Mr. Koreander: Your books are safe. While you're reading them, you get to become Tarzan or Robinson Crusoe. Bastian: But that's what I like about 'em. Mr. Koreander: Ahh, but afterwards you get to be a little boy again. Bastian: Wh-what do you mean? ...
Royal: First thing I want to do is take you out to see your grandmother, at some point. Richie: I haven't been out there since I was 6. Margot: I haven't been out there at all, I was never invited. Royal: Well, she wasn't your real grandmother, and I...
Don DaGradi: [to Travers] so this is the rest of your team, Dick and Bob Sherman! Music and lyrics. [to the Shermans] Don DaGradi: Boys, this is the one and only Mrs. P.L. Travers, the creator of our beloved Mary! P.L. Travers: Poppins. Don DaGradi: ...
[Uncle Charlie visits the bank] Uncle Charlie: Hello, Joe. Can you stop embezzling a minute and give me your attention? Joseph Newton: Oh, uh, Charles, we don't joke about such things here. Uncle Charlie: Aw, what's a little shortage in the books at ...
Oompa Loompas: Oompa Loompa doo-pa-dee do / I've got another puzzle for you / Oompa Loompa doo-pa-dah dee / If you are wise you'll listen to me / What do you get from a glut of TV? / A pain in the neck and an IQ of 3 / Why don't you try simply readin...
Sally Albright: Amanda mentioned you had a dark side. Harry Burns: That's what drew her to me. Sally Albright: Your dark side? Harry Burns: Sure. Why? Don't you have a dark side? I know, you're probably one of those cheerful people who dot their "i's...
Rorschach: We need to squeeze people. Dan Dreiberg: [sarcastic] Sure. We'll pick them out of a phone book. Rorschach: You forgot how we do things, Daniel. You've gotten too soft. Too trusting. Especially with women. Dan Dreiberg: No, listen, I am thr...
Margo Channing: Funny business, a woman's career - the things you drop on your way up the ladder so you can move faster. You forget you'll need them again when you get back to being a woman. That's one career all females have in common, whether we li...
The night before a biochemistry class, I read the last year's lecture notes. I look at the pictures in the book. Now, I've got the general concept. Sure...There's a couple of details to fill in and a a few things to memorize. But that's no big deal. ...
Simple answers to the most difficult questions: 1. Why do humans find it difficult to express themselves? To relate to the movies and books, later. 2. Why do humans make everything look so big, beautiful & complicated? Ego feels good. 3. Why do human...
The truthfulness of 'The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism' is in doubt largely because of uncertainty about its authorship, and, as we have seen, a nearly identical ambiguity surrounds the Appendix. The parallel is significant. Two ps...
Every Inch of the Way is a great page turning adventure which is as close as you can get, without actually saddling up and pedalling yourself into the unknown. It takes real magic to turn a great adventure, into a great book. For one thing, most peop...
Evan Connell said once that he knew he was finished with a short story when he found himself going through it and taking out commas and then going through the story again and putting the commas back in the same places. I like that way of working on s...
It may take a decade or two before the extent of Shakespeare's collaboration passes from the graduate seminar to the undergraduate lecture, and finally to popular biography, by which time it will be one of those things about Shakespeare that we thoug...
Words are not just wind. Words have something to say. But if what they have to say is not fixed, then do they really say something? Or do they say nothing? People suppose that words are different from the peeps of baby birds, but is there any differe...
In the end, this volume should be read a s a collection of love stories, Above all, they are tales of love, not the love with which so many stories end – the love of fidelity, kindness and fertility – but the other side of love, its cruelty, ster...
I tell you, life is extraordinary. A few years ago I couldn’t write anything or sell anything, I’d passed the age where you know all the returns are in, I’d had my chance and done my best and failed. And how was I to know the miracle waiting to...
Thomas Jefferson, that owner of many slaves, chose to begin the Declaration of Independence by directly contradicting the moral basis of slavery, writing "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and that they are endo...
There’s one kind of writing that’s always easy: Picking out something obviously stupid and reiterating how stupid it obviously is. This is the lowest form of criticism, easily accomplished by anyone. And for most of my life, I have tried to avoid...
When people recover from depression via psychotherapy, their attributions about recovery are likely to be different than those of people who have been treated with medication. Psychotherapy is a learning experience. Improvement is not produced by an ...
In The Republic, Plato imagines human beings chained for the duration of their lives in an underground cave, knowing nothing but darkness. Their gaze is confined to the cave wall, upon which shadows of the world are thrown. They believe these flicker...