Christopher > Christopher's Quotes

“A face is a kind of a mask anyway, when you think about it," he said.

Rudd took a drink and set the glass down. "You should never ask Pierre anything."

"You don't make your face," said Pierre. "It's given to you. You might think it represents your true self, but why would it? Half the time you make an expression and think, Oh, this is my whatever expression, and nobody even knows what you're thinking.”
― Tom Drury, The Driftless Area

“What fresh hell is this?”
― Dorothy Parker, The Portable Dorothy Parker

“A dysfunctional family is any family with more than one person in it.”
― Mary Karr, The Liars' Club

“Well, he died. You don't get any older than that.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“I don't deserve any credit for turning the other cheek as my tongue is always in it.”
― Flannery O'Connor, The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

“Quentin Tarantino is interested in watching somebody's ear getting cut off; David Lynch is interested in the ear.”
― David Foster Wallace, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments

“In the Desert

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, “Is it good, friend?”
“It is bitter—bitter,” he answered;

“But I like it
“Because it is bitter,
“And because it is my heart.”
― Stephen Crane, The Black Riders and Other Lines

“The long silences need to be loved, perhaps more than the words which arrive to describe them in time.”
― Franz Wright, God's Silence

“There's nothing more embarrassing than to have earned the disfavor of a perceptive animal.”
― Michael Chabon, Wonder Boys

“You're either reading a book or you're not.”
― Jonathan Franzen

“I don't know why I started writing. I don't know why anybody does it. Maybe they're bored, or failures at something else.”
― Cormac McCarthy

“Write about what you don't know about what you know.”
― Eudora Welty

“We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams.
World-losers and world-forsakers,
Upon whom the pale moon gleams;
Yet we are the movers and shakers,
Of the world forever, it seems.”
― Arthur O'Shaughnessy, Poems of Arthur O'Shaughnessy

“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.”
― Flannery O'Connor, Flannery O'Connor: Collected Works

“The great mystery of our metaphysical situation, that God is nearer to us than we are ourselves, is manifest in the fact that we cannot even be wholly ourselves—in the sense of individuality as a unique divine thought—until we are reborn in Christ.”
― Dietrich von Hildebrand, Transformation in Christ: On the Christian Attitude

“Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it. ”
― Raymond Chandler

“From 30 feet away she looked like a lot of class. From 10 feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from 30 feet away.”
― Raymond Chandler, The High Window

“Dead men are heavier than broken hearts.”
― Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep

“Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,
There’s always laughter and good red wine.
At least I’ve always found it so.
Benedicamus Domino!”
― Hilaire Belloc

“A strange fanaticism fills our time: the fanatical hatred of morality, especially of Christian morality.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“Write as the wind blows and command all words like an army!”
― Hilaire Belloc, The Path to Rome

“Cats don't need to be possessed; they're evil on their own.”
― Peter Kreeft

“The Scriptures are shallow enough for a babe to come and drink without fear of drowning and deep enough for a theologians to swim in without ever touching the bottom" St. Jerome”
― St. Jerome

“Pray, hope, and don't worry. Worry is useless. God is merciful and will hear your prayer.”
― Padre Pio

“Faith is one foot on the ground, one foot in the air, and a queasy feeling in the stomach.”
― Mother Angelica