The present generation, wearied by its chimerical efforts, relapses into complete indolence. Its condition is that of a man who has only fallen asleep towards morning: first of all come great dreams, then a feeling of laziness, and finally a witty or clever excuse for remaining in bed.

A witty vicar once said that a good marriage is like a pair of scissors with the couple inseparable joined, often moving in opposite directions, yet always destroying anyone who comes between them. The trick is for the blades to learn to work smoothly together, so as not to cut each other.

Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Here's Tom with the Weather.

It almost takes people by surprise when I'm not a big talker. Because I'm known as being sort of a loud mouth. I have a lot to say. But I try to be more thoughtful with my comments or reactions, unless it's something witty or hysterical that I just can't keep myself from blurting or tweeting!

Now it's virtually impossible to write a game that successfully provides challenge and frustration, and that's a shame. We are going to lose something that makes scientists, that makes doers, that makes hard-minded, witty, clever people, and I worry that those people aren't being made these days.

I seem to get into situations that make people laugh, but I don't consider myself that funny of a person. I'm not witty. I'm kind of slow in conversations. I'm not that articulate with jokes. The first time I made stuff and screened it for an audience, I was surprised what people were laughing at.

John you say you met in an elevator. Was the elevator going up at the time, or down? This is very important, for going down in an elevator one always has that sinking feeling and for all I know you may have this confused with love. If you were going up, it is clearly a case of love at first sight.

I think I learned more about writing scores for Broadway by making mix tapes in the '90s than I did in college. You're learning about rise and fall and energy and tempo shifts. You're showing off your taste and your references. You're trying to be witty by - through placement of music you didn't write.

I love the working class, and everyone from it that I've met, and think they're incredible witty, inventive - there's a lot of poetry there. A lot of rough stuff as well. What there is, too, is an awful lot of expressiveness and intelligence and originality down there. And a lot of thwarted intelligence.

The trouble with writing a book about yourself is that you can’t fool around. If you write about someone else, you can stretch the truth from here to Finland. If you write about yourself the slightest deviation makes you realize instantly that there may be honor among thieves, but you are just a dirty liar.

MAKE STATEMENTS also applies to us women: Speak in statements instead of apologetic questions. No one wants to go to a doctor who says, “I’m going to be your surgeon? I’m here to talk to you about your procedure? I was first in my class at Johns Hopkins, so?” Make statements, with your actions and your voice.

Politics and prostitution have to be the only jobs where inexperience is considered a virtue. In what other profession would you brag about not knowing stuff? “I’m not one of those fancy Harvard heart surgeons. I’m just an unlicensed plumber with a dream and I’d like to cut your chest open.” The crowd cheers.

A rollicking good read-THE HUNTER is steampunk with a Wild West feel. Theresa Meyers is an entertaining and witty writer with a fresh, new voice in the genre. THE HUNTER is a fun-filled ride through a world of demons, vampires, and things that go bump in the night, and kept me turning pages until the very end.

I believe in free will. Of those that, like us, are in a privileged situation at least. For you, for me: people who are living in western society, people who are not repressed, who are free. We can choose. The things go largely like you want them to go. You control your own life. Your own will is extremely powerful.

Before we get too depressed about the state of our politics, let's remember our history ..... Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. What is amazing, is that despite all the conflict, our experiment in democracy has worked better than any form of government on earth

I looked at Bria. “How do you put up with him?” Bria started to open her mouth, but Finn piped up instead. “She puts up with me because I happen to be rich, handsome, charming, a witty conversationalist, and exceptionally talented in bed,” he smirked. “Flexible too.” I groaned. “I did not need to hear those last two.

Just play the moment, that's the fun of it. You just play the moment. It's great writing and very clever writing, I think it's witty. And I have those great clothes. You have a great, witty, intelligent script and you look like a million dollars, because we have a great costumer, and it's a pretty good place to begin.

Now it is necessary to court her, and win her, and put on this clean dressing gown, and cut my various nails, and drink something that will kill the millions of germs in my mouth, and say something flattering, and be witty and bonny, and hale and kinky, all just to ease this wrinkle in the groin. It seems a high price.

Yes, there are parallels. The difference is that I just look at [my son] David and think that he's absolutely perfect, whereas you look at the finished book and you think, 'Oh, damn it, I should have changed that.' You're never happy. Whereas with a baby, you're happy. If you've got a perfect baby, you're just grateful.

