C.D. Woods > C.D.'s Quotes

“The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.”
― Elie Wiesel

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“We who are born into this age of freedom and independence and the self must undergo this loneliness. It is the price we pay for these times of ours.”
― Natsume Soseki

“If there are to be rules, they must be articulable and defensible, like etiquette. I do not do anything simply because my family did it. I do things because they make sense, and because they are elegant.”
― Kathleen Rooney, Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk

“What seems mysterious can be understood.”
― Simon Stevin

“It is not enough to conquer; one must learn to seduce.”
― Voltaire

“Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.”
― Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

“Fiction’s about what it is to be a fucking human being.”
― David Foster Wallace

“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.”
― Charles W. Eliot

“You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.”
― Mary Oliver

“If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”
― Toni Morrison

“I'm not afraid of death; I just don't want to be there when it happens.”
― Woody Allen