Big Books of 2026

Mark > Mark's Quotes

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  • #1
    Edward Abbey
    “Society is like a stew. If you don't stir it up every once in a while then a layer of scum floats to the top.”
    ― Edward Abbey
    tags: politics
    493 likes

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  • #2
    Malcolm X
    “You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it.”
    ― Malcolm X, By Any Means Necessary
    tags: philosophy, politics
    4311 likes

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  • #3
    Carl Sagan
    “For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.”
    ― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
    tags: cosmology, delusion, knowledge, religion, science, truth, understanding
    1814 likes

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  • #4
    Frank Zappa
    “A mind is like a parachute. It doesn't work if it is not open.”
    ― Frank Zappa
    tags: open-mindedness, simile
    1499 likes

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  • #5
    David Hume
    “Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.”
    ― David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature
    tags: errors, philosophy, religion
    445 likes

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  • #6
    Charles Bukowski
    “For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.”
    ― Charles Bukowski
    tags: atheism, religion
    8906 likes

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  • #7
    Groucho Marx
    “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: Writings For By And About Groucho Marx
    tags: animals, books, dogs, friends, humor
    37989 likes

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  • #8
    Groucho Marx
    “I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.”
    ― Groucho Marx
    tags: books, humor, reading, television
    23100 likes

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  • #9
    Patton Oswalt
    “I had a romance novel inside me, but I paid three sailors to beat it out of me with steel pipes.”
    ― Patton Oswalt
    tags: femininity, gender, humor, masculinity, romance, romance-novels, sailors, violence, writing
    110 likes

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  • #10
    Daniel C. Dennett
    “You don't get to advertise all the good that your religion does without first scrupulously subtracting all the harm it does and considering seriously the question of whether some other religion, or no religion at all, does better.”
    ― Daniel Dennett
    tags: atheism, faith, religion
    129 likes

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  • #11
    Sam Harris
    “The president of the United States has claimed, on more than one occasion, to be in dialogue with God. If he said that he was talking to God through his hairdryer, this would precipitate a national emergency. I fail to see how the addition of a hairdryer makes the claim more ridiculous or offensive.”
    ― Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation
    tags: george-w-bush, god, religion
    612 likes

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  • #12
    Sylvia Plath
    “Kiss me, and you will see how important I am.”
    ― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
    tags: importance, kiss, kissing
    6794 likes

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  • #13
    Penelope Lively
    “It seems to me that anyone whose library consists of a Kindle lying on a table is some sort of bloodless nerd.”
    ― Penelope Lively
    88 likes

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  • #14
    James Howard Kunstler
    “America does not want change, except from the cash register at Wal-Mart.”
    ― James Howard Kunstler
    20 likes

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  • #15
    James Howard Kunstler
    “The United States is the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, yet its inhabitants are strikingly unhappy. Accordingly, we present to the rest of mankind, on a planet rife with suffering and tragedy, the spectacle of a clown civilization. Sustained on a clown diet rich in sugar and fat, we have developed a clown physiognomy. We dress like clowns. We move about a landscape filled with cartoon buildings in clownmobiles, absorbed in clownish activities. We fill our idle hours enjoying the canned antics of professional clowns... Death, when we acknowledge it, is just another pratfall on the boob tube. Bang! You're dead!”
    ― James Howard Kunstler
    tags: america, clown, clowns, community, social-criticism, the-united-states
    52 likes

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  • #16
    Philip Larkin
    “I have no enemies. But my friends don't like me.”
    ― Philip Larkin
    281 likes

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  • #17
    “As my father always used to tell me, 'You see, son, there's always someone in the world worse off than you.' And I always used to think, 'So?”
    ― Bill Bryson, The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America
    tags: cynicism, humor
    541 likes

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  • #18
    Carl Sagan
    “In all our searching, the only thing we've found that makes the emptiness bearable is each other.”
    ― Carl Sagan
    tags: emptiness, humanity, loneliness, love, space
    253 likes

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  • #19
    Mark Twain
    “Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”
    ― Mark Twain
    tags: books, contentment, friends, friendship, life
    47073 likes

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  • #20
    Frantz Fanon
    “...There are too many idiots in this world. And having said it, I have the burden of proving it.”
    ― Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks
    224 likes

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  • #21
    George Saunders
    “Do those things that incline you toward the big questions, and avoid the things that would reduce you and make you trivial.”
    ― George Saunders
    1628 likes

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  • #22
    Georgi Vladimov
    “Divided, cut up by borders, frontiers, fences and prohibitions, our wretched planet flew on, spinning into the icy emptiness of space, toward the sharp pinpoints of those stars --and nowhere on its surface was there a place where someone was not keeping someone else behind bars; where one lot of prisoners, helped by other prisoners, was not guarding a third set of prisoners --and themselves-- against the risk of taking an undesirable, lethally dangerous gulp of the bright blue air of freedom.”
    ― Georgi Vladimov, Faithful Ruslan
    6 likes

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  • #23
    Isaac Asimov
    “Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”
    ― Isaac Asimov
    tags: democracy, elite, elitism, elitist, voter, voting
    2714 likes

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  • #24
    Isaac Asimov
    “Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.”
    ― Isaac Asimov
    tags: atheism, bible, organized-religion, religion
    1564 likes

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  • #25
    Thomas Mann
    “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”
    ― Thomas Mann, Essays of Three Decades
    tags: authors, creative-process, struggle, writers, writing
    3686 likes

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  • #26
    John Gray
    “Most people today think they belong to a species that can be master of its destiny. This is faith, not science. We do not speak of a time when whales or gorillas will be masters of their destinies. Why then humans?”
    ― John Gray, Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals
    69 likes

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  • #27
    William Saroyan
    “When you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.”
    ― William Saroyan
    2908 likes

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  • #28
    Tadeusz Borowski
    “There can be no beauty if it is paid for by human injustice, nor truth that passes over injustice in silence, nor moral virtue that condones it.”
    ― Tadeusz Borowski, This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen
    44 likes

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  • #29
    Thomas Pynchon
    “If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.”
    ― Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
    tags: paranoia, proverbs, wit
    1752 likes

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  • #30
    William Goldman
    “Who are you?"
    "No one of consequence."
    "I must know."
    "Get used to disappointment.”
    ― William Goldman, The Princess Bride
    tags: anonymity, consequence, identity, importance, inquisitiveness
    958 likes



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Tags From Mark’s Quotes

politics
philosophy
cosmology
delusion
knowledge
religion
science
truth
understanding
open-mindedness
simile
errors
atheism
animals
books
dogs
friends
humor
reading
television
femininity
gender
masculinity
romance
romance-novels
sailors
violence
writing
faith
george-w-bush
god
importance
kiss
kissing
america
clown
clowns
community
social-criticism
the-united-states
cynicism
emptiness
humanity
loneliness
love
space
contentment
friendship
life
democracy
elite
elitism
elitist
voter
voting
bible
organized-religion
authors
creative-process
struggle
writers
paranoia
proverbs
wit
anonymity
consequence
identity
inquisitiveness