Authority without wisdom is like a heavy ax without an edge, fitter to bruise than polish.
She had been struck by the figure of a woman's back in a mirror. She stopped and looked. The dress the figure wore was the color called ashes of roses, and Ada stood, held in place by a sharp stitch of envy or th woman's dress and the fine shape of h...
If you believe in the eighteenth century view of the mind, you will look and act wimpy. You will think that all you need to do is give people the facts and the figures and they will reach the right conclusion. You will think that all you need to do i...
The fact that he does not tell me the truth all the time makes me not sure of his truth at certain times, and then I work to figure out for myself if what he is telling me is the truth or not, and sometimes I can figure out that it's not the truth an...
It’s killing me, baby,” he says, his voice much more calm and quiet. “It’s killing me because I don’t want you to go another day without knowing how I feel about you. And I’m not ready to tell you I’m in love with you, because I’m not...
I'm a woman; in so many ways I've been programmed to please. I took the job and spent time hunkered over figures, budgets, charts, and fiscal-year projections. I tried, but I hated it. "Working at a job you don't like is the same as going to prison e...
Walter Neff: Hello, Keyes. You're up pretty early, aren't you? I always wondered what time you got down to the office. Or did that little man of yours pull you out of bed? Barton Keyes: The janitor did. Seems you leaked a little blood on the way in h...
Roger: Here's a joke, boy. One day this man walks out of his house to go to work. He sees this snail on his porch. So he picks it up and chucks it over his roof, into the back yard. Snail bounces off a rock, cracks its shell all to shit, and lands in...
The world has long ceased to be the author of your anguish.
Authors, he thought. Even the sane ones are nuts.
...when the room goes silent, someone has spoken with authority...
The author enters into his own death, writing begins.
Submission is not about authority and it is not obedience; it is all about relationships of love and respect.
The great words never die... and so does the soul of its author.
Writer is always alone. But every author is a creator, and gods are lonely.
Old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.
The best government rests on the people, and not on the few, on persons and not on property, on the free development of public opinion and not on authority.
An author knows his landscape best; he can stand around, smell the wind, get a feel for his place.
Inferiority complex begins when you agree that you are nothing. No one is responsible or author of it except yourself.
There should be no effort, consciously or otherwise, that will lead to the erosion of institutional credibility and authority.
I believe in a lively disrespect for most forms of authority.
