James > James's Quotes

“I've begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and a dimension all its own.”
― Chaim Potok, The Chosen

“To you, I'm an atheist.
To God, I'm the loyal opposition.”
― Woody Allen

“A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”
― Mark Twain

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

“The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.”
― Joe Klaas, The Twelve Steps to Happiness: A Practical Handbook for Understanding and Working the Twelve Step Programs for Alcoholism, Codependency, Eating Disorders, and Other Addictions

“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”
― Aldous Huxley, Complete Essays, Vol. II: 1926-1929

“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.”
― Oscar Wilde

“The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.”
― Flannery O'Connor

“In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
― George Orwell

“No persons are more frequently wrong, than those who will not admit they are wrong.”
― François de La Rochefoucauld

“Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian.”
― Robert Orben

“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.”
― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid

“I talk about going to [George W. Bush's] Inauguration and crying when he took the oath, 'cause I was so afraid he was going to wreck the economy and muck up the drinking water'... the failure of my pessimistic imagination at that moment boggles my mind now.”
― Sarah Vowell

“Buffy's high school was built on top of a vortex of evil, the Hellmouth. And whose wasn't?”
― Sarah Vowell, The Partly Cloudy Patriot

“I'm always disappointed when I see the word "Puritan" tossed around as shorthand for a bunch of generic, boring, stupid, judgmental killjoys. Because to me, they are very specific, fascinating, sometimes brilliant, judgmental killjoys who rarely agreed on anything except that Catholics are going to hell.”
― Sarah Vowell, The Wordy Shipmates

“Behind every bad law, a deep fear.”
― Sarah Vowell, The Wordy Shipmates

“Oh my dear, idealists are the cruelest monsters of them all.”
― Sarah Vowell

“Dig deep into its communitarian ethos and it reads more like an America that might have been, an America fervently devoted to the quaint goals of working together and getting along. Of course, this America does exist. It's called Canada.”
― Sarah Vowell, The Wordy Shipmates

“Heaven, such as it is, is right here on earth. Behold: my revelation: I stand at the door in the morning, and lo, there is a newspaper, in sight like unto an emerald. And holy, holy, holy is the coffee, which was, and is, and is to come. And hark, I hear the voice of an angel round about the radio saying, "Since my baby left me I found a new place to dwell." And lo, after this I beheld a great multitude, which no man could number, of shoes. And after these things I will hasten unto a taxicab and to a theater, where a ticket will be given unto me, and lo, it will be a matinee, and a film that doeth great wonders. And when it is finished, the heavens will open, and out will cometh a rain fragrant as myrrh, and yea, I have an umbrella.”
― Sarah Vowell, Take the Cannoli

“But when I am around strangers, I turn into a conversational Mount St. Helens. I'm dormant, dormant, quiet, quiet, old-guy loners build log cabins on the slopes of my silence and then, boom, it's 1980. Once I erupt, they'll be wiping my verbal ashes off their windshields as far away as North Dakota.”
― Sarah Vowell, Assassination Vacation

“Along with voting, jury duty, and paying taxes, goofing off is one of the central obligations of American citizenship.”
― Sarah Vowell, The Partly Cloudy Patriot

“Once, headed uptown on the 9 train, I noticed a sign posted by the Metropolitan Transit Authority advising subway riders who might become ill in the train. The sign asked that the suddenly infirm inform another passenger or get out at the next stop and approach the stationmaster. Do not, repeat, do not pull the emergency brake, the sign said, as this will only delay aid. Which was all very logical, but for the following proclamation at the bottom of the sign, something along the lines of, “If you are sick, you will not be left alone.” This strikes me as not only kind, not only comforting, but the very epitome of civilization, good government, i.e., the the crux of the societal impulse. Banding together, pooling our taxes, not just making trains, not just making trains that move underground, not just making trains that move underground with surprising efficiency at a fair price—but posting on said trains a notification of such surprising compassion and thoughtfulness. I found myself scanning the faces of my fellow passengers, hoping for fainting, obvious fevers, at the very least a sneeze so that I might offer a tissue.”
― Sarah Vowell

“People are really trying their best. Just like being happy and sad, you will find yourself on both sides of the equation many times over your lifetime, either saying or hearing the wrong thing. Let's all give each other a pass, shall we?”
― David Rakoff, Half Empty

“If you go home with somebody, and they don't have books, don't fuck 'em! Don’t sleep with people who don’t read!”
― John Waters

“It wasn't until I started reading and found books they wouldn't let us read in school that I discovered you could be insane and happy and have a good life without being like everybody else.”
― John Waters

“We read to know we're not alone.”
― William Nicholson, Shadowlands: A Play

“Books are a uniquely portable magic.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“You get a little moody sometimes but I think that's because you like to read. People that like to read are always a little fucked up.”
― Pat Conroy, The Prince of Tides

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.”
― James Baldwin