Omneya > Omneya's Quotes

“From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe, Vol. 2

“beware those quick to praise
for they need praise in return
beware those who are quick to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know
beware those who seek constant crowds for they are nothing alone
beware the average man the average woman
beware their love, their love is average
seeks average”
― Charles Bukowski

“Typhoid Mary or Ted Bundy or Sharon Tate. History is nothing except monsters or victims. Or witnesses.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey

“To read these books, in this way, as an exercise in self-knowledge, carries certain risks. Risks that are both personal and political. Risks that every student of Political Philosophy has known. These risks spring from the fact that philosophy teaches us, and unsettles us, by confronting us with what we already know. There is an irony: the difficulty of this course consists in the fact that it teaches what you already know. It works by taking what we know from familiar unquestioned settings, and making it strange. [...] Philosophy estranges us from the familiar, not by supplying new information, but by inviting and provoking a new way of seeing.

But, and here is the risk, once the familiar turns strange, it is never quite the same again. Self-knowledge is like lost innocence; however unsettling you find it, it can never be 'unthought' or 'unknown'. What makes this enterprise difficult, but also revetting, is that Moral and Political Philosophy is a story, and you don't know where the story would lead, but you do know that the story is about You.”
― Michael Sandel

“Rant goes, "Really, truly with her whole entire heart, does Echo hate somebody?"
I go, doesn't Rant mean "love"?
And Rant shrugs and says, "Ain't it the same thing?”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey

“She was terrific to hold hands with. Most girls if you hold hands with them, their goddam hand dies on you, or else they think they have to keep moving their hand all the time, as if they were afraid they'd bore you or something. Jane was different. We'd get into a goddam movie or something, and right away we'd start holding hands, and we wouldn't quit till the movie was over. And without changing the position or making a big deal out of it. You never even worried, with Jane, whether your hand was sweaty or not. All you knew was, you were happy. You really were.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“You study any pretty democracy, from the ancient Greeks forward, and you'll see that the only way each system functions is with a working class of slaves. Peons to haul the garbage so the upper crust can campaign and vote.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey

“Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

“Hill House,not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it has stood for eighty years and might stand eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.”
― Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

“When we consider that each of us has only one life to live, isn’t it rather tragic to find men and women, with brains capable of comprehending the stars and the planets, talking about the weather; men and women, with hands capable of creating works of art, using those hands only for routine tasks; men and women, capable of independent thought, using their minds as a bowling-alley for popular ideas; men and women, capable of greatness, wallowing in mediocrity; men and women, capable of self-expression, slowly dying a mental death while they babble the confused monotone of the mob?”
― Niel Gaiman

“I think of John saying that
Wharton killed the Detterick twins with their love for each other, and that it happens every day, all over
the world. If it happens, God lets it happen, and when we say "I don't understand," God replies, "I don't
care.”
― Stephen King

“Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion, it is not the desire to mate every second minute of the day, it is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every cranny of your body. No, don't blush, I am telling you some truths. That is just being "in love", which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.”
― Shawn Slovo, Captain Corelli's Mandolin filmscript

“I suppose it's comfort, perhaps a sense of self-control, doing worse things to yourself than the world will ever dare to inflict.”
― Chuck Palahniuk

“Q: What is the best thing men do? A: To be kind, to be proud, to be fearless.”
― Vladimir Nabokov

“Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me... Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.”
― Shel Silverstein

“Choose a life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television. Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers... Choose DSY and wondering who the fuck you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit crushing game shows, stucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away in the end of it all, pishing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourself, choose your future. Choose life... But why would I want to do a thing like that?”
― Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting

“إن المصريين لايحبون المنطوى، ولا يستريحون له بشكلٍ عام ... إنهم يفهمون أن تكون وقحاً ، أو أن تكون صاخباً، أما أن تكون منطوياً مهذباً غامضاً، فهم يظنون بك الظنون”
― أحمد خالد توفيق, أسطورة آكل البشر

“Reality denied comes back to haunt.”
― Philip K. Dick, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

“I want in fact more of you. In my mind I am dressing you with light; I am wrapping you up in blankets of complete acceptance and then I give myself to you. I long for you; I who usually long without longing, as though I am unconscious and absorbed in neutrality and apathy, really, utterly long for every bit of you.”
― Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena

“وداعا أيها الغريب
كانت إقامتك قصيرة، لكنها كانت رائعة
عسى أن تجد جنتك التي فتشت عنها كثيرا

وداعا أيها الغريب

كانت زيارتك رقصة من رقصات الظل
قطرة من قطرات الندى قبل شروق الشمس
لحناً سمعناه لثوان من الدغل
ثم هززنا رؤوسنا وقلنا أننا توهمناه

وداعا أيها الغريب
لكن كل شيء ينتهي!”
― أحمد خالد توفيق, أسطورة النبوءة

“Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.”
― H.G. Wells, The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman

“لا أحد سوانا … لأنه لا أحد يقبل أن يكون منا”
― أحمد خالد توفيق

“Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Whoever knows he is deep, strives for clarity; whoever would like to appear deep to the crowd, strives for obscurity. For the crowd considers anything deep if only it cannot see to the bottom: the crowd is so timid and afraid of going into the water.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“She had no mercy. He looked at her neck and thought how he would like to jab it with the knife he had for his muffin. He knew enough anatomy to make pretty certain of getting the carotid artery. And at the same time he wanted to cover her pale, thin face with kisses.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage

“So, in the interests of survival, they trained themselves to be agreeing machines instead of thinking machines. All their minds had to do was to discover what other people were thinking, and then they thought that, too.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions

“How are we fallen! fallen by mistaken rules,
And Education's more than Nature's fools;
Debarred from all improvements of the mind,
And to be dull, expected and designed;
And if someone would soar above the rest,
With warmer fancy, and ambition pressed,
So strong the opposing faction still appears,
The hopes to thrive can ne'er outweigh the fears.”
― Lady Winchilsea

“شدتني البساطة التي تكلمت بها مع غريب مثلي، كأنها تعرفني منذ زمن، وبرغم هذا لا تبدو وقحة أو متحررة، كأنها تناقش زوجها أو أخاها، بلا أي غرض سوى المناقشة في حد ذاتها. إن هذا الأسلوب يُحيّر الرجل الشرقي الذي لا يتوقع من الفتاة إلا أن تكون شديدة الحياء أو شديدة المجون، ولا يفهم أي أسلوب آخر في التعامل.”
― أحمد خالد توفيق

“I got what I needed instead of what I wanted and that's just about the best kind of luck you can have.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Sunset Limited

“You give up the world line by line. Stoically. And then one day you realize that your courage is farcical. It doesn't mean anything. You've become an accomplice in your own annihilation and there is nothing you can do about it. Everything you do closes a door somewhere ahead of you. And finally there is only one door left.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Sunset Limited