Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Modernism: the books are as hard to understand as life itself.
For some, bottles of liquor gleam like the towers of Eldorado.
To gain a reputation for virtue, grieve over those you injure.
Dogs often remind us of the human, ail-too human. Cats, never.
Giving out crowns to everyone will not make a nation of kings.
Masks are what they seem to be; not so the faces beneath them.
The ironies in the commonplace are my inspiration and delight.
The bathroom scale knows nothing of extenuating circumstances.
Habit keeps my life going, with occasional pushes from desire.
Sophistication knows the score, but is powerless to change it.
Sentimentality is the respect the cold-hearted pay to feeling.
Enjoy the insult as you deliver it, before you learn its cost.
Clouds of flavors and savors float around the thing-in-itself.
What I eat turns into my body. What I read turns into my mind.
I alternate between reading cook books and reading diet books.
Writing is a refuge from unhappiness, but has its own sorrows.
As children, our protests availed little. As adults, the same.
When Medusa looks in the mirror, she sees the Lady of Sorrows.
Rules that are never violated cease to be recognized as Rules.
Often, when I want to consult my impulses, I cannot find them.
Violence stops thought. Hence its popularity as a pain-killer.
An imprudent enemy is less dangerous than an imprudent friend.
We are prepared for insults, but compliments leave us baffled.
Stutters and snorts are meaningful but not usually referential.
Alone, I am drunk on my thoughts; in company, I am sober again.
Saying "I love you" makes a demand, but creates no obligations.
Most of my decisions in life seem absent-minded but inevitable.
After a moment of shrinking back, we domesticate the grotesque.
A free spirit must be able to surmount anxiety time after time.
When money disappears, we soon understand the power of absence.
In psychoanalysis, only the fee is exactly what it seems to be.
Self-sacrifice usually contains an unspoken demand for payment.
The modest youth somehow knows just what to do for the cameras.
I keep renaming my motives, but continue doing the same things.
Manly men and womanly women are still here but feeling nervous.
If I play hard to get, soon the phone stops ringing altogether.
There is a line between a definite maybe and an indefinite yes.
I know that I am very much like everybody else, but not really.
The imaginary audience for my life is growing small and silent.
Shameless: Punish me for my desire if you will. It burns still.
We often mistake the original part of ourselves for a weakness.
Style disdains comfort and is always ready to sacrifice virtue.
I feel disappointed, but I don't remember just what I expected.
Lies save trouble now, but may return in thunder and lightning.
People are not the way they are primarily in order to annoy me.
Full of troubles, the mind is still the only Garden of Delight.
Now defined as art, the totem has lost cult, taboo, and custom.
Even in writing an annual report, the unconscious plays a role.
The discontented believe that their regrets are about the past.
Flattery and insults raise the same question: What do you want?