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Quotes by Novelist
"In the face of technology, everything becomes a little atavistic."
53
"It doesn't really matter who said it - it's so obviously true. Bevore you can write anything, you have to notice something."
53
"We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men."
53
"Only the brave know how to forgive... a coward never forgave; it is not in his nature."
53
"All human excellence is but comparative. There may be persons who excel us, as much as we fancy we excel the meanest."
53
"They have provided a system which for terse comprehensiveness surpasses Justinian's Pandects and the By-laws of the Chinese Society for the Suppression of Meddling with other People's Business."
53
"Alone within the vast tribunal that is the stormy sky, the pilot is in contention for his mailbags with three elemental divinities: mountain, sea and storm."
53
"Smith, you don't realize it's a privilege to practice giving presents to others.' The way he did it was charming; there was nothing glittery and Christmasy about it, but almost sad, and sometimes his gifts were old beat-up things but they had the charm of usefulness and sadness of his giving."
53
"Renewed hope followed renewed effort: It shone like the former for some weeks, then, like it, faded, flickered: Not a line, not a word reached me. When half a year wasted in vain expectancy, my hope died out, and then I felt dark indeed."
53
"To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's."
53
"They trespassed upon my thoughts. They were intruders whose knowledge of life was to me an irritating pretense, because I felt so sure they could not possibly know the things I knew. Their bearing, which was simply the bearing of commonplace individuals going about their business in the assurance of perfect safety, was offensive to me like the outrageous flauntings of folly in the face of a danger it is unable to comprehend. I had no particular desire to enlighten them, but I had some difficulty in restraining myself from laughing in their faces, so full of stupid importance."
53
"Believing in progress does not mean believing that any progress has yet been made."
53
"There is no hope or joy except in human relations."
53
"The real pleasure in writing this, for me, was discovering how little you need."
53
"I worked, and I was excited about the next time the five of us had a joint class. When that time came, Silvia started by asking us what we were passionate about. I scribbled down my family, music, and then, as if the word demanded to be written, justice."
53
"All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind."
53
"I hold another creed, which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom mention, but in which I delight, and to which I cling, for it extends hope to all; it makes eternity a rest - a mighty home, not a terror and an abyss. Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can so sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last; with this creed, revenge never worries my heart, degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice never crushes me too low. I live in calm, looking to the end."
53
"I think it's hard to write about children and to have an idea of innocence."
53
"I'm back in these regions of fumbling dark uncertain creation, but it's my one and only world, and I'll do the best I can."
53
"Cynicism can blind one to subtler virtues."
53
"The man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out. He will be wiser but less sure, happier but less self-satisfied, humbler in acknowledging his ignorance yet better equipped to understand the relationship of words to things, of systematic reasoning to the unfathomable mystery which it tries, forever vainly, to comprehend."
53
"My own experience has been that the tools I need for my trade are paper, tobacco, food, and a little whisky."
53
"To realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation."
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"And this is the only immortality you and i may share, my Lolita."
53
"A simple trick from the backyard astronomer: if you are having trouble seeing something, look slightly away from it. The most light-sensitive parts of our eyes (those we need to see dim objects) are on the edges of the region we normally use for focusing. Eating animals has an invisible quality. Thinking about dogs, and their relationship to the animals we eat, is one way of looking askance and making something invisible visible."
53
"So she thoroughly taught him that one cannot take pleasure without giving pleasure, and that every gesture, every caress, every touch, every glance, every last bit of the body has its secret, which brings happiness to the person who knows how to wake it. She taught him that after a celebration of love the lovers should not part without admiring each other, without being conquered or having conquered, so that neither is bleak or glutted or has the bad feeling of being used or misused."
53
"Profound desire, true desire is the desire to be close to someone."
53
"Have you taken leave of your senses."
53
"You must write for children in the same way as you do for adults, only better."
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