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Quotes by Novelist
"What 'jazz' means to me is the worst kind of working conditions, the worst in cultural prejudice. The term 'jazz' has come to mean the abuse and exploitation of black musicians."
65
"Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon."
65
"Because you know that's all I needs, all I wants, is for you to try to run, to turn your back on me and run. I know you aint going to. Because all you got to beat is me. I got to beat old Carothers. Get your pistol.""No," the other said. "Go home. Get out of here. Tonight I will come to your house-----""After this?" Lucas said. "Me and you, in the same country, breathing the same air even? No matter what you could say, what you could even prove so I would have to believe it, after this? Get your pistol."
65
"Anyone who lives in her own world is crazy. Like schizophrenics, psychopaths, maniacs. I mean people who are different from others.'Like you?'On the other hand,' Zedka continued, pretending not to have heard the remark, 'you have Einstein, saying that there was no time or space, just a combination of the two. Or Columbus, insisting that on the other side of the world lay not an abyss but a continent. Or Edmund Hillary, convinced that a man could reach the top of Everest. Or the Beatles, who created an entirely different sort of music and dressed like people from another time. Those people--and thousands of others--all lived in their own world."
65
"In the realm of power, Christianity has operated with an unmitigated arrogance and cruelty-necessarily, since a religion ordinarily imposes on those who have discovered the true faith the spiritual duty of liberating the infidels. This particular true faith, moreover, is more deeply concerned about the soul than it is about the body, to which fact the flesh (and the corpses) of countless infidels bears witness."
65
"Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source."
65
"The young doctor was disappointed: he had never had th eopportunity to study the effects of gold cyanide on a cadaver. Dr. Juvenal Urbino had been surprised that he had not seen him at the Medical School, but he understood in an instant from the young man's blush and Andean accent that he was probably a recent arrival to the city. He said: "There is bound to be someone driven mad by love who will give you the chance one of these days." And only after he said it did he realize that among the countless suicides he could remeber, this was the first with cyanide that had not been caused by the sufferings of love. Then something changed in the tone of his voice. "And when you do find one, observe with care," he said to the intern: "they almost always have crystals in their heart."
65
"Did you say the stars were worlds, Tess?""Yes.""All like ours?""I don't know, but I think so. They sometimes seem to be like the apples on our stubbard-tree. Most of them splendid and sound - a few blighted.""Which do we live on - a splendid one or a blighted one?""A blighted one."
65
"I was wrong when I said that I did not regret the past. I do regret it; I weep for the past love which can never return. Who is to blame, I do not know. Love remains, but not the old love; its place remains, but it is all wasted away and has lost all strength and substance; recollections are still left, and gratitude; but..."
65
"Charles Wallace and the unicorn moved through the time-spinning reaches of a far glazy, and he realized that the galaxy itself was part of a mighty orchestra, and each star and planet within the galaxy added its own instrument to the music of the spheres. As long as the ancient harmonies were sung, the universe would not entirely lose its joy."
65
"When one does something, one must do it wholly and well. Those bastard existences where you sell suet all day and write poetry at night are made for mediocre minds " like those horses that are equally good for saddle and carriage, the worst kind, that can neither jump a ditch nor pull a plow."
65
"Then all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago."
65
"On days when it was too hot, they did not leave their room. The dazzling brilliance from outside plastered bars of light between the slats of the blinds. Not a sound in the village. Down below, on the sidewalk, no one. This spreading silence increased the tranquility of things. In the distance, the caulkers' hammers tamped the hulls, and a heavy breeze brought the smell of tar."
65
"Because I don't live in either my past or my future. I'm interested only in the present. If you can concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man. You'll see that there is life in the desert, that there are stars in the heavens, and that tribesmen fight because they are part of the human race. Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we're living right now."
65
"Is Virgin you trying to fathom me."
64
"The only difference between a rut and a grave are the dimensions."
64
"Percy: "You asked Poseidon for" me? Tyson: "For a friend, young cyclopes grow up alone on the streets, learns to make things out of scraps. Learn to survive." Percy: "But that's so cruel! Tyson: "Makes us appreciate blessings, not be greedy and mean and fat like Polyphemus. But I got scared. Monsters chased me so much, clawed me sometimes--" Percy: "The scars on your back? Tyson: "Sphinx on Seventy-second Street. Big Bully. I prayed to Daddy for help. Soon the people at Meriwether found me. Mey you. Biggest blessing ever. Sorry I said Poseidon was mean. He sent me a brother."
64
"Creativity is merely a plus name for regular activity. Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or better."
64
"There are only two families in the world, my old grandmother used to say, the Haves and the Have-nots."
64
"Slavery is no more sinful, by the Christian code, than it is sinful to wear a whole coat, while another is in tatters, to eat a better meal than a neighbor, or otherwise to enjoy ease and plenty, while our fellow creatures are suffering and in want."
64
"If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it."
64
"On a high mountain I stood, And cried the name of Ali, Lion of God.O Ali, Lion of God, King of Men, Bring joy to our sorrowful hearts."
64
"My decision to start a new one is just that, a decision, since I never get inspirations."
64
"It is such a secret place, the land of tears."
64
"An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's."
64
"I believe that I am not responsible for the meaningfulness or meaninglessness of life, but that I am responsible for what I do with the life I've got."
64
"I've seen public opinion shift like the wind and put out the very fire it lighted."
64
"One always writes comedy at the moment of deepest hysteria."
64
"Muchos años después, frente al pelotón de fusilamiento, el coronel Aureliano Buendía había de recordar aquella tarde remota en que su padre lo llevó a conocer el hielo. Macondo era entonces una aldea de veinte casas de barro y cañabrava construidas a la orilla de un río de aguas diáfanas que se precipitaban por un lecho de piedras pulidas, blancas y enormes como huevos prehistóricos. El mundo era tan reciente, que muchas cosas carecían de nombre, y para mencionarlas había que señalarlas con el dedo."
64
"By imposing too great a responsibility, or rather, all responsibility, on yourself, you crush yourself."
64
"In a woman's womb another chance to makethe world a better place."
64
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