Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Any form of government, not just Capitalism, is whatever people who have all our money, drunk or sober, sane or insane, decide to do today.
The other American divisions on our flanks managed to pull out: We were obliged to stay and fight. Bayonets aren't much good against tanks.
all that has changed, in my opinion, is that, thanks to television, we can hide a great depression. we may even be hiding a third world war
The people who taught really knew their stuff. My chemistry teacher, Frank Wade, was actually a chemist. I was so lucky in a number of ways.
And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.
It's the writer's job to stage confrontations, so the characters will say surprising and revealing things, and educate and entertain us all.
The Summer had died peacefully in its sleep, and Autumn, as soft-spoken executrix, was locking life up safely until Spring came to claim it.
Take it from somebody who has been around for a million years: When you get right down to it, food is practically the whole story every time.
. . . but the Universe is an awfully big place. There is room enough for an awful lot of people to be right about things and still not agree.
You can't just eat good food. You've got to talk about it too. And you've got to talk about it to somebody who understands that kind of food.
He was seemingly born not only with a gift for language, but with a particularly nasty clock which makes him go crazy every three years or so.
Over the years, people I've met have often asked me what I'm working on, and I've usually replied that the main thing was a book about Dresden.
Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.
I'm convinced that no one can amount to a damn in the arts if he becomes sweetly reasonable, seeing all sides of a picture, forgiving all sins.
Out in the world I go! Muggers! Autograph hounds! Junkies! People with real jobs! Maybe an easy lay! United Nation functionaries and diplomats!
There were creative-writin g teachers long before there were creative-writin g courses, and they were called and continue to be called editors.
One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us.
One good thing about TV is, if you die violently, God forbid, on camera, you will not have died in vain because you will be great entertainment.
I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center.
I left the Middle West for Schenectady because the General Electric Company offered me a more congenial, better paying job than did anyone else.
Do you realize that all great literature is all about what a bummer it is to be a human being? Isn't it such a relief to have somebody say that?
My special situation was that I was the son and grandson of architects. And so I saw building. We were building the city, and that was exciting.
The nicest veterans in Schenectady, I thought, the kindest and funniest ones, the ones who hated war the most, were the ones who'd really fought.
I don't think there would be many jokes, if there weren't constant frustration and fear and so forth. It's a response to bad troubles like crime.
Enjoy your body, use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.
The slaves were simply turned loose without any property. They were easily recognizable. They were black. They were suddenly free to go exploring.
There is a tragic flaw in our precious constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.
...when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist.
A sum of money is a leading character in this tale about people, just as a sum of honey might properly be a leading character in a tale about bees.
I'm a doctor of cowshit, pigshit, and chickenshit.....when you doctors figure out what you want, you'll find me out in the barn shoveling my thesis.
As Marilee and I were dressing, I whispered to her that I loved her with all my heart. What else was there to say? 'You don't. You can't,' she said.
I wonder now what Ernest Hemingways dictionary looked like, since he got along so well with dinky words that anybody can spell and truly understand.
Did you ever admire an empty-headed writer for his or her mastery of the language? No. So your own winning style must begin with ideas in your head.
In the middle of Siberia I guess there's a lake that big [ like the Great Lakes], but there are practically no other lakes that big with fresh water.
It is just an illusion here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone, it is gone forever.
The computer revolution has allowed white-collar criminals to do what the Mob would have loved to do - put a pawnshop and a loan shark in every home!
He had the air of a spy in a melodrama, missing nothing, liking nothing, looking forward to the great day when everything would be turned upside down.
Poverty is a relatively mild disease for even a very flimsy American soul, but uselessness will kill strong and weak souls alike, and kill every time.
The most exquisite pleasure in the practice of medicine comes from nudging a layman in the direction of terror, then bringing him back to safety again.
I don't know about you, but I practice a disorganized religion. I belong to an unholy disorder. We call ourselves "Our Lady of Perpetual Astonishment."
The only thing I ever learned was that some people are lucky and other people aren't and not even a graduate of the Harvard Business School can say why.
Americans... are forever searching for love in forms it never takes, in places it can never be. It must have something to do with the vanished frontier.
I would not be interested in writing if I didn't feel that what I wrote was an act of good citizenship or an attempt, at any rate, to be a good citizen.
Mere opinions, in fact, were as likely to govern people's actions as hard evidence, and were subject to sudden reversals as hard evidence could never be.
My ancient history teacher, Millie Lloyd, should have worn a medal for her performance at the battle of Thermopylae. She was excited and we were excited.
One of the things I'm going to say out there is how grateful I am - and how grateful the world is - for the tremendous gift of the black people, of jazz.
A story has to be a good date, because the reader can stop at any time. Remember, readers are selfish and have no compulsion to be decent about anything.
I love cell phones. I see people so happy and proud, walking around. Gesturing, you know. I'm like Karl Marx, I'm up for anything that makes people happy.
Children get smashed for hours on some strictly limited aspect of the Great Big Everything, the Universe, such as water or snow or mud or colors or rocks.
If it weren't for the message of mercy and pity in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, I wouldn't want to be a human being. I would just as soon be a rattlesnake.