Katy > Katy's Quotes

“I could tell you my adventures—beginning from this morning,” said Alice a little timidly; “but it’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking Glass

“Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.”
― Narcotics Anonymous

“Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very;' your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.”
― Mark Twain

“Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”
― Mark Twain

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”
― Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad / Roughing It

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”
― Mark Twain

“In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them.”
― Mark Twain

“The purpose of the first draft is not to get it right, but to get it written.”
― John Dufresne

“No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in. You find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness — they have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means — the only complete realist.”
― C.S. Lewis

“Tact is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip.”
― Winston Churchill

“A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed at some indefinite time in the future.”
― George S. Patton Jr.

“Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer."

[Mark Twain, a Biography]”
― Mark Twain

“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”
― Theodore Roosevelt, Strenuous Life

“Inspector, believe me, I am one man who believes in miracles. Unlike Dr. Jha, I know such things can and do occur. But because gold exists, it does not mean there is not fool's gold, also.”
― Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing

“It had often struck Facecream how cults, whether of a political or religious nature, always preached equality and happiness while fostering fear. It had been the same with the Maoists, who relied so heavily on women and children to fill their ranks. Party propaganda spoke endlessly about the Communist ideal of equality, while hierarchy maintained strict discipline and unquestioning allegiance.”
― Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing

“They were bright, confident and fervently dedicated to the cause. Rationalism had become something of a religion to them. It provided purpose, structure and philosophy without all the bells and incense or blood turned to wine.”
― Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing

“It's the vegetation. With all the rain and hurricanes, everything has grown back more lush than before."
"Mother Nature repaired Louisiana faster than FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers," said Ava.”
― Laura Childs, Frill Kill