'Liberal Fascism' is less an expose of left-wing hypocrisy than a chance to exact political revenge. Yet, the title of his book aside, what distinguishes Goldberg from the Sean Hannitys and Michael Savages is a witty intelligence that deals in ideas as well as insults - no mean feat in the nasty world of the culture wars.

For me, a male image that I'm really moved by is somewhere between of Oscar Wilde type of a male: the fop, the long hair, the suits, too witty for his own good, incredibly smart, scathingly funny - all that. But then my other ideal is more like the Buddhist monk - the shaved head, actually someone who sublimates their sexuality.

Poesy is a beauteous damsel, chaste, honourable, discreet, witty, retired, and who keeps herself within the limits of propriety. She is a friend of solitude; fountains entertain her, meadows console her, woods free her from ennui, flowers delight her; in short, she gives pleasure and instruction to all with whom she communicates.

If I freely may discover What should please me in my lover, I would have her fair and witty, Savouring more of court than city; A little proud, but full of pity; Light and humorous in her toying, Oft building hopes, and soon destroying, Long, but sweet in the enjoying; Neither too easy nor to hard; All extremes I would have barr'd.

I got into trouble a lot in school. They say you're a disturbance in class. You're a distraction, they're moving you around. You never really get rewarded in class for being funny. You're a disturbance. But the funny kid is often witty and clever and quick... they finally get a chance to express themselves when they get out of school.

I read the script [of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency] and went, "I haven't read anything this good, in a long time." I thought it was absolutely brilliant. The dialogue is so sparkling, smart and witty. You also have these insane, crazy characters, like energy sucking vampires and holistic assassins. It's all completely weird.

R.G. Belsky's thought-provoking thriller, The Kennedy Connection, introduces us to a smart, witty, and human hero whose quest to find answers about two crimes - one famous, one all but unnoticed - is loaded with tension and full of unexpected twists and turns. I loved The Kennedy Connection, and can't wait for the next Gil Malloy novel.

A secondhand wardrobe hand clothes doesn't make one an artist. Neither do a hair-trigger temper, melancholic nature, propensity for tears, hating your parents, or HIV. I hate to say it - none of these make one an artist. They can help, but just as being gay doesn't make one witty... the only thing that makes one an artist is making art.

The discreet man finds out the talents of those he converses with, and knows how to apply them to proper uses. Accordingly, if we look into particular communities and divisions of men, we may observe that it is the discreet man, not the witty, nor the learned, nor the brave, who guides the conversation, and gives measures to the society.

I would not like to live in a world without cathedrals. I need their beauty and grandeur. I need their imperious silence. I need it against the witless bellowing of the barracks yard and the witty chatter of the yes-men. I want to hear the rustling of the organ, this deluge of ethereal notes. I need it against the shrill farce of marches.

No matter how you care to define it, I do not identify with the local group. Planet, species, race, nation, state, religion, party, union, club, association, neighborhood improvement committee; I have no interest in any of it. I love and treasure individuals as I meet them, I loathe and despise the groups they identify with and belong to.

The thing about 'Fantastic Beasts' is that it's in the wizarding world, in J.K. Rowling's world, but it's not a Harry Potter movie. It takes place 70 years before Harry comes into being, so while we tip our hat and acknowledge in a respectful and witty wink and a nod kind of way to 'Hedwig's Theme,' the score is composed of all new material.

I’d discovered, after a lot of extreme apprehension about what spoons to use, that if you do something incorrect at table with a certain arrogance, as if you knew perfectly well you were doing it properly, you can get away with it and nobody will think you are bad-mannered or poorly brought up. They will think you are original and very witty.

If I indulge myself and surrender to memory, I can still feel the knot of excitement that gripped me as I turned the corner into Rue Mimosas, looking for the house of Rene Magritte. It was August, 1965. I was 33 years old and about to meet the man whose profound and witty surrealist paintings had contradicted my assumptions about photography.

This is what I tell young women who ask me for career advice. People are going to try to trick you. To make you feel that you are in competition with one another. You're up for a promotion. If they go for a woman, it'll be between you and Barbara. Don't be fooled. You're not in competition with other women. You're in competition with everyone.

One woman I interviewed, Amanda Ghost, said, "Let's not bullshit, there are no women at the top of the music business, and that is a serious problem." And I said, "Yes!" And I didn't shy away from saying that. But I still don't want to be in the firing line. I'm not clever or witty or brave enough to get into the political nitty-gritty with it.

