Melissa > Melissa's Quotes

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
― Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan

“They say that 'Guns don't kill people, people kill people.' Well I think the gun helps. If you just stood there and yelled BANG, I don't think you'd kill too many people.”
― Eddie Izzard

“You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.”
― Ray Bradbury

“Being privileged doesn't mean that you are always wrong and people without privilege are always right. It means that there is a good chance you are missing a few very important pieces of the puzzle.”
― Ijeoma Oluo, So You Want to Talk About Race

“A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.”
― Oscar Wilde

“We will now sing forth, hymn 405, 'Oh God, what on earth is my hairdo all about?”
― Eddie Izzard

“Satire is tragedy plus time. You give it enough time, the public, the reviewers will allow you to satirize it. Which is rather ridiculous, when you think about it.”
― Lenny Bruce, The Essential Lenny Bruce: his original unexpurgated satirical routines

“Show me somebody who is always smiling, always cheerful, always optimistic, and I will show you somebody who hasn't the faintest idea what the heck is really going on.”
― Mike Royko

“Pray, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.”
― Madeleine L'Engle

“And on the subject of burning books: I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their powerful political connections or their great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and have refused to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles.

So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

“If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library.”
― Frank Zappa

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it.”
― Maurice Switzer, Mrs. Goose, Her Book

“Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before! What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!”
― Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

“The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.”
― Jane Addams

“She was not a slowpoke grownup. She was a girl who could not wait. Life was so interesting she had to find out what happened next.”
― Beverly Cleary, Ramona the Pest

“People who claim that they're evil are usually no worse than the rest of us... It's people who claim that they're good, or any way better than the rest of us, that you have to be wary of.”
― Gregory Maguire, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

“You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocket ship underpants don't help.”
― Bill Watterson

“The covers of this book are too far apart.”
― Ambrose Bierce

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

“When art sets racism in the past, no matter how good it is, it allows white people in the audience (and others) to say to themselves "Wow! That racism sure was bad way back then!" It's what happens when people go see 12 Years a Slave. My response is always, "Yeah, you wanna know another time when racism was bad? Earlier today.”
― W. Kamau Bell, The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell: Tales of a 6' 4", African American, Heterosexual, Cisgender, Left-Leaning, Asthmatic, Black and Proud Blerd, Mama's Boy, Dad, and Stand-Up Comedian

“Whatever happens to you belongs to you. Make it yours. Feed it to yourself even if it feels impossible to swallow. Let it nurture you, because it will.”
― Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

“The only thing that makes one an artist is making art. And that requires the precise opposite of hanging out; a deeply lonely and unglamorous task of tolerating oneself long enough to push something out.”
― David Rakoff, Half Empty