Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Can the synthesis of man and machine ever be stable, or will the purely organic component become such a hindrance that it has to be discarded?
SETI is probably the most important quest of our time , and it amazes me that governments and corporations are not supporting it sufficiently.
He found it both sad and fascinating that only through an artificial universe of video images could she establish contact with the real world.
Since women are better at producing babies, presumably Nature has given men some talent to compensate. But for the moment I can't think of it.
I really don't have a lot in common with the people who attend the Comic Con. It's like assuming that all people who write prose are the same.
People writing about me have said that I've influenced a lot of people, and there are some artists who have credited me with influencing them.
The Colombians are good-tempered people. They are used to waiting for buses that are late, used to riding buses and trains that do not arrive.
I wrote 'Hereafter' quickly and without mapping it out too much or being too schematic. As an exercise, I think that was incredibly important.
Teachers often make the mistake of thinking they're the boss of the class; they're not. The boss of the class is sitting down there somewhere.
I think we often write because we feel a loneliness, and people read for the same reason, and then they come away feeling a little less lonely.
All the things she planned to feel, the way she planned to look and seem, the appropriate things she planned to say. None of them came to pass.
I love to talk with children. I try to visit schools but it's hard for me to travel when I'm trying to write. Some authors are able to do both.
Footprints in the snow have been unfailing provokers of sentiment ever since snow was first a white wonder in this drab-coloured world of ours.
I was afraid of marriage. I had the impression married life would take up all my time. I saw myself drowning in visits and parties. No freedom.
I defend both the freedom of expression and society's right to counter it. I must pay the price for differing. It is the natural way of things.
The hard necessity of bringing the judge on the bench down into the dock has been the peculiar responsibility of the writer in all ages of man.
My father had an invisible job outside of the house; I didn't know what he did. But my kids were privy to the ups and downs of a writer's life.
I have been in the witness protection program for the last three weeks. I campaigned for Ralph Nader. I'm now living as a woman in Mississippi.
There was a moment in between, a moment flung free in the midst of the transition, when he made contact. That was the moment she would dwell on.
It is difficult to make a reputation, but is even more difficult seriously to mar a reputation once properly made --- so faithful is the public.
I am not what is called a civilized man, professor. I have done with society for reasons that seem good to me. Therefore I do not obey its laws.
It's extremely seldom that anybody wants me to change what I've written about them. Generally I portray them in a good light, if they're friends
It's the stuff that happens right in front of your face when there's no routine and everything is unexpected. That's what I want to write about.
Our sanity depends essentially on a narrowness of vision--the ability to select the elements vital to survival, while ignoring the great truths.
Kids should read whatever they want to read. So I'm hoping that just like 15-year-olds read "Summer Sisters," I'm hoping that they'll read this.
For years I felt that being respectable meant maintaining a sinister complacency, and the disreputable freedom I sought helped make me a writer.
It attracts all types. But I definitely call the comedy world the land of misfit toys. Looking around the room at my friends, that's what I see.
I am like a falling star who has finally found her place next to another in a lovely constellation, where we will sparkle in the heavens forever.
I'm not going anywhere without you. We're swimming to China together. And if the worst happens, I'm dying with you before I'm living without you.
Daniel?" "Yes." "Did you ever think we were meant not to be together?" "No. We are meant to be together. We are just meant to want it very badly.
What does education do, what does it have to offer, when deprived of its necessary partner, the future, and face instead with - no future at all?
It's extremely seldom that anybody wants me to change what I've written about them. Generally I portray them in a good light, if they're friends.
The only thing that works with writing is that you care so passionately about it yourself, that you make someone else care passionately about it.
As a rule, indeed, grown-up people are fairly correct on matters of fact; it is in the higher gift of imagination that they are so sadly to seek.
Banks and donors and charities claimed to have had successes in Mozambique. I suspected they invented these successes to justify their existence.
Cooking requires confident guesswork and improvisation-- experimentation and substitution, dealing with failure and uncertainty in a creative way
I wouldn't say that I'm a travel novelist, but rather a novelist who travels - and who uses travel as a background for finding stories of places.
The place that interests me most, actually, is the United States. I've realized that I haven't traveled much in the States. There's a lot to see.
I don't think I'm an unhappy person. It's just an intensity, not a depressive thing. It's just not having enough layers of skin. It's exhausting.
As Jane Austen might have put it: It is a truth universally acknowledged that young protagonists in search of adventure must ditch their parents.
Almost every sinful action ever committed can be traced back to a selfish motive. It is a trait we hate in other people but justify in ourselves.
I start crying when certain things come up, certain memories, certain feelings, and it's intense. But I think it's good for me - and therapeutic.
Cartoons are the best stuff on TV. 'Wonder Showzen,' 'Aqua Teen,' 'SpongeBob,' and, of course, 'South Park' - one of the funniest shows ever made.
So sad! This is the saddest part when you lose someone you love- that person keeps changing. And later you wonder, Is this the same person I lost?
But I don't have anything left inside of me to figure out where I fit in or what I want. If I want anything, it's to know what's possible to want.
I thought I was clever enough to write as well as these people and I didn't realize that there is something called originality and your own voice.
Wise guy, he not go against wind. In Chinese we say, Come from South, blow with wind -- poom! -- North will follow. Strongest wind cannot be seen.
Polly was pretty good at dieting, all right, but she was beginning to wonder whether you ever lost the parts of your self that you wanted to lose.
The parents exist to teach the child, but also they must learn what the child has to teach them; and the child has a very great deal to teach them
Comparing the Brooklyn that I know with Manhattan is like comparing a comfortable and complacent duenna to her more brilliant and neurotic sister.