Lu > Lu's Quotes

“adormidera, como me aconsejaban las monjas del hospital,”
― Isabel Allende, Inés del alma mía

“The fundamentalist (or, more accurately, the beleaguered individual who comes to embrace fundamentalism) cannot stand freedom. He cannot find his way into the future, so he retreats to the past. He returns in imagination to the glory days of his race and seeks to reconstitute both them and himself in their purer, more virtuous light. He gets back to basics. To fundamentals.”
― Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

“The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death.”
― Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

“According to recent polls, 76 percent of Americans believe in the biblical account of creation, 79 percent believe that the miracles in the Bible actually took place, 76 percent believe in angels, the devil, and other immaterial souls, 67 percent believe they will exist in some form after their death, and only 15 percent believe that Darwin’s theory of evolution is the best explanation for the origin of human life on Earth.”
― Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature

“But there is only one right thing.” He calmed himself a little. Caution. “But only doing is not the Lethani. First knowing, then doing. That is the Lethani.” I thought on this for a moment. “So being polite is the Lethani?” “Not polite. Not kind. Not good. Not duty. The Lethani is none of these. Each moment. Each choice. All different.” He gave me a penetrating look. “Do you understand?” “No.” Happiness. Approval. Tempi got to his feet, nodding. “It is good you know you do not. Good that you say. That is also of the Lethani.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear

“A person can pretend to swim too,” I pointed out. “I’ve simply been moving my arms and walking on the bottom of the river.” She gave me a curious look. “Very well then. How have you managed to fool us?” I explained Spinning Leaf to her. How I had learned to tip my thoughts into a light, empty, floating place where the answers to their questions came easily. “So you have stolen the answers from yourself,” she said with mock seriousness. “You have cleverly fooled us by pulling the answers from your own mind.” “You don’t understand,” I said, growing irritated. “I don’t have the slightest idea what the Lethani really is! It’s not a path, but it helps choose a path. It’s the simplest way, but it is not easy to see. Honestly, you people sound like drunk cartographers.” I regretted saying it as soon as it was out of my mouth, but Vashet merely laughed. “There are many drunks who are quite conversant with the Lethani,” she said. “Several legendarily so.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear

“You obviously understand the Lethani,” she said. “It is rooted deep inside you. Too deep for you to see. Sometimes it is the same with love.” Vashet reached out and tapped me on the forehead. “As for this Spinning Leaf. I have heard of similar things practiced by other paths. There is no Aturan word for it that I know. It is like a Ketan for your mind. A motion you make with your thoughts, to train them.” She made a dismissive gesture. “Either way, it is not cheating. It is a way of revealing that which is hidden in the deep waters of your mind. The fact that you found it on your own is quite remarkable.” I nodded to her. “I bow to your wisdom, Vashet.” “You bow to the fact that I am unarguably correct.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear

“the times I always regret are missed opportunities to say farewell to good people, to wish them long life and say to them in all sincerity, “You build and do not destroy; you sow goodwill and reap it; smiles bloom in the wake of your passing, and I will keep your kindness in trust and share it as occasion arises, so that your life will be a quenching draught of calm in a land of drought and stress.”
― Kevin Hearne, Hammered

“you talked out the side of your mouth, in case your lips got chapped. Maybe that was why the West of Scotland was where people put the head on one another—it was too cold to take your hands out your pockets. But it did have compensations. Laidlaw had a happy image of the first man out after the nuclear holocaust being a Glaswegian. He would straighten up and look around. He would dust himself down with that flicking gesture of the hands and, once he had got the strontium off the good suit, he would look up. The palms would be open. ‘Hey,’ he would say. ‘Gonny gi’es a wee brek here? What was that about? Ye fell oot wi’ us or what? That was a liberty. Just you behave.’ Then he would walk off with that Glaswegian walk, in which the shoulders don’t move separately but the whole torso is carried as one, as stiff as a shield. And he would be muttering to himself, ‘Must be a coupla bottles of something still intact.”
― William McIlvanney, The Papers of Tony Veitch