Michael > Michael's Quotes

“There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep.”
― Homer, The Odyssey

“[I]t is the wine that leads me on,
the wild wine
that sets the wisest man to sing
at the top of his lungs,
laugh like a fool – it drives the
man to dancing... it even
tempts him to blurt out stories
better never told.”
― Homer, The Odyssey

“Even his griefs are a joy long after to one that remembers all that he wrought and endured.”
― Homer, The Odyssey

“So, the gods don't hand out all their gifts at once, not build and brains and flowing speech to all. One man may fail to impress us with his looks but a god can crown his words with beauty, charm, and men look on with delight when he speaks out. Never faltering, filled with winning self-control, he shines forth at assembly grounds and people gaze at him like a god when he walks through the streets. Another man may look like a deathless one on high but there's not a bit of grace to crown his words. Just like you, my fine, handsome friend.”
― Homer, The Odyssey

“Each man delights in the work that suits him best.”
― Homer, The Odyssey

“And as the wary dogs skirt past, we nod, grimace, and resume our paths to separate destinies and graves.”
― Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard

“We live only a few conscious decades, and we fret ourselves enough for several lifetimes.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.”
― Muriel Rukeyser

“She was standing by the barometer, which, if it had had an ounce of sense in its head, would have been pointing to 'Stormy' instead of 'Set Fair”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Code of the Woosters

“So much has been said between them that it is needless to add a marginal note. It is not for him now to gloss the text of their dealings, nor append a moral.”
― Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall

“It is not the stars that make us, Dr. Butts, it is circumstance and necessita, the choices we make under pressure; our virtues make us, but virtues are not enough, we must deploy our vices at times. Or don't you agree?”
― Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall

“Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.”
― Leonard Cohen

“Everybody does have a book in them, but in most cases that's where it should stay.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“‎"Blind nationalism, like a distorting mirror at a fairground, bends the critical capacity of the beholder; and those who distinguish their personal identity by accident of geography will always, in a sense, remain vulnerable".”
― Tim Tzouliadis, The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin's Russia

“We are all made of the same stuff, remember, we of the Jungle, you of the City. The same substance composes us—the tree overhead, the stone beneath us, the bird, the beast, the star—we are all one, all moving to the same end. Remember that when you no longer remember me, my child.”
― P.L. Travers, Mary Poppins