[A] great novel will allow you to transcend the social, racial and