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Quotes by Writer
"I feel that the change, the mutation in consciousness, will occur spontaneously once certain pressures now in operation are removed. I feel that the principal instrument of monopoly and control that prevents expansion of consciousness is the word lines controlling thought, feeling and apparent sensory impressions of the human host."
55
"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public."
55
"We learn more by looking for the answer to a question and not finding it than we do from learning the answer itself."
55
"A babe at the breast is as much pleasure as the bearing is pain."
55
"It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer."
55
"It is commonly supposed that the art of pleasing is a wonderful aid in the pursuit of fortune; but the art of being bored is infinitely more successful."
55
"The house burned an hour before midnight on the last day of April. The wild, distant ringing of the fire bells woke George Hazard. He stumbled through the dark hallway, then upstairs to the mansion tower, and stepped outside into the narrow balcony."
55
"The cells smell is a great feature of French prisons. Ours in No.44 was one of those fine broad-shouldered up and coming young smells, which stand on both feet and look the world in the eye. We became very fond and proud of it."
55
"When you commit to doing something every day it is hard. It seems impossible and you want to quit but if you just hang in there you will see it gets easier. Every day you get a little stronger. Every day you try a little harder. There will be times when you want to quit. Your mind will tell you to stop. You need to persist. You need to continue trying every single day. And one day you will notice how easy it has become to do something that seemed so hard in the beginning."
55
"It is the neglect of timely repair that makes rebuilding necessary."
55
"Closing your eyes isn't going to change anything. Nothing's going to disappear just because you can't see what's going on. In fact, things will even be worse the next time you open your eyes."
55
"Facts or opinions which are to pass through the hands of so many, to be misconceived by folly in one, and ignorance in another, can hardly have much truth left."
55
"That's how stories happen - with a turning point, an unexpected twist. There's only one kind of happiness, but misfortune comes in all shapes and sizes. It's like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story."
55
"A city like London is sociable in a sense that there are people gathering in bars and restaurants, concerts and lectures. Yet you can partake of all these experiences and never say hello to anyone new. And one of the things that all religions do is take groups of strangers into a space and say it is OK to talk to each other."
55
"They dig holes from time to time,' the Colonel explains. 'It is probably for them what chess is for me. It has no special meaning, does not transport them anywhere. All of us dig at our own pure holes. We have nothing to achieve by our activities, nowhere to get to. Is there not something marvelous about this? We hurt no one and no one gets hurt. No victory, no defeat."
55
"There are times when it is best to be content with what one has, so as not to lose everything."
54
"Corruption is worse than prostitution. The latter might endanger the morals of an individual, the former invariably endangers the morals of the entire country."
54
"Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get."
54
"Nuclear weapons and TV have simply intensified the consequences of our tendencies, upped the stakes."
54
"The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers."
54
"I hate the outdoors. To me the outdoors is where the car is."
54
"Action is the real measure of intelligence."
54
"When, in the third book, we do learn the identity of the Blue Rose murderer, the information comes in a muted, nearly off-hand manner, and the man has died long before."
54
"An involuntary return to the point of departure is, without doubt, the most disturbing of all journeys."
54
"You are also caught with the fact that man is a creature who walks in two worlds and traces upon the walls of his cave the wonders and the nightmare experiences of his spiritual pilgrimage."
54
"This story ["The Depressed Person"] was the most painful thing I ever wrote. It's about narcissism, which is a part of depression. The character has traits of myself. I really lost friends while writing on that story, I became ugly and unhappy and just yelled at people. The cruel thing with depression is that it's such a self-centered illness - Dostoevsky shows that pretty good in his "Notes from Underground". The depression is painful, you're sapped/consumed by yourself; the worse the depression, the more you just think about yourself and the stranger and repellent you appear to others."
54
"By the way, the secret of speaking French is confidence. Whether you are right or wrong, you don't hesitate."
54
"Perhaps the most irrational fashion act of all was the male habit for 150 years of wearing wigs. Samuel Pepys, as with so many things, was in the vanguard, noting with some apprehension the purchase of a wig in 1663 when wigs were not yet common. It was such a novelty that he feared people would laugh at him in church; he was greatly relieved, and a little proud, to find that they did not. He also worried, not unreasonably, that the hair of wigs might come from plague victims. Perhaps nothing says more about the power of fashion than that Pepys continued wearing wigs even while wondering if they might kill him."
54
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