Phil J > Phil's Quotes

“Every weirdo in the world is on my wavelength.”
― Thomas Pynchon

“There is no intellectual exercise which is not ultimately useless.”
― Jorge Luis Borges, Ficciones

“[B]riefing is not reading. In fact it is the antithesis of reading. Briefing is terse, factual and to the point. Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting. Briefing closes down a subject, reading opens it up.”
― Alan Bennett, The Uncommon Reader

“I think of literature,' she wrote, 'as a vast country to the far borders of which I am journeying but will never reach. And I have started to late. I will never catch up.”
― Alan Bennett, The Uncommon Reader

“Books are not about passing the time. They're about other lives. Other worlds.”
― Alan Bennett, The Uncommon Reader

“All grown-ups were once children... but only few of them remember it.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

“All men have stars, but they are not the same things for different people. For some, who are travelers, the stars are guides. For others they are no more than little lights in the sky. For others, who are scholars, they are problems... But all these stars are silent. You-You alone will have stars as no one else has them... In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars will be laughing when you look at the sky at night..You, only you, will have stars that can laugh! And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows) you will be content that you have known me... You will always be my friend. You will want to laugh with me. And you will sometimes open your window, so, for that pleasure... It will be as if, in place of the stars, I had given you a great number of little bells that knew how to laugh”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

“Monster, I do smell all horse piss, at which
my nose is in great indignation. (IV, 1, lines 223-224)”
― William Shakespeare, The Tempest

“I ask the reader- is there any reason to believe that these idiots will fail to blow up the world?

The answer is: Only by accident will the present power elite, in this country and others, fail to blow up the world.”
― Daniel Pinkwater, Young Adults

“You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.”
― Harlan Ellison

“If she couldn't love her fourteen-year-old schoolboy, she could at least love cubism. p. 91”
― Milan Kundera

“Behind Communism, Fascism, behind all occupations and invasions lurks a more basic, pervasive evil, and that the image of that evil was a parade of people marching by with raised fists and shouting syllables in unison. p. 100”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“What does it mean, anyway, to 'retract' what you've said? How can anyone state categorically that a thought he once had is no longer valid? In modern times a thought can be refuted, yes, but not retracted. (p. 179)”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“Hatred, which could destroy so much, never failed to destroy the man who hated, and this was an immutable law.”
― James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

“Colour is not a human or a personal reality; it is a political reality.”
― James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

“People always seem to band together in accordance to a principle that has nothing to do with love, a principle that releases them from personal responsibility”
― James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

“What is a sensitive person?” said the Cracker to the Roman Candle. “A person who, because he has corns himself, always treads on other people’s toes,” answered the Roman Candle in a low whisper; and the Cracker nearly exploded with laughter.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Happy Prince and Other Tales

“What I mean is," Robert said nervously, "the whole idea of The Wave is that the people in it have to support it. If we're really a community, we all have to agree.”
― Todd Strasser, The Wave