Jonathan > Jonathan's Quotes

Showing 1-30 of 60

« previous 1 2 next »

like

#1

“You can get all A's and still flunk life.”
― Walker Percy, The Second Coming

tags: life

440 likes

like

#2

“You could tell by the way he talked, though, that he had gone to school a long time. That was probably what was wrong with him.”
― John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces

219 likes

like

#3

“That's what fiction is for. It's for getting at the truth when the truth isn't sufficient for the truth.”
― Tim O'Brien

tags: fiction, on-fiction, stories, truth, writing

2418 likes

like

#4

“The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.”
― Flannery O'Connor

tags: truth

5548 likes

like

#5

“A novel is a commodity that fulfills a certain need; people need to buy daydreams like they need to buy ice cream or aspirin or gin. They even need to buy a pinch of intellectual catnip now and then to liven up their thoughts...”
― John Dos Passos, Novels 1920-1925: One Man's Initiation: 1917 / Three Soldiers / Manhattan Transfer

20 likes

like

#6

“I never see the dawn that I don't say to myself perhaps.”
― John Dos Passos

28 likes

like

#7

“Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or better.”
― John Updike

116 likes

like

#8

“It was good to walk into a library again; it smelled like home.”
― Elizabeth Kostova, The Historian

tags: books, home, library

971 likes

like

#9

“Every weakness contains within itself a strength.”
― Shusaku Endo

tags: weakness

1528 likes

like

#10

“Your heartbreak is just another version of the same old story.”
― Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City

50 likes

like

#11

“If you're looking for sympathy you'll find it between shit and syphilis in the dictionary.”
― David Sedaris, Barrel Fever: Stories and Essays

tags: sympathy

6313 likes

like

#12

“I am certain there is too much certainty in the world.”
― Michael Crichton

1547 likes

like

#13

“Deep in each man is the knowledge that something knows of his existence. Something knows, and cannot be fled nor hid from.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Crossing

tags: god

274 likes

like

#14

“On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.”
― George Orwell, All Art is Propaganda: Critical Essays

tags: goodness, human-nature, humour, philosophy

796 likes

like

#15

“Chance is perhaps the pseudonym of God when he does not want to sign.”
― Théophile Gautier

tags: misattributed-to-einstein

8892 likes

like

#16

“The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.”
― C.S. Lewis

tags: christianity, god, religion

11237 likes

like

#17

“A university is just a group of buildings gathered around a library.”
― Shelby Foote

1334 likes

like

#18

“Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one's hand.”
― Ezra Pound

tags: books, light, reading

1442 likes

like

#19

“There is no reason why the same man should like the same books at eighteen and at forty-eight”
― Ezra Pound

tags: books

1051 likes

like

#20

“We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel... is an essential guide to our understanding of what we ourselves are and may become.”
― Ursula K. LeGuin

tags: books, reading

2331 likes

like

#21

“Books are a uniquely portable magic.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

tags: books, magic, reading

17574 likes

like

#22

“If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”
― Stephen King

tags: reading, writing

13094 likes

like

#23

“Do you know what we call opinion in the absence of evidence? We call it prejudice.”
― Michael Crichton, State of Fear

tags: bigotry, fiction, prejudice, science

1293 likes

like

#24

“If you don't know history, then you don't know anything. You are a leaf that doesn't know it is part of a tree. ”
― Michael Crichton

tags: history

3018 likes

like

#25

“I believe empathy is the most essential quality of civilization.”
― Roger Ebert

tags: civilization, empathy

167 likes

like

#26

“The Muse visits during the process of creation, not before.”
― Roger Ebert

45 likes

like

#27

“It’s really hard to hate someone for being different when you’re too busy laughing together.”
― George Takei

23 likes

like

#28

“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.”
― Philip K. Dick, I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon

4326 likes

like

#29

“The true measure of a man is not his intelligence or how high he rises in this freak establishment. No, the true measure of a man is this: how quickly can he respond to the needs of others and how much of himself he can give.”
― Philip K. Dick

1106 likes

like

#30

“True religion should be able to respond to the dark melodies, the faulty and hideous sounds that echo from the heart of men.”
― Shusaku Endo, Scandal

tags: religion

45 likes

« previous 1 2 next »

All Quotes

Tags From Jonathan’s Quotes

life
fiction
on-fiction
stories
truth
writing
books
home
library
weakness
sympathy
god
goodness
human-nature
humour
philosophy
misattributed-to-einstein
christianity
religion
light
reading
magic
bigotry
prejudice
science
history
civilization
empathy