Michael > Michael's Quotes

“[...] almost nothing important that ever happens to you happens because you engineer it. Destiny has no beeper; destiny always leans trenchcoated out of an alley with some sort of 'psst' that you usually can't even hear because you're in such a rush to or from something important you've tried to engineer.”
― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

“And Lo, for the Earth was empty of Form, and void. And Darkness was all over the Face of the Deep. And We said: 'Look at that fucker Dance.”
― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

“The sun like a sneaky keyhole view of hell.”
― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

“she committed suicide by putting her extremities down the garbage disposal-first one arm and then, kind of miraculously if you think about it, the other arm.”
― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

“He knew what the Beats know and what the great tennis player knows, son: learn to do nothing, with your whole head and body, and everything will be done by what's around you.”
― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

“The man who knows his limitations, has none.”
― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

“...hanging out does not make one an artist. A secondhand wardrobe does not make one an artist. Neither do a hair-trigger temper, melancholic nature, propensity for tears, hating your parents, nor even HIV - I hate to say it - none of these make one an artist. They can help, but just as being gay does not make one witty (you can suck a mile of cock, as my friend Sarah Thyre puts it, it still won't make you Oscar Wilde, believe me), 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

“Saying 'I notice you're a nerd' is like saying, 'Hey, I notice that you'd rather be intelligent than be stupid, that you'd rather be thoughtful than be vapid, that you believe that there are things that matter more than the arrest record of Lindsay Lohan. Why is that?' In fact, it seems to me that most contemporary insults are pretty lame. Even 'lame' is kind of lame. Saying 'You're lame' is like saying 'You walk with a limp.' Yeah, whatever, so does 50 Cent, and he's done all right for himself.”
― John Green

“To truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain, and play with it.”
― Charlie Chaplin

“You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think.”
― Dorothy Parker, You Might As Well Live: The Life and Times of Dorothy Parker

“There are so many different kinds of stupidity, and cleverness is one of the worst.”
― Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

“He probably was mediocre after all, though in a very honorable sense of that word.”
― Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

“I bought a piece of God, ground to dust and mixed with alcohol in a glass bottle the colour of molasses.”
― Craig Clevenger, Dermaphoria

“There are talking dogs all over the place, unbelievably boring they are, on and on and on about sex and shit and smells, and smells and shit and sex, and do you love me, do you love me, do you love me.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, Changing Planes

“Many people would have to hang by their teeth from a frayed cord suspended by a paper clip from a leaking hot air balloon over the Grand Canyon in order to feel what I feel standing on the third step of a stepladder trying to put millet in the bird feeder.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, Changing Planes

“Literature is greater than any of us, dammit.”
― Romain Gary

“Life is a bucket of shit with a barbed wire handle.”
― Jim Thompson

“I knew when I met you an adventure was going to happen.”
― A.A. Milne

“Whatever it is you're seeking won't come in the form you're expecting.”
― Haruki Marukami

“Too much good taste can be boring”
― Diana Vreeland

“I've found that there is always some beauty left -- in nature, sunshine, freedom, in yourself; these can all help you.”
― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

“Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”
― Arthur C. Clarke

“Ceaseless as the interminable voices of the bell-cricket, all night till dawn my tears flow.”
― Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji

“One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about humans was their habit of continually stating and repeating the very very obvious.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“There's that kind of money in the world. It aggravates you to have it, makes you miserable to spend it, and you hate yourself when it's gone. And when you hate yourself, you feel like spending money. Except there's no money left. And no hope.”
― Haruki Murakami, A Wild Sheep Chase

“Whiskey, like a beautiful woman, demands appreciation. You gaze first, then it's time to drink.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“Genius or fool, you don't live in the world alone. You can hide underground or you can build a wall around yourself, but somebody's going to come along and screw up the works.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“Open your eyes, train your ears, use your head. If a mind you have, then use it while you can.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“Life's no piece of cake, mind you, but the recipe's my own to fool with.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“The most important thing we learn at school is the fact that the most important things can't be learned at school.”
― Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running