Mike > Mike's Quotes

“All human wisdom is contained in these two words - Wait and Hope”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“Personally I regard idling as a virtue, but civilized society holds otherwise.”
― J. Maarten Troost, The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific

“The problems with success, frankly, are infinitely preferable to the problems of failure.”
― Neil Gaiman

“The busy man is never wise and the wise man is never busy.”
― Lin Yutang

“It is a sad mission to cut through and destroy with the scissors of analysis the delicate and iridescent veils with which our proud mediocrity clothes itself. ”
― Cesare Lombroso

“For children are innocent and love justice, while most of us are wicked and naturally prefer mercy.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“It's always darkest before it becomes totally black.”
― Mao Zedong

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

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it.”
― Maurice Switzer, Mrs. Goose, Her Book

“I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Happy Prince and Other Stories

“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
― William Shakespeare, As You Like It

“Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.”
― Mark Twain

“Whenever I feel the need to exercise, I lie down until it goes away.”
― Paul Terry

“A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.”
― Steve Martin

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
― Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan

“The story of each stone leads back to a mountain.”
― W.S. Merwin

“Several months later, and I have finally read one of the three (books), even though I wanted to read all three of them immediately. What happened in between? Other books, is what happened. Other books, other moods, other obligations, other appetites, other reading journeys.”
― Nick Hornby, More Baths, Less Talking

“We all love after-the-bomb stories. If we didn't, why would there be so many of them? There's something attractive about all those people being gone, about wandering in a depopulated world, scrounging cans of Campbell's pork and beans, defending one's family from marauders. But some secret part of us thinks it would be good to survive. All those other folks will die. That's what after-the-bomb stories are all about.”
― John Varley

“The public had an endless appetite for stories like that. Subconsciously, I think they think the gods of luck will favor them when the tromp of doom starts to thump. As for survivor interviews, I find them very boring, but I'm apparently in the minority. At least half of them had this to say: "God was watching over me." Most of those people didn't even believe in a god. This is the deity-as-hit-man view of theology. What I always thought was, if God was looking out for you, he must have had a real hard-on for all those folks he belted into the etheric like so many rubbery javelins.”
― John Varley, Steel Beach

“If you leave me here," the guy on the floor said, "he'll kill me tomorrow morning."
Parker looked at him. "So you've still got tonight," he said.”
― Richard Stark, Dirty Money

“Already today I hit you twice. Once I knocked the wind out of you, once I knocked the consciousness out of you. Here you are back the third time. You call that smart?”
― Richard Stark, The Jugger

“Everybody is a book of blood; wherever we're opened, we're red.”
― Clive Barker, Books of Blood: Volumes One to Three

“But it is impossible to go through life without trust; that is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.”
― Graham Greene, The Ministry of Fear

“One can't love humanity. One can only love people.”
― Graham Greene, The Ministry of Fear

“It is always of interest to know what strikes another human being as remarkable.”
― Graham Greene, The Ministry of Fear

“It is the same in life: sometimes it is more difficult to make a scene than to die.”
― Graham Greene, The Ministry of Fear

“There's nothing so heavy as books, sir--unless it's bricks.”
― Graham Greene, The Ministry of Fear

“I wish sometimes you had a few bad motives, you might understand a little more about human beings.”
― Graham Greene, The Quiet American

“Time has its revenges, but revenge seems so often sour. Wouldn’t we all do better not trying to understand, accepting the fact that no human being will ever understand another, not a wife with a husband, nor a parent a child? Perhaps that’s why men have invented God – a being capable of understanding. ”
― Graham Greene, The Quiet American