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Quotes by English Authors
"Humor is by far the most significant activity of the human brain."
"The man who cannot believe his senses, and the man who cannot believe anything else, are both insane, but their insanity is proved not by any error in their argument, but by the manifest mistake of their whole lives. They have both locked themselves up in two boxes, painted inside with the sun and stars; they are both unable to get out, the one into the health and happiness of heaven, the other even into the health and happiness of the earth."
"Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead."
"Not content to have the audience in the palm of his hand, he goes one further and clinches his fist."
"Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving."
"Someone told me that each equation I included in the book would halve the sales."
"The plateau of Mexico is 8,000 feet high, and that of Puebla 9,000 feet."
"Machines take me by surprise with great frequency."
"There is a condition worse than blindness, and that is, seeing something that isn't there."
"If we knew each other's secrets, what comforts we should find."
"People go 'You look a lot like Minnie Driver.' Once I said, 'Thanks, Minnie is a great actress.' But, it blew up in my face. This person said, 'Nah, didn't like the last movie she did.'"
"Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That's what's insane about it."
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit."
"On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven a perfect round."
"The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones."
"Though lust do masque in ne'er so strange disguise she's oft found witty, but is never wise."
"The past is what you remember, imagine you remember, convince yourself you remember, or pretend you remember."
"As you get older three things happen. The first is your memory goes, and I can't remember the other two."
"The folly of one man is the fortune of another."
"My dad served in the Air Force as ground crew for several years, and doesn't really talk about it. I know that it's there. I think my main thing about direct or indirect experiences as near to home as it were is the idea of self-sacrifice really."
"A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own."
"But for every hour and a half on stage, you have a five hour long bus ride, waiting for five hours at the airport, five hours of interviews... I know, it's part of the job, but that doesn't imply I have to like it."
"My strength has the strength of ten because my heart is pure."
"For the creation of a masterwork of literature two powers must concur, the power of the man and the power of the moment, and the man is not enough without the moment."
"Theatre can't be done again and again and again and again - it's organic."
"Elves have this superhuman strength, yet they're so graceful. Tolkien created them to be angelic spirits, but I also saw Legolas as something out of the Seven Samurai."
"Every political good carried to the extreme must be productive of evil."
"In prosperity, our friends know us; in adversity, we know our friends."
"I'm all in favour of free expression provided it's kept rigidly under control."
"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."
"I wanted to play piano in restaurants in the south of France. I went there on holiday once and I saw this guy playing in an old tuxedo. He was all disheveled, with a whisky glass on the piano. I thought that was the coolest thing. So what's happened to me with 'Twilight' isn't really what I'd planned."
"The ego is nothing other than the focus of conscious attention."
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