The only thing that shocks me is public interest in people who shouldn't be interesting at all, like Jade Goody. We've gone past Andy Warhol and all those clever, arty and witty things that were done and said in the sixties...the fifteen minutes, and so on. Now your celebrities don't have to do anything, they're just voted in. And that shocks me.

I think the single biggest thing that money gave me-and obviously I came from a place where I was a single mother and it really was hand to mouth at one point. It was literally as poor as you can get in Britain without being homeless at one point. If you've ever been there you will never, ever take for granted that you don't need to worry. Never.

When I first read 'Outlander' a few years ago, I was shocked to find that Jamie was the complete package: incredibly smart, incredibly witty, strong but emotionally vulnerable, passionate to a fault - and, well, the Scottish accent doesn't hurt! I actually stopped reading at several points to swoon over something he said... he's really that good.

I like Quentin Tarantino, especially the early films, but I'm a big fan of Billy Wilder and Preston Sturges... you know, people were writing great dialogue back then. It's as if people only have the memory of the last 15 years. So, before Tarantino no one was writing witty dialogue? That's ridiculous. Why do we have to keep referring to Tarantino?

Howard Marks is very intelligent and well read, eloquent, witty, charming. I think it was those qualities that got him through. I was interested to explore that because generally, we perceive criminals as dark, twisted, angry characters. Howard isn't any of those. He was punished for his crime, released from prison, and has lived to tell the tale.

I don't think I'm a witty person. To me, a witty person is a funny person who is also a smart person. My friend David Rakoff, who died a few years ago, he was a witty person. Fran Lebowitz is a witty person. I don't think there are that many witty people around, so you tend to notice them when they do come around. I don't consider myself to be that.

I don't know how you feel, but I'm pretty sick of church people. You know what they ought to do with churches? Tax them. If holy people are so interested in politics, government, and public policy, let them pay the price of admission like everybody else. The Catholic Church alone could wipe out the national debt if all you did was tax their real estate.

Sir, money, money, the most charming of all things; money, which will say more in one moment than the most elegant lover can in years. Perhaps you will say a man is not young; I answer he is rich. He is not genteel, handsome, witty, brave, good-humored, but he is rich, rich, rich, rich, rich -that one word contradicts everything you can say against him.

I’m going to kill myself. I should go to Paris and jump off the Eiffel Tower. I’ll be dead. you know, in fact, if I get the Concorde, I could be dead three hours earlier, which would be perfect. Or wait a minute. It -- with the time change, I could be alive for six hours in New York but dead three hours in Paris. I could get things done, and I could also be dead.

Years ago someone wrote [about me]: 'She characterizes Molly Weasley as a mother who is only at home looking after the children.' I was deeply offended, because I until a year before that had also been such a mother who was at home all the time taking care of her child [...] What has lesser status and is more difficult than raising a child? And what is more important?

I have never been able to understand the complaint that a story is "depressing" because of its subject matter. What depresses me are stories that don't seem to know these things go on, or hide them in resolute chipperness; "witty stories," in which every problem is the occasion for a joke; "upbeat" stories that flog you with transcendence. Please. We're grown ups now.

I feel that life is divided into the horrible and the miserable. That's the two categories. The horrible are like, I don't know, terminal cases, you know, and blind people, crippled. I don't know how they get through life. It's amazing to me. And the miserable is everyone else. So you should be thankful that you're miserable, because that's very lucky, to be miserable.

If you think someone's trying too hard, that's the worst thing they can do. To me, it's just desperate, never funny and never witty. It's kind of really old hat because just being shocking isn't enough. It has to change how you think about something. It has to startle you. It has to make you look at something and reconsider whether you're right. That's the whole point.

We fall in love because we long to escape from ourselves with someone as beautiful, intelligent, and witty as we are ugly, stupid, and dull. But what if such a perfect being should one day turn around and decide they will love us back? We can only be somewhat shocked-how can they be as wonderful as we had hoped when they have the bad taste to approve of someone like us?

Like Hemingway and Faulkner, but in an entirely different mode, Fitzgerald had that singular quality without which a writer is not really a writer at all, and that is a voice, a distinct and identifiable voice. This is really not the same thing as a style; a style can be emulated, a voice cannot, and the witty, rueful, elegaic voice gives his work its bright authenticity.

Share This Page