Robin's quotes

(showing 1-50 of 411)

"Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination."
— Oscar Wilde

tags: imagination, life, money
1,209 people liked it

"I have always felt that violence was the last refuge of the incompetent, and empty threats the last sanctuary of the terminally inept."
— Neil Gaiman (Neverwhere)

85 people liked it

"Fairy tales, are more than true. Not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be defeated."
— G.K. Chesterton

tags: books, inspirational
2,523 people liked it

"Most books on witchcraft will tell you that witches work naked. This is because most books on witchcraft were written by men. "
— Neil Gaiman (Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch)

231 people liked it

"The house smelled musty and damp, and a little sweet, as if it were haunted by the ghosts of long-dead cookies."
— Neil Gaiman (Anansi Boys)

tags: humor
77 people liked it

"When we hold each other, in the darkness, it doesn't make the darkness go away. The bad things are still out there. The nightmares still walking. When we hold each other we feel not safe, but better. "It's all right" we whisper, "I'm here, I love you." and we lie: "I'll never leave you." For just a moment or two the darkness doesn't seem so bad."
— Neil Gaiman (Neil Gaiman's Midnight Days)

136 people liked it

"Remember: that giants sleep too soundly; that witches are often betrayed by their appetites; dragons have one soft spot, somewhere, always; hearts can be well-hidden, and you can betray them with your tongue."
— Neil Gaiman

101 people liked it

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be."
— Douglas Adams

tags: life
3,645 people liked it

"What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though."
— J.D. Salinger (The Catcher in the Rye)

tags: authors, books, literature, reading, writing
862 people liked it

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read."
— Groucho Marx (The Essential Groucho)

tags: animals, books, dogs, friends, humor
6,548 people liked it

"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."
— Groucho Marx

tags: humor, time
1,464 people liked it

"I have nothing but respect for you -- and not much of that."
— Groucho Marx

tags: absurd
138 people liked it

"It isn't necessary to have relatives in Kansas City in order to be unhappy."
— Groucho Marx

tags: humor
34 people liked it

"Don't be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can't cross a chasm in two small jumps."
— David Lloyd George

tags: goal, step, try
5 people liked it

"Diamonds are only chunks of coal that stuck to their jobs, you see."
— Minnie Richard Smith

tags: poet
4 people liked it

"The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them."
— Mark Twain

tags: literacy
5,997 people liked it

"no wind favors he who has no destined port"
— Montaigne

1 person liked it

"If you've reached this point by accident, I suggest panic."
— Jason Kottke

1 person liked it

"If you're good at it, and you love it, and it helps you navigate the river of the world, then it can't be wrong."
— Sherman Alexie (The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian)

17 people liked it

"Do you know why the Indian rain dances always worked? Because the Indians would keep dancing until it rained."
— Sherman Alexie

13 people liked it

"Credendo vides: by believing, one sees.
Post nublia phoebus: after clouds, sun!"
— James C. Christensen

2 people liked it

"Whenever I feel the need to exercise, I lie down until it goes away."
— Robert Maynard Hutchins

tags: exercise, humor, laziness
5,813 people liked it

"Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life."
— Mark Twain

tags: books, friends, friendship, life
3,852 people liked it

"Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint."
— Mark Twain

tags: books, health, humor, misprints
2,330 people liked it

"Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very;' your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be."
— Mark Twain

tags: humor, writing
1,524 people liked it

"Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in."
— Mark Twain

tags: animals, dogs, heaven
164 people liked it

"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it."
— Mark Twain

190 people liked it

"A clear conscience is the sure sign of a bad memory."
— Mark Twain

tags: conscience, humor
141 people liked it

"Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer."
— Mark Twain

42 people liked it

"Now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates."
— Mark Twain (Life on the Mississippi)

63 people liked it

"Books are for people who wish they were somewhere else."
— Mark Twain

tags: books, reading
270 people liked it

"After all these years, I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to live outside the Garden with her than inside it without her."
— Mark Twain (The Diaries of Adam and Eve)

29 people liked it

"Wheresoever she was, there was Eden."
— Mark Twain (The Diaries of Adam and Eve)

10 people liked it

"Last week I stated that this woman was the ugliest woman I had ever seen. I have since been visited by her sister and now wish to withdraw that statement."
— Mark Twain

tags: humor
54 people liked it

"I like a thin book because it can steady a table, a leather volume because it will strop a razor, and a heavy book because it can be thrown at a cat."
— Mark Twain

tags: books, humor
37 people liked it

"I've never killed a man, but I've read many an obituary with a great deal of satisfaction."
— Clarence Darrow

tags: classic-insult, death, humor
52 people liked it

"Don't say the old lady screamed. Bring her on and let her scream."
— Mark Twain

tags: writing
26 people liked it

"Don't look at the world with your hands in your pockets. To write about it you have to reach out and touch it."
— Mark Twain

tags: writing
31 people liked it

"I haven't any right to criticize books, and I don't do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can't conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read 'Pride and Prejudice' I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.

Letter to Joseph Twichell, 9/13/1898"
— Mark Twain

tags: austen, criticism, jerk, reading, writing
250 people liked it

"I did not attend his funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it."
— Mark Twain

tags: classic-insult, funeral, funny, humor
391 people liked it

"Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR
per
G.G., CHIEF OF ORDNANCE"
— Mark Twain (The Adventures of Huck Finn)

tags: authors, reading
18 people liked it

"Whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting over."
— Mark Twain

tags: war, whiskey
18 people liked it

"I am a great and sublime fool. But then I am God's fool, and all His works must be contemplated with respect."
— Mark Twain

11 people liked it

"I was born lazy. I am no lazier now than I was forty years ago, but that is because I reached the limit forty years ago. You can't go beyond possibility." "
— Mark Twain

8 people liked it

"She was not exactly what you'd call refined. She was not exactly what you'd call unrefined. She was the kind of person who kept a parrot."
— Mark Twain

tags: parrot
3 people liked it

"Be respectful to your superiors, if you have any."
— Mark Twain (The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain: A Book of Quotations)

tags: humor
15 people liked it

"I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead."
— Mark Twain

tags: humor
159 people liked it

"In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them."
— Mark Twain

tags: bookroom, books, wisdom
1,330 people liked it

"A gentleman is someone who knows how to play the banjo and doesn't."
— Mark Twain

11 people liked it

"Laughter is the only thing that cuts trouble down to a size where you can talk to it."
— Dan Jenkins

2 people liked it

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