And visitors say: how does such a big city exist? What keeps it going? Since it's got a river you can chew, where does the drinking water come from? What is, in fact, the basis of its civic economy? How come it, against all probability, ? Actually, v...
They may already know too much about their mother and father--nothing being more factual than divorce, where so much has to be explained and worked through intelligently (though they have tried to stay equable). I've noticed this is often the time wh...
Political marketing...plays to people's emotions, not their thoughts. It operates on the belief that repeating a catchy phrase, even if it's untrue, will seal an idea in the mind of the unknowing or uncaring public. It assumes that citizens will alwa...
I believe he's been asked to testify today," I told Lennox, who'd continued to track Truman's progress through the room. "He's a member of the historical undead, Truman Capote, the author. He wrote Breakfast at Tiffany's and In Cold Blood."... "Hi, T...
People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to one's self. Of course, they are charitable. They feed the hungry and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Cou...
The ascendancy over men's minds of the ruins of the stupendous past, the past of history, legend and myth, at once factual and fantastic, stretching back and back into ages that can but be surmised, is half-mystical in basis. The intoxication, at onc...
I think the tingles are important. They are real, and I am in favor of their survival. But they are not the basis for a satisfactory marriage. I am not suggesting that on should marry without the tingles. Those warm, excited feelings, the chill bumps...
His name is Arnold. But you’re not on a first name basis with him, and that’s not his first name. So that’s Mr. Arnold to you. Once you get to know him, he may let you call him by his first name, which is Grafmiller. His middle name is his wife...
Manic-depression distorts moods and thoughts, incites dreadful behaviors, destroys the basis of rational thought, and too often erodes the desire and will to live. It is an illness that is biological in its origins, yet one that feels psychological i...
Consider the Koran, for example; this wretched book was sufficient to start a world-religion, to satisfy the metaphysical need for countless millions for twelve hundred years, to become the basis of their morality and of a remarkable contempt for dea...
Let's worry like mad. Shall we start on a worldwide basis and work down to ourselves, or start with ourselves and spread?" "I'm going to do me-and-Peter and that dead man." "All right. I'm just going to do a wee one about Bunny and then I'll join you...
The best way to choose the wrong door, or never even open the door, is to let fear run the show. When you reflect on any big-ticket decision you have made on the basis of fear and anxiety, you can almost guarantee you made the wrong decision.
And I think that it is certainly possible that the objective universe can be affected by the poet. I mean, you recall Orpheus made the trees and the stones dance and so forth, and this is something which is in almost all primitive cultures. I think i...
Just as man's pride wishes to insert human actions and merits into the gospel, so that we can boast, at least a bit, in our own accomplishments (thus denying the sufficiency of God's grace), so too man seeks to enthrone his own thoughts and authority...
The one thing that I want every single child to have experienced at some point in their life, as part of their education, is to have some idea they hold to be true, and at the very basis of their being, proved to be wrong. Because that opens your min...
I am not a committed pacifist. I would not hold that it is under all imaginable circumstances wrong to use violence, even though use of violence is in some sense unjust. I believe that one has to estimate relative justices. But the use of violence an...
Nowadays… deals are transactional rather than personal. Instead of placing your faith in a person, you get lawyers to write safeguards into the contract. This is an historic shift from a trust economy to a risk economy. But trust is not a dispensab...
[Two traders are getting their shoes shined] Trader #2: You can't short the stock because Bruce Wayne goes to a party. Trader #1: Wayne coming back is change. Change is either good or bad. I pick bad. Trader #2: On what basis? Trader #1: I flipped a ...
Gary: So who's the gov'? Who we doing this for? Barry the Baptist: You're doing it for me, that's all you need to know. You know because you need to know. Gary: I see. One of them "on a need to know basis" things is it. Like one of them James Bond fi...
Stanley Goodspeed: Hi, darling, it's me. Listen, do not come, I repeat, do not come to San Francisco. Carla: [Answers the phone] Stanley, no. Stanley Goodspeed: Carla... Carla: Like hell I'm not comin'! [Hangs up] Stanley Goodspeed: Wait, Carla... [t...
Tommy: How's it going with Gail? Spud: No joy yet. Tommy: How long is it? Spud: Six weeks. Tommy: Six weeks! Spud: It's a nightmare. She told me she didn't want our relationship to start on a physical basis as that is how it would be principally defi...
