Nathan > Nathan's Quotes

“My experience of life is that it is not divided up into genres; it’s a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky.”
― Alan Moore

“People shouldn't be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people.”
― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

“I have never listened to anyone who criticized my taste in space travel, sideshows or gorillas. When this occurs, I pack up my dinosaurs and leave the room.”
― Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing: Releasing the Creative Genius Within You

“Americans are the only people in the world known to me whose status anxiety prompts them to advertise their college and university affiliations in the rear window of their automobiles.”
― Paul Fussell, Class: A Guide Through the American Status System

“The more violent the body contact of the sports you watch, the lower your class.
”
― Paul Fussell

“If truth is the main casualty in war, ambiguity is another.”
― Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
― Albert Einstein

“Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans.”
― Allen Saunders

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

“A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong it is until it's in hot water.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt

“Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.”
― Marilyn Monroe

“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”
― Andre Gide, Autumn Leaves

“Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.”
― Mark Twain

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).”
― Mark Twain

“When ... asked what I am writing, I have answered, "A book about social class in America," ... It is if I had said, "I am working on a book urging the beating to death of baby whales using the dead bodies of baby seals.”
― Paul Fussell, Class: A Guide Through the American Status System

“I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Player Piano

“...during the Asian financial crisis the United States and other Western countries demanded that the Asians take three steps--let bad banks fail, keep spending under control, and keep interest rates high. In it own crisis, the West did exactly the opposite on all three fronts.”
― Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World

“If religions are diseases of the human psyche, as the philosopher Grintholde asserts, then religious wars must be reckoned the resultant sores and cankers infecting the aggregate corpus of the human race. Of all wars, these are the most detestable, since they are waged for no tangible gain, but only to impose a set of arbitrary credos upon another's mind.”
― Jack Vance, The Face

“Cease the bickering! I am indulging the exotic whims of a beautiful princess and must not be distracted.”
― Jack Vance

“Notice this rent in my garment; I am at a loss to explain its presence! I am even more puzzled by the existence of the universe.”
― Jack Vance, Tales of the Dying Earth

“Candor is never indiscreet. Truth, which is to say, the reflection of life, is beautiful.”
― Jack Vance, The Demon Princes, Volume One: The Star King, The Killing Machine, The Palace of Love

“It is an unthinkable discrepancy that fifty-four men should consume the food intended for fifty-three.”
― Jack Vance

“The Brinktown jail is one of the most ingenious ever propounded by civic authorities. It must be remembered that Brinktown occupies the surface of a volcanic butte, overlooking a trackless jungle of quagmire, thorn, eel-vine skiver tussock. A single road leads from city down to jungle; the prisoner is merely locked out of the city. Escape is at his option; he may flee as far through the jungle as he sees fit: the entire continent is at his disposal. But no prisoner ever ventures far from the gate; and, when his presence is required, it is only necessary to unlock the gate and call his name.”
― Jack Vance, The Star King

“I think literature is best when it's voicing what we would prefer not to talk about.”
― Rick Moody

“Eating and reading are two pleasures that combine admirably.”
― C.S. Lewis

“A concept is a brick. It can be used to build a courthouse of reason. Or it can be thrown through the window.”
― Gilles Deleuze, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia

“Let others praise ancient times; I am glad I was born in these.”
― Ovid

“My definition of good literature is that which can be read by an educated reader, and reread with increased pleasure.”
― Gene Wolfe

“All novels are fantasies. Some are more honest about it.”
― Gene Wolfe

“We are not all born at once, but by bits. The body first, and the spirit later... Our mothers are racked with the pains of our physical birth; we ourselves suffer the longer pains of our spiritual growth.”
― Mary Austin