Patrick Mooney > Patrick's Quotes

“Between grief and nothing, I will take grief.”
― William Faulkner

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
― Oscar Wilde

“There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.”
― Socrates

“If everybody is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking.”
― George S. Patton

“After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one's own relations.”
― Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance

“Contradict yourself. In order to live, you must remain broken up.”
― Wyndham Lewis

“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”
― C.S. Lewis

“For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.”
― T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

“Books are not made to be believed, but to be subjected to inquiry. When we consider a book, we mustn't ask ourselves what it says but what it means...”
― Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose

“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

“The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome.”
― Derek Walcott, Sea Grapes

“Life is not so idiotically mathematical that only the big eat the small; it is just as common for a bee to kill a lion or at least to drive it mad.”
― August Strindberg, Miss Julie

“Begin at the beginning," the King said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

“Books have a unique way of stopping time in a particular moment and saying: Let’s not forget this.”
― Dave Eggers

“He never went out without a book under his arm, and he often came back with two.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“We understand more than we know.”
― Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake

“The aim of literature ... is the creation of a strange object covered with fur which breaks your heart.”
― Donald Barthelme, Come Back, Dr. Caligari

“Literature is news that stays news.”
― Ezra Pound, ABC of Reading

“Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

“Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard, are sweeter”
― John Keats, Ode On A Grecian Urn And Other Poems

“Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one's self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all.”
― Thomas Szasz

“The bravest people are the ones who don’t mind looking like cowards.”
― T.H. White, The Once and Future King

“Omit needless words.”
― William Strunk Jr., The Elements of Style; How to Speak and Write Correctly

“The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism.”
― Wole Soyinka

“Unbeing dead isn't being alive.”
― E. E. Cummings

“I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance”
― E.E. Cummings

“i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh ... And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you so quite new.”
― e.e. cummings

“anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did

Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

children guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone's any was all to her

someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men (both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain”
― E. E. Cummings, Selected Poems

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

“CALVIN:
Isn't it strange that evolution would give us a sense of humor?

When you think about it, it's weird that we have a physiological response to absurdity. We laugh at nonsense. We like it. We think it's funny.

Don't you think it's odd that we appreciate absurdity? Why would we develop that way? How does it benefit us?

HOBBES:
I suppose if we couldn't laugh at the things that don't make sense, we couldn't react to a lot of life.”
― Bill Watterson