William > William's Quotes

“The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright
-- And this was odd, because it was
The middle of the night.

The moon was shining sulkily,
Because she thought the sun
Had got no business to be there
After the day was done
-- "It's very rude of him," she said,
"To come and spoil the fun!"

The sea was wet as wet could be,
The sands were dry as dry.
You could not see a cloud, because
No cloud was in the sky:
No birds were flying overhead
-- There were no birds to fly.

In a Wonderland they lie
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summer die.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

“No matter what he does, every person on earth plays a central role in the history of the world. And normally he doesn't know it.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign

“What a wee little part of a person's life are his acts and his words! His real life is lead in his head, and is known to none but himself. All day long, and every day, the mill of his brain is grinding, and his thoughts, (which are but the mute articulation of his feelings,) not those other things are his history. His acts and his words are merely the visible thin crust of his world, with its scattered snow summits and its vacant wastes of water-and they are so trifling a part of his bulk! a mere skin enveloping it. The mass of him is hidden-it and its volcanic fires that toss and boil, and never rest, night nor day. These are his life, and they are not written, and cannot be written.”
― Mark Twain, The Autobiography of Mark Twain

“Trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit.”
― Moliere

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
― Anne Frank, Anne Frank's Tales from the Secret Annex: A Collection of Her Short Stories, Fables, and Lesser-Known Writings

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

“If you don't know where you're going, any road'll take you there”
― George Harrison

“After all, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels.”
― Ann Richards

“Don’t you know that slavery was outlawed?”
“No,” the guard said, “you’re wrong. Slavery was outlawed with the exception of prisons. Slavery is legal in prisons.”
I looked it up and sure enough, she was right. The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution says:
“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
Well, that explained a lot of things. That explained why jails and prisons all over the country are filled to the brim with Black and Third World people, why so many Black people can’t find a job on the streets and are forced to survive the best way they know how. Once you’re in prison, there are plenty of jobs, and, if you don’t want to work, they beat you up and throw you in a hole. If every state had to pay workers to do the jobs prisoners are forced to do, the salaries would amount to billions… Prisons are a profitable business. They are a way of legally perpetuating slavery. In every state more and more prisons are being built and even more are on the drawing board. Who are they for? They certainly aren’t planning to put white people in them. Prisons are part of this government’s genocidal war against Black and Third World people.”
― Assata Shakur, Assata: An Autobiography

“And a step backward, after making a wrong turn, is a step in the right direction.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Player Piano

“Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching,
Love like you'll never be hurt,
Sing like there's nobody listening,
And live like it's heaven on earth.”
― William W. Purkey

“By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.”
― William Shakespeare, Macbeth

“The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.”
― Niels Bohr

“Free yourself from the shackles of an oppressive reality. What’s real to you is what you imagine and what you feel. If you manage your illusions wisely, you might get what you want, but you won’t necessarily understand why it worked.”
― Scott Adams, How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life

“The more this guy talked, the more he sounded like a fortune cookie.”
― Kelly Creagh, Nevermore

“You're really a blond," she said, her tone just short of accusatory.
"And if you tell anyone, I will come to you in the night and smote your everlasting soul.”
― Kelly Creagh, Nevermore

“His eyes remained on Isobel as he began a slow backward walk. He was doing it again, speaking to her with his eyes. She remained trapped in his stare, trying to hear him, to read the underlying message. Finally his gaze broke from hers and he turned away, walking off through the cafeteria doors.

There was a pause before Gwen spoke. "Let me guess," she said. "Right now, you're trying to decide if that was hot or annoying." She paused, as though formulating her own opinion.... "It was so totally hot.”
― Kelly Creagh, Nevermore

“It's strange when you think about it. There are hundreds and hundreds of murders in books and television. It would be hard for narrative fiction to survive without them. And yet there are almost none in real life, unless you happen to live in the wrong area. Why is it that we have such a need for murder mystery? And what is it that attracts us? The crime, or the solution? Do we have some primal need of bloodshed because our own lives are so safe, so comfortable?”
― Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one –Albert Einstein”
― Spartan Kaayn, The Accidental Immortals