Ken's quotes

(showing 1-50 of 79)

"We shall not cease from exploration / And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time."
— T.S. Eliot (Four Quartets)

tags: poetry
130 people liked it

"This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper."
— T.S. Eliot

tags: apocalypse, despair, global-warming, poetry
107 people liked it

"Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse."
— T.S. Eliot

tags: life, poetry
74 people liked it

"For I have known them all already, known them all—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons."
— T.S. Eliot (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Others)

tags: life
52 people liked it

"Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers."
— T.S. Eliot

tags: editor, writing
37 people liked it

"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened."
— Dr. Seuss

tags: cry, crying, experience, happiness, joy, life, optimism, sadness, smile, smiling
14,306 people liked it

"You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough"
— Mae West

tags: humor, life
8,596 people liked it

"Remember, if the time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right and what is easy, remember what happened to a boy who was good, and kind, and brave, because he strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort. Remember Cedric Diggory."
— J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire)

tags: integrity
4,763 people liked it

"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."
— Douglas Adams

tags: deadlines, humor, work
5,243 people liked it

"A day without sunshine is like, you know, night."
— Steve Martin

tags: humor, obvious
5,269 people liked it

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on."
— Robert Frost

tags: life
6,903 people liked it

"Dance like no one is watching. Sing like no one is listening. Love like you've never been hurt and live like it's heaven on Earth."
— Mark Twain

tags: dance, heaven, hurt, inspirational, life, love, sing
15,647 people liked it

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe."
— Albert Einstein

tags: einstein, human, humor, infinity, nature, philosophy, science, stupidity, universe
11,698 people liked it

"Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
— Albert Einstein

tags: humor, insanity, life
9,276 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
6,514 people liked it

"I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying."
— Oscar Wilde

tags: intelligence, self-deprecation
7,334 people liked it

"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."
— William Shakespeare (As You Like It)

tags: wisdom
6,168 people liked it

"Without music, life would be a mistake."
— Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

tags: inspirational, music, philosophy
5,449 people liked it

"You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children."
— Madeleine L'Engle

tags: books, children, difficult, grown-ups, write, writers, writing
2,979 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
3,617 people liked it

"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."
— Mark Twain

tags: education
3,046 people liked it

"We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are."
— Anaïs Nin

tags: life, philosophy
3,526 people liked it

"Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them."
— William Shakespeare (Twelfth Night)

tags: greatness
2,620 people liked it

"Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. 'Pooh?' he whispered.
'Yes, Piglet?'
'Nothing,' said Piglet, taking Pooh's hand. 'I just wanted to be sure of you.'"
— A.A. Milne (Winnie-the-Pooh)

tags: friendship
2,967 people liked it

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle."
— Plato

tags: compassion, kindness
914 people liked it

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?"
— Mary Oliver (New and Selected Poems)

tags: poetry
230 people liked it

"I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
Like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue."
— Pablo Neruda

tags: love, poetry
212 people liked it

"A man of my acquaintance once wrote a poem called "The Road Less Traveled", describing a journey he took through the woods along a path most travelers never used. The poet found that the road less traveled was peaceful but quite lonely, and he was probably a bit nervous as he went along, because if anything happened on the road less traveled, the other travelers would be on the road more frequently traveled and so couldn't hear him as he cried for help. Sure enough, that poet is dead."
— Lemony Snicket (The Slippery Slope)

tags: poetry
153 people liked it

"In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, 'Is it good, friend?'
'It is bitter -- bitter,' he answered,
'But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart.'"
— Stephen Crane

tags: bitter, heart, poetry
47 people liked it

"I've measured out my life in coffee spoons."
— T.S. Eliot

tags: elliot, love, poetry, song
40 people liked it

"Winter solitude-
in a world of one colour
the sound of the wind."
— Matsuo Basho

tags: haiku, poetry
36 people liked it

"This autumn-
why am I growing old?
bird disappearing among clouds."
— Matsuo Basho

tags: haiku, life, poetry
15 people liked it

"Between our two lives
there is also the life of
the cherry blossom."
— Matsuo Basho

4 people liked it

"Oh, it is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn't. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn't read."
— Oscar Wilde

tags: reading
8 people liked it

"All books are divisible into two classes: the books of the hours, and the books of all Time."
— John Ruskin (Sesame and Lilies)

tags: books
20 people liked it

"Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. "
— Francis Bacon

tags: books, reading
110 people liked it

"I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia."
— Woody Allen

67 people liked it

"To you, I'm an atheist.
To God, I'm the loyal opposition."
— Woody Allen

tags: absurd, atheism, humor
364 people liked it

"Life doesn't imitate art, it imitates bad television."
— Woody Allen

tags: art, humor, life
331 people liked it

"I feel that life is divided into the horrible and the miserable. That's the two categories. The horrible are like, I don't know, terminal cases, you know, and blind people, crippled. I don't know how they get through life. It's amazing to me. And the miserable is everyone else. So you should be thankful that you're miserable, because that's very lucky, to be miserable."
— Woody Allen (Annie Hall)

tags: humour, life
110 people liked it

"My one regret in life is that I am not someone else."
— Woody Allen

tags: life
166 people liked it

"Courage is grace under pressure."
— Ernest Hemingway

tags: courage
178 people liked it

"Never confuse movement with action."
— Ernest Hemingway

tags: action
82 people liked it

"The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof, shit detector."
— Ernest Hemingway

tags: writing
35 people liked it

"Write drunk; edit sober."
— Ernest Hemingway

tags: drinking, writing
85 people liked it

"When the axe comes into the woods, the trees think, "At least the handle is one of ours.""
— Turkish proverb

tags: proverb, turkish
2 people liked it