Alex > Alex's Quotes

“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

“Midnight has fallen on the darkened streets of Haught and Battens Hill, and the watchman saith, All is well. We have prospered by the day, set our lock and bolt, and tried the windows, and all is well. Want, murder, desperation, and despair still roam in the filthy alleys and tenements of The Steps and breed countless wrongs in their path, yet the watchman passing cries, All is well. The watchman clears away the hungry children who hunt for scraps behind the New Theatre while a nobleman’s carriage rolls by, but decent folk turn, sighing in their sleep, and faintly hear the report: all is well. The prison gates are shut, and what is within is surely confined there, and touches us not; therefore, all is well.”
― Andrei Baltakmens, The Raven's Seal: A Historical Mystery

“An old elm tree, its base split by lightning, provided him a comfortable resting place, and he eased his tired body into its caress. The lightning had blasted a hole in the tree nearly the size of a pup tent. The young man surveyed the vicinity from his new perch and saw that he could still see the general’s tent, and the cannon, and a hundred little campfires in the distance. He heard the order for the men to pitch their tents—a bugle call followed by a drum roll—they were here for the night. He closed his eyes and listened to the night sounds. It was calm, no wind. Then he heard the snapping of twigs again.”
― David R. Horwitz, Murder Bay: A Ben Carey Mystery

“I've been thinking with my guts since I was fourteen years old, and frankly speaking, between you and me, I have come to the conclusion that my guts have shit for brains.”
― Nick Hornby, High Fidelity

“To be foreign is to be free. To have a great expanse stretch out before you—the desert, the steppe. To have the shape of the moon behind you like a cradle, the deafening symphony of the cicadas, the air's fragrance of melon peel, the rustle of the scarab beetle when, come evening, the sky turns red, and it ventures out onto the sand to hunt. To have your own history, not for everyone, just your own history written in the tracks you leave behind.”
― Olga Tokarczuk, The Books of Jacob

“There is something wonderful in being a stranger, in being foreign, something to be relished, something as alluring as sweets. It is good not to be able to understand a language, not to know the customs, to glide like a spirit among others who are distant and unrecognizable. Then a particular kind of wisdom awakens—an ability to surmise, to grasp the things that aren't obvious. Cleverness and acumen come about. A person who is a stranger gains a new point of view, becomes, whether he likes it or not, a particular type of sage. Who was it who convinced us that being comfortable and familiar was so great? Only foreigners can truly understand the way things work.”
― Olga Tokarczuk, The Books of Jacob

“What is life, after all if not dancing on graves?”
― Olga Tokarczuk, The Books of Jacob

“The trash-talkers are the most annoying to me, aiming all kinds of barbs at journalists, the government, the “woke” culture, the state of California, and particularly San Francisco, where most of them made their fortunes. They position themselves as populist truth-tellers to their legions of stans. I don’t know about you, but it’s funny to see the world’s richest men urging people to stick it to the man, when they are the man. They are, as often as not, inaccurate and couldn’t care less.”
― Kara Swisher, Burn Book: A Tech Love Story

“He reads the encyclopedia article on mental disorders. The section on diagnosing schizophrenia contains the sentence: Beliefs should not be considered delusional if they are in keeping with societal norms.”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory

“Chicago does not go to the world, the world comes to Chicago! Who needs New York? Who has taller buildings than our tall buildings? Who's got a busier airport than our airport? You want Picasso? We got Picasso, big Picasso. Nobody can make heads or tails of it. It's a lion? No, a seahorse. Looks to me like a radiator with wings. Who gives a damn, people, a Picasso's a Picasso.”
― Peter Orner, Love and Shame and Love