Anne C > Anne C's Quotes

“Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

“I'm not afraid of death; I just don't want to be there when it happens.”
― Woody Allen

“I imagined the Augustus Waters analysis of that comment: If I am playing basketball in heaven, does that imply a physical location of a heaven containing physical basketballs? Who makes the basketballs in question? Are there less fortunate souls in heaven who work in a celestial basketball factory so that I can play? Or did an omnipotent God create the basketballs out of the vacuum of space? Is this heaven in some kind of unobservable universe where the laws of physics don't apply, and if so, why in the hell would I be playing basketball when I could be flying or reading or looking at beautiful people or something else I actually enjoy? It's almost as if the way you imagine my dead self says more about you than either the person I was or whatever I am now.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“If Jesus came back and saw what was being done in his name, he'd never stop throwing up.”
― Woody Allen, Hannah and Her Sisters

“Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the ‘transcendent’ and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Don’t be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will provide plenty of time for silence.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“It's been many years since I had such an exemplary vegetable.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”
― Mark Twain

“And on the subject of burning books: I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their powerful political connections or their great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and have refused to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles.

So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

“I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“If you are bored and disgusted by politics and don't bother to vote, you are in effect voting for the entrenched Establishments of the two major parties, who please rest assured are not dumb, and who are keenly aware that it is in their interests to keep you disgusted and bored and cynical and to give you every possible reason to stay at home doing one-hitters and watching MTV on primary day. By all means stay home if you want, but don't bullshit yourself that you're not voting. In reality, there is no such thing as not voting: you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard's vote.”
― David Foster Wallace, Up, Simbal!: 7 Days on the Trail of an Anticandidate

“It’s probably not just by chance that I’m alone. It would be very hard for a man to live with me, unless he’s terribly strong. And if he’s stronger than I, I’m the one who can’t live with him. … I’m neither smart nor stupid, but I don’t think I’m a run-of-the-mill person. I’ve been in business without being a businesswoman, I’ve loved without being a woman made only for love. The two men I’ve loved, I think, will remember me, on earth or in heaven, because men always remember a woman who caused them concern and uneasiness. I’ve done my best, in regard to people and to life, without precepts, but with a taste for justice.”
― Coco Chanel

“I do things like get in a taxi and say, "The library, and step on it.”
― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

“I don't want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying. I don't want to live on in the hearts of my countrymen; I want to live on in my apartment.”
― Woody Allen, The Illustrated Woody Allen Reader

“If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss Bank.”
― Woody Allen

“Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia. (...) You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you'll escape it one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present.”
― John Green, Looking for Alaska

“When adults say, "Teenagers think they are invincible" with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don't know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail.”
― John Green, Looking for Alaska

“Memories were short and history unkind. It was the way of the world.”
― Deborah Harkness, Shadow of Night

“I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“A man who procrastinates in his choosing will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967

“It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

“A lovely thing about Christmas is that it's compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together.”
― Garrison Keillor, Leaving Home

“Sin ought to be something exquisite, my dear boy.”
― Emile Zola

“It's like learning to ride a unicorn. You never forget.”
― Eoin Colfer, Artemis Fowl

“You have to choose your combinations careful. The right choices will enhance your quilt. The wrong choices will dull the colors and hide their original beauty. There are no rules you can follow. You have to go by instinct and you have to be brave.”
― Whitney Otto, How to Make an American Quilt

“Mandatory showers had been dropped in the fall, when Lilah Porter protested the archaic practice by staging a sit-in in the gym, where she set up a projector and played the shower scene from Carrie in a continuous loop until the school board caved.”
― Marlene Perez, Dead Is the New Black

“She was a soul-sucking vampire and I was a sixteen-year-old cheerleader, but I was damned if she was going to suck the life out of all my friends. High school was hard enough.”
― Marlene Perez, Dead Is the New Black

“She wanted to be extraordinary, to possess a savage glitter.”
― Joy Williams

“Books light the fire—whether it’s a book that’s already written, or an empty journal that needs to be filled in.”
― Meg Wolitzer, Belzhar

“The redhead whispered, “No, what’s a man like down there?” “Oh.” Sidheag wrinkled her nose. “Unimpressive. They have”—she gestured toward her own nether regions with one hand—“a sort of dangly sausage—lacks tailoring.” Sophronia blinked in surprise. That sounded worse than Sidheag’s description of a werewolf shift.”
― Gail Carriger, Curtsies & Conspiracies