Ab > Ab's Quotes

“The weakest punches are thrown with the tongue.”
― Robert Sharenow, The Berlin Boxing Club

“That is just the way with some people. They get down on a thing when they don’t know nothing about it.”
― Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

“Probably some of the best things that have ever happened to you in life, happened because you said yes to something. Otherwise things just sort of stay the same.”
― Danny Wallace, Yes Man

“Sometimes the little opportunities that fly at us each day can have the biggest impact.”
― Danny Wallace, Yes Man

“I recommend keeping a diary. Diaries are cool.”
― Danny Wallace, Yes Man

“Hello?'
'Mum?'
'Yes! Who's that?.'
'Your only son.'
A pause.
'Daniel?'
To be fair, I'd only given her one clue.”
― Danny Wallace, Friends Like These

“Samuel rode lightly on top of a book and he balanced happily among ideas the way a man rides white rapids in a canoe. But Tom got into a book, crawled and groveled between the covers, tunneled like a mole among the thoughts, and came up with the book all over his face and hands”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“Dear Lord,' he said. 'let me be like Aron. Don’t make me mean. I don’t want to be. If you will let everybody like me, why, I’ll give you anything in the world, and if I haven’t got it, why, I’ll go for to get it. I don’t want to be mean. I don’t want to be lonely. For Jesus’ sake, Amen.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“As with many people, Charles, who could not talk, wrote with fullness. He set down his loneliness and his perplexities, and he put on paper many things he did not know about himself.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“The white flashed back into a red ball in the southeast. They all knew what it was. It was Orlando, or McCoy Base, or both. It was the power supply for Timucuan County.

Thus the lights went out, and in that moment civilization in Fort Repose retreated a hundred years.

So ended The Day.”
― Pat Frank, Alas, Babylon

“If Man retained faith in God, he might also retain faith in Man.”
― Pat Frank, Alas, Babylon

“He looked at the walls,
Awed at the heights
His people had achieved
And for a moment -- just a moment --
All that lay behind him
Passed from view.”
― Herbert Mason, The Epic of Gilgamesh

“It looks to me as though these politics mean Serbs, Croats and Muslims. But they are all people. They are all the same. They all look like people, there's no difference. They all have arms, legs and heads, they walk and talk, but now there's "something" that wants to make them different.”
― Zlata Filipović, Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Wartime Sarajevo

“Life in a box is better than no life at all, I expect. You'd have a chance at least. You could lie there thinking: Well, at least I'm not dead.”
― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

“Rosencrantz: I don't believe in it anyway.
Guildenstern: What?
Rosencrantz: England.
Guildenstern: Just a conspiracy of cartographers, then? ”
― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

“Eternity is a terrible thought. I mean, where's it going to end?”
― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

“Rosencrantz: We might as well be dead. Do you think death could possibly be a boat?
Guildenstern: No, no, no... Death is...not. Death isn't. You take my meaning. Death is the ultimate negative. Not-being. You can't not-be on a boat.
Rosencrantz: I've frequently not been on boats.
Guildenstern: No, no, no--what you've been is not on boats.”
― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

“We're more of the love, blood, and rhetoric school. Well, we can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and we can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and we can do you all three concurrent or consecutive. But we can't give you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory. They're all blood, you see.”
― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

“If he had had all Peru in his pocket, he would certainly have given it to this dancer; but Gringoire had not Peru in his pocket; and besides, America was not yet discovered. (p. 66)”
― Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

“by making himself a priest made himself a demon.”
― Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

“The paradise of the rich is made out of the hell of the poor.”
― Victor Hugo, The Man Who Laughs

“Water! pretending to be pure, thou resemblest false friends. Thou art warm at the top and cold at bottom.”
― Victor Hugo, The Man Who Laughs

“With the use of the hydrogen bomb, the Christian era was dead, and with it must die the tradition of the Good Samaritan. And yet Randy stopped...The incident was important only because it was self-revelatory. Randy knew he would have to play by the old rules. He could not shuck his code, or sneak out of his era.”
― Pat Frank, Alas, Babylon