Hal > Hal's Quotes

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
― Edmund Burke

“Don’t walk in front of me… I may not follow
Don’t walk behind me… I may not lead
Walk beside me… just be my friend”
― Albert Camus

“Public education was not founded to give society what it wants. Quite the opposite.”
― May Sarton

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”
― Mae West

“I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.”
― Stephen Jay Gould, The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History

“Do you hate people?”

“I don't hate them...I just feel better when they're not around.”
― Charles Bukowski, Barfly

“The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.”
― Soren Kierkegaard

“At first glance it seems strange that the attitude of the anti-Semite can be equated with that of the negrophobe. It was my philosophy teacher from the Antilles who reminded me one day: “When you hear someone insulting the Jews pay attention; he is talking about you.” And I believed at the time he was universally right, meaning that I was responsible in my body and my soul for the fate reserved for my brother. Since then, I have understood that what he meant quite simply was the anti-Semite is inevitably a negrophobe.”
― Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks

“In the realm of totalitarian kitsch, all answers are given in advance and preclude any questions. It follows, then, that the true opponent of totalitarian kitsch is the person who asks questions. A question is like a knife that slices through the stage backdrop and gives us a look at what lies hidden behind it.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“Play it fuckin' loud!”
― Bob Dylan

“Pour qui sont ces serpents qui sifflent sur vos têtes ?”
― Jean Racine, Andromaque

“It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane.”
― Philip K. Dick, Valis

“I realise there's something incredibly honest about trees in winter, how they're experts at letting things go.”
― Jeffrey McDaniel

“The heart has its reasons which reason knows not.”
― Blaise Pascal

“Despite his limited experience of them, women, he believed, were in general more alert than men, more keenly receptive of the tiny signals the world sends streaming out endlessly. It made sense, since they were more vulnerable and therefore had to be always on their guard. The same as children, only children were more trusting.”
― John Banville, The Drowned

“The blunt, unceasing continuity of things baffled him, affronted him. It was a scandal, the entire indifferent business of being alive.”
― John Banville, The Drowned

“If I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk in my garden forever.”
― Kevin Kwan, Lies and Weddings

“For Americans, Acts 16:9 is the high-fructose corn syrup of Bible verses--an all-purpose ingredient we'll stir into everything from the ink on the Marshall Plan to canisters of Agent Orange. Our greatest goodness and our worst impulses come out of this missionary zeal, contributing to our overbearing (yet not entirely unwarranted) sense of our country as an inherently helpful force in the world. And, as with the apostle Paul, the notion that strangers want our help is sometimes a delusion.”
― Sarah Vowell, Unfamiliar Fishes

“Despair is something horribly simple.”
― Christopher Isherwood, Down There on a Visit

“Do you know how many grand romances would have avoided tragedy if the hero had thought, "You know, maybe I should ask her if she likes me first"?”
― Brandon Sanderson, Tress of the Emerald Sea

“When you consider your thoughts, know that they are as real to the subconscious of the person you’re thinking about as if you picked up your cell phone and said them out loud. Take responsibility for your thoughts; they’re not just yours. They go shooting out of you to the intended target just like arrows. That’s why meditation is so relaxing—your archers can take a break!”
― James Van Praagh, Adventures of the Soul: Journeys Through the Physical and Spiritual Dimensions