination of notes presents itself to him: he doesn't know why such and such words call forth in him such and such notes; they just do. And I'll tell you another reason why criticism is meaningless: a great pa.. | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| 72b17b5 | I could see that Isabel listened to him with growing exasperation. Larry had no notion that he was driving a dagger in her heart and with his every detached word twisting it in the wound. But when she spoke it was with a faint smile on her lips. | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| 29bf2f4 | I shall beat you,' he said, looking at her. How else should I know you loved me,' she answered. | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| 5a0334d | Even though he had sacrificed her and cared nothing for her, even though he was callous and unkind, she loved him. | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| ca9c93a | It was a pity that with his great qualities, his unselfishness and honor, his intelligence and sensibility, he should be so unlovable. | the-painted-veil unlovable | W. Somerset Maugham | |
| 1968a3a | If the future was so vague it meant perhaps that she was destined never to see it. | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| e242703 | You know, my dear child, that one cannot find peace in work or in pleasure, in the world or in a convent, but only in one's soul. | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| 9340ba2 | He knew that she had been dreaming that night and he knew what her dreams were about. She had forgotten them. He forebode to look at her. It gave him a grim, horrible, and rather uncanny sensation to think that a vivid, lacerating life could go on when one sunk in unconsciousness, a life so real that it could cause tears to stream down the face and twist the mouth in woe, and yet when the sleeper woke left no recollection behind. | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| d7ee5e9 | A sensible person does not read a novel as a task. He reads it as a diversion. He is prepared to interest himself in the characters and is concerned to see how they act in given circumstances, and what happens to them; he sympathizes with their troubles and is gladdened by their joys; he puts himself in their place and, to an extent, lives their lives. Their view of life, their attitude to the great subjects of human speculation, whether st.. | entertainment reading skipping | W. Somerset Maugham | |
| 0caee02 | One idealizes people when they're away, it's true that absence makes the heart grow fonder, and when one sees them again one's often surprised that one saw anything in them at all. | W. Somerset Maugham | ||
| 5e04302 | Above, great constellations wheeled to which our bonfire sparks ascended in their tiny mimicry | Alan Moore | ||
| 59446e9 | The line between life and death is narrow and dark, and a bereaved twin lives closer to it than most. | twins | Diane Setterfield | |
| 0b9c53d | It was sublime--and the sublime is not to be trusted. | Diane Setterfield | ||
| 0536b0c | People remembered. They wept and they grieved. In the spaces between, they were glad that the leeks were doing well this year, envied the bonnet of the neighbor's cousin, relished the fragrance of pork roasting in the kitchen on Sunday. There were those that registered the beauty of a pale moon suspended behind the branches of the elms on the ridge. | Diane Setterfield | ||
| 2d21c7b | I have closed my study door on the world and shut myself away with people of my imagination. For nearly sixty years I have eavesdropped with impunity on the lives of people who do not exist. I have peeped shamelessly into hearts and bathroom closets. I have leaned over shoulders to follow the movements of quills as they write love letters, wills and confessions. I have watched as lovers love, murderers murder and childern play their make-be.. | fiction writing | Diane Setterfield | |
| 11a6bdf | When fear and cold make a statue of you in your bed, don't expect hard-boned and fleshless truth to come running to your aid. What you need are the plump comforts of a story. The soothing, rocking safety of a lie. | stories truth words | Diane Setterfield | |
| 05b15d6 | Vida Winter's appearance was not calculated for concealment. She was an ancient queen, sorceress or goddess. Her stiff figure rose regally out of a profusion of fat purple and red cushions. Draped around her shoulders, the folds of the turquoise-and-green cloth that had cloaked her body did not soften the rigidity of her frame. Her bright copper hair had been arranged into an elaborate confection of twists, curls and coils. Her face, as int.. | Diane Setterfield | ||
| de190b7 | But only when it was too late did they realize the price they must pay for escaping their destiny. Every Happy Ever After was tainted. Fate, at first so amenable, so reasonable, so open to negotiation, ends up by exacting a cruel revenge for happiness. | Diane Setterfield | ||
| 5b987da | It gave me a queer feeling. Yesterday or the day before, while I had been going about my business, quietly and in private, some unknown person -- some -- had gone to the trouble of marking my name on this envelope. | letters | Diane Setterfield | |
| ebd20a3 | DISAPPOINTMENT IS A SLOW POISON. | Richard K. Morgan | ||
| c32d54f | Potential, and the will to deploy it. That's all magic is in the end, you know. | Richard K. Morgan | ||
| 67abfd9 | The city you speak of will be built--will stand in all its undeserved serenity--on the bones of a billion unjust, unremembered deaths. Its foundation stones are mortared with the blood of ten thousand suffering generations that no one there recalls or cares about. Its citizens live out their safe, butterfly lives in covered gardens and brilliant halls without the slightest idea or interest in how they came to have it all. She comes abruptly.. | Richard K. Morgan | ||
| 5bc7e0d | Art should be linked to abstract things - color, line, tone. It is not an instrument to improve social conditions and chase ugliness. Painting is like music and it has to separate from everyday reality. | Irving Stone | ||
| fdd9d4e | Who wants to do good in this world must deny oneself. A man does not live on this Earth to be happy or to be honest only - he has to do great things for humanity, achieve the generosity of the spirit and rise above the banality where most of the people are drowning and wasting their days. | Irving Stone | ||
| bd0615c | When I was a kid, I just read and read. We were lucky enough to have gone to England and had a whole bunch of Penguin Puffins books, like by Noel Langley, which is hilarious. I would love to be able to write a book like that, but I don't know that I have a humorous bone in my body when it comes to writing. by A.A. Milne. I read a lot of old, old fantasy stuff. The Carbonelbooks by Barbara Sleigh. Then when I got a little older I loved Z.. | Franny Billingsley | ||
| 796cedf | She must always remember that: love ebbed and flowed, now rich and shining, now shabby and disconsolate. One must survive the bad in order to realize the good. Therein lay the miracle of love, that it could eternally recreate itself. She must always be dedicated, no matter what the years held, what the hardships or disappointments, the sorrows or tragedies: she must come through them all, through the most violent and frightening storms; for.. | Irving Stone | ||
| d8b2513 | Oh God, it is amazing that men can talk so much about man's creaturely power and goodness, when, if thou didst not hold us back every moment, we should be devils incar nate. | god goodness men | Arthur Bennett | |
| c1942bf | Listen to me. Forget all you saw. Leave it. Take your mind from it. It has nothing to do with you. But use it for experience. Now you know what hurt it brings to women when men come into the world. Remember, and make it up to your Mama and to all women...And another thing let it do. There is no room for pride in any man. There is no room for unkindness. There is not room for wit at the expense of others. All men are born the same, and equal.. | kindness pride wit women | Richard Llewellyn | |
| 32e20f3 | I saw behind me those who had gone, and before me, those who are to come. I looked back and saw my father, and his father, and all our fathers, and in front, to see my son, and his son, and the sons upon sons beyond. And their eyes were my eyes. As I felt, so they had felt, and were to feel, as then, so now, as tomorrow and forever. Then I was not afraid, for I was in a long line that had no beginning, and no end, and the hand of his father.. | family-history family-line forefathers geneology lineage time | Richard Llewellyn | |
| edaacb8 | Jenkins tried to say goodbye, but he could not say goodbye. If he could only weep, he thought, but a robot could not weep. | Clifford D. Simak | ||
| d9f1c7f | It's often said that those who are unduly bothered by gays are latent homosexuals. Isn't it possible that people obsessed with racism are themselves racist. | politics racism | Ann Coulter | |
| 0b001cc | If we believe that we are just animals, without immortal souls, we are already but one step removed from pod people. | Jack Finney | ||
| 6fd20a6 | Would you have references?" "I'm awfully sorry but I haven't. I just arrived in New York, and don't know a soul. Except you." I smiled but she didn't smile back. She stood hesitating, and I said, "It's true that I'm an escaped convict, an active counterfeiter, and occasional murderer. And I howl during the full of the moon. But I'm neat." | humor references tenants | Jack Finney | |
| 94e1bce | Our central problem is not sin and guilt, as it is within the monarchical model. For the Spirit model, our central problem is "estrangement," whose specific meaning of "separated from that to which one belongs" is most appropriate. ... For the monarchical model, sin is primarily disloyalty to the king, seen especially as disobedience to his laws. The metaphors used to express the Spirit model suggest something else. For the metaphor of God .. | love obedience relationship unfaithfulness | Marcus J. Borg | |
| 2e42ded | Even if evolution were true, it wouldn't disprove God. God has performed more spectacular feats than evolution. It's not even a daunting challenge to a belief in God. If you want something that complicates a belief in God, try coming to terms with Michael Moore being one of God's special creatures. | Ann Coulter | ||
| a067a97 | Fox News's Bill O'Reilly refuses to show the Muslim cartoons on The O'Reilly Factor, saying he doesn't want to offend anyone's religion. Someone should tell him those endless interviews with prostitutes from the Bunny Ranch and porn stars aren't high on Christians' list of enjoyable viewing either. | Ann Coulter | ||
| d4cdf6d | Throw in "never read books" and you have the dictionary definition of a liberal. Being completely uninformed is precisely how most liberals stay liberal." | Ann Coulter | ||
| da33a1e | If you could read, you knew shit. | Michael Moore | ||
| 374785b | The Nature of Political Terrorism The suicidal assassins of September 11, 2001, did not "attack America," as political leaders and news media in the United States have tried to maintain; they attacked American foreign policy. Employing the strategy of the weak, they killed innocent bystanders, whose innocence is, of course, no different from that of the civilians killed by American bombs in Iraq, Serbia, Afghanistan, and elsewhere." | Chalmers Johnson | ||
| 6baf7be | Candor is never indiscreet. Truth, which is to say, the reflection of life, is beautiful. | the-palace-of-love | Jack Vance | |
| e2dd198 | Living creatures, if nothing else, have the right to life. It is their only truly precious possession, and the stealing of life is a wicked theft | Jack Vance | ||
| 7e325b7 | I can resolve your perplexity,' said Fianosther. 'Your booth occupies the site of the old gibbet, and has absorbed unlucky essences. But I thought to notice you examining the manner in which the timbers of my booth are joined. You will obtain a better view from within, but first I must shorten the chain of the captive erb which roams the premises during the night.' 'No need,' said Cugel. 'My interest was cursory. | Jack Vance |