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Quotes by Writer
"You stop revisiting memories when you outgrow the people you made them with."
37
"Many a man who thinks to found a home discovers that he has merely opened a tavern for his friends."
37
"The task of a writer consists of being able to make something out of an idea."
37
"But democracy isn't a state of perfection. It has to be improved, and that means constant vigilance."
37
"What we truly and earnestly aspire to be, that in some sense we are. The mere aspiration, by changing the frame of the mind, for the moment realizes itself."
37
"I love to watch cities wake up, and Paris wakes up more abruptly, more startlingly, than any place I know."
37
"Women ought to have representatives, instead of being arbitrarily governed without any direct share allowed them in the deliberations of government."
37
"One should never be sexually involved with anyone one genuinely cares for. A sexual relationship guarantees a loss."
Loss,
37
"For most men, life is a search for the proper manila envelope in which to get themselves filed."
37
"The beggar is the only person in the universe not obliged to study appearance."
37
"If I tell you I am upset about everything that's going on around me, you will probably ask me why, half listening, half wandering away in your own train of thoughts...If I tell you I am happy, you will probably not bother to know why, congratulating me and forgetting..I should rather tell you I am fine, satisfied, you will probably tell me your own issues then, for which I will be all ears"
37
"'Tis the set of the sail that decides the goal, and not the storm of life."
37
"Notice how they'll accept anything except a man who stands alone. They recognize him at once...There's a special, insidious kind of hatred for him. They forgive criminals. They admire dictators. Crime and violence are a tie. A form of mutual dependence. They need ties. They've got to force their miserable little personalities on every single person they meet. The independent man kills them-because they don't exist within him and that's the only form of existence they know. Notice the malignant kind of resentment against any idea that propounds independence. Notice the malice toward an independent man."
37
"Few enjoy noisy overcrowded functions. But they are a gesture of goodwill on the part of host or hostess, and also on the part of guests who submit to them."
37
"There are four ways, and only four ways, in which we have contact with the world. We are evaluated and classified by these four contacts: what we do, how we look, what we say, and how we say it."
37
"No matter how much we ask after the truth, self-awareness is often unpleasant. We do not feel kindly toward the Truthsayer."
37
"Yes, the meeting of dear friends atones for the regret of separation; and like it so much enhances affection, that after absence one wonders how one has been able to stay away from them so long."
37
"We teach teens what we think they ought to know, and we never tell them what they want to know."
Want,
37
"No ideas and the ability to express them - that's a journalist."
37
"What is right to be done cannot be done too soon."
37
"In Harvest of Stars, there is this notion, not original with me of course, that it will become possible to download at least the basic aspects of a human personality into a machine program."
37
"What I want to write about has changed somewhat, and the scope of the storytelling has changed accordingly."
Want,
37
"The funniest line in English is "Get it?" When you say that, everyone chortles."
37
"You don't have to know people personally for them to be role models. Some of my most important role models were historical or literary figures that I only read about - never actually met."
37
"We in universities are not in the democracy business. What we do, when we're doing it, is teach and learn."
37
"The ambiguous orientation of Japan drove the country into the position of an invader in Asia."
37
"Living en famille provides the strongest motives for rudeness combined with the maximum opportunity for displaying it."
37
"For one thing there is the divinest, cleanest air to be breathed anywhere in God's world."
37
"A fool bolts pleasure, then complains of moral indigestion."
37
"I don't paint anymore. I haven't since I abandoned it at 19, in order to begin writing seriously."
37
"The beginning of a plot is the prompting of desire."
37
"Your pretty empire took so long to build, now, with a snap of history's fingers, down it goes."
37
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