Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Suspense combines curiosity with fear and pulls them up a rising slope.
The writer is always courted by invitations from the all-too- familiar.
The aphorism sometimes casts off cynicism and expresses strong feeling.
Change is upsetting. Repetition is tedious. Three cheers for variation!
Sometimes I dread loneliness more than bores. Other times, the reverse.
My parents wanted me to solace them for sorrows they denied having had.
The aim of literary ambition is to demonstrate one's greatness of soul.
Drugs bring us to to the gates of paradise, then keep us from entering.
Small successes are still successes; great failures are still failures.
My mother's mild-eyed sadness looks at me from the eyes of those I love.
A moment of eloquence enthralls us. An hour's worth leaves us stupefied.
At sixty, I would like to give my future back its vistas of uncertainty.
Many have never felt strong, but everyone knows what it is to feel weak.
Something is sticking out its tongue at me from the corner of my mirror.
After ages of bombast, the rhetoric of virtue has become ironic and shy.
Vicarious living is only slightly less impossible than vicarious eating.
The same old thing--even if it's champagne--is still the same old thing.
Self-realization sounds good. But what if only an enraged dwarf emerges?
One who can find lemons sweet and grapes sour is ready for Dame Fortune.
Man invented the gods. Then the gods went off on their own, but not far.
Boredom, not the will, is the mother of change. Necessity is the father.
The life of pleasure breeds boredom. The life of duty breeds resentment.
Many have attempted unnatural acts, but Nature has always shown the way.
The telephone gives us the happiness of being together yet safely apart.
Call on literary convention, and it will gladly tell your story for you.
A work of art is an echo chamber which repeats what people say about it.
We may eat dinner together, but everyone puts the food in his own mouth.
The desire to create literature leads to frights, grunts, and coy looks.
Go ahead and voice your criticisms, but don't expect to be invited back.
Pursuit of the approximate can conclude. Not so pursuit of the absolute.
Avant-garde art jousts with propriety, but takes care never to unseat it.
Seeing my malevolent face in the mirror, my benevolent soul shrinks back.
The doctrine of the immortality of the soul has more threat than comfort.
Compassion brings us to a stop, and for a moment we rise above ourselves.
The trouble with the young people today is that it is they who are young.
Alone, lonely people talk to themselves. In company, they often continue.
Children enjoy inflicting pain until unhappiness teaches them tenderness.
The negative always wins at last, but I like it none the better for that.
Even in the midst of love-making, writers are working on the description.
I must like my profession, since I can hardly distinguish myself from it.
The perfect pleasure: money is neither fattening nor immoral nor illegal.
Rule of science: only exclude purpose, and Nature will reveal her causes.
The laughter of the aphorism is sometimes triumphant, but seldom carefree.
All history and art are against us, but we still expect happiness in love.
Undecidability is a useful category even in dealing with restaurant menus.
The routines of tourism are even more monotonous than those of daily life.
Faith no doubt moves mountains, but not necessarily to where we want them.
The grand style is available now only in old poems, museums, and parodies.
If I had found the words I was looking for, I would not have read so much.
Wallace Stevens: the Platonist celebrates endless change, but with regret.