a > a's Quotes

“We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, If This Isn't Nice, What Is?: Advice for the Young

“I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

“If you want to really hurt you parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possible can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

“Dear future generations: Please accept our apologies. We were rolling drunk on petroleum.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night

“You’ve got to sing like you don’t need the money,
Love like you’ll never get hurt.
You’ve got to dance like nobody’s watchin’.”
― Richard Leigh, Come from the Heart Sheet Music

“We should write as we dream; we should even try and write, we should all do it for ourselves, it’s very healthy, because it’s the only place where we never lie. At night we don’t lie. Now if we think that our whole lives are built on lying-they are strange buildings-we should try and write as our dreams teach us; shamelessly, fearlessly, and by facing what is inside very human being-sheer violence, disgust, terror, shit, invention, poetry. In our dreams we are criminals; we kill, and we kill with a lot of enjoyment. But we are also the happiest people on earth; we make love as we never make love in life.”
― Helene Cixous

“Instead of committing suicide, people go to work.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Correction

“Whatever condition we are in, we must always do what we want to do, and if we want to go on a journey, then we must do so and not worry about our condition, even if it's the worst possible condition, because, if it is, we're finished anyway, whether we go on the journey or not, and it's better to die having made the journey we're been longing for than to be stifled by our longing.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Concrete

“The chances of seeing an idea through to completion are inversely proportional to the time you’ve spent talking about it beforehand. ”
― Jean-Philippe Toussaint

“Les meilleurs livres sont ceux dont on se souvient du fauteuil dans lequel on les a lus.”
― Jean-Philippe Toussaint, L'Urgence et la Patience

“Very early in my life it was too late.”
― Marguerite Duras, The Lover

“As it happened, I was no longer interested in literature as a form of snobbery or even self-definition. I had no desire to prove that one book was better than another; in fact, if I read something I admired, I found myself increasingly disinclined to mention it at all. What I knew personally to be true had come to seem unrelated to the process of persuading others. I did not, any longer, want to persuade anyone of anything.”
― Rachel Cusk, Outline

“Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?”
― Albert Camus

“When the soul suffers too much, it develops a taste for misfortune.”
― Albert Camus, The First Man

“When I was young I asked more of people than they could give: everlasting friendship, endless feeling.

Now I know to ask less of them than they can give: a straightforward companionship. And their feelings, their friendship, their generous actions seem in my eyes to be wholly miraculous: a consequence of grace alone.”
― Albert Camus, The First Man

“There is a terrible emptiness in me, an indifference that hurts.”
― Albert Camus, The First Man

“They hurt each other without wanting to, just because each represented to the others the cruel and demanding necessity of their lives.”
― Albert Camus, The First Man

“Please, when I come home, don't forget the "soul"... and I don't mean "sweet sayings"... I mean the truth, the sharing of our inmost thoughts, good or bad... lost or comforting. That is the soul. I think it. The soul, is I think, a human being who speaks with the pressure of death at his head. That's how I'd phrase it. The self in trouble... not just the self without love (as us) but the self as it will always be (with gun at its head finally)... To live and know it is only for a moment... that is to know "the soul"... and it increases closeness and despair and happiness...”
― Anne Sexton, Anne Sexton: A Self-Portrait in Letters

“Remember: The rules, like streets, can only take you to known places.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“My library is an archive of longings.”
― Susan Sontag, As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980

“I haven't been everywhere, but it's on my list.”
― Susan Sontag

“Do stuff. be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration's shove or society's kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It's all about paying attention. attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. stay eager.”
― Susan Sontag

“I am only interested in people engaged in a project of self-transformation.”
― Susan Sontag, As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980

“Alone, alone. I am alone – I ache … Yet for the first time, despite all the anguish and the reality problems, I’m here. I feel tranquil, whole, ADULT.”
― Susan Sontag, As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980

“I vulgarize my feelings by speaking of them too readily to others.”
― Susan Sontag, As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980

“Philosophy is an art form—art of thought or thought as art”
― Susan Sontag, As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980

“Every once in a while, people need to be in the presence of things that are really far away.”
― Ian Frazier