Matt > Matt's Quotes

“It's not possible to search for God using the methods of a detective... There is no way. You can only wait till God's axe severs your roots: then you will understand that you are here only through a miracle, and you will remain fixed forever in wonderment and equilibrium.”
― Karel Čapek, Cross Roads

“Alas," said Aslan, shaking his head. "It will. Things always work according to their nature. She has won her heart's desire; she has unwearying strength and endless days like a goddess. But length of days with an evil heart is only length of misery and already she begins to know it. All get what they want; they do not always like it.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“As a man cannot lift a mountain, and as a kindly man cannot kill an infant, so a man living the Christian life cannot take part in deeds of violence. Of what value then to him are arguments about the imaginary advantages of doing what is morally impossible for him to do?”
― Leo Tolstoy, Writings on Civil Disobedience and Non Violence

“Every man is a king so long as he has someone to look down on.”
― Sinclair Lewis, It Can't Happen Here

“The consequences of every act are included in the act itself.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“When a man don't know his own mind, Miss Shirley, ma'am, how's a poor woman going to be sure of it?”
― Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea

“The constant assertion of masculinity is always the most obvious tell of a fake. You do not constantly assert what you know you have.”
― Matt Bondurant, The Wettest County in the World

“It's always possible to wake someone from sleep, but no amount of noise will wake someone who is pretending to be asleep.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals

“Every joy is beyond all others.”
― C.S. Lewis, Perelandra

“The beasts would not think it hard if I told them to walk on their heads. It would become their delight to walk on their heads. I am His beast, and all His biddings are joys.”
― C.S. Lewis, Perelandra

“Perfection is God; simplicity is perfection. The curse of curses is that men will not let truths like these alone.”
― Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“Oh, they're there all right," Orr had assured him about the flies in Appleby's eyes after Yossarian's fist fight in the officers' club, "although he probably doesn't even know it. That's why he can't see things as they really are."

"How come he doesn't know it?" inquired Yossarian.

"Because he's got flies in his eyes," Orr explained with exaggerated patience. "How can he see he's got flies in his eyes if he's got flies in his eyes?”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“Indeed in nothing is the power of the Dark Lord more clearly shown than in the estrangement that divides all those who still oppose him.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
― Upton Sinclair, I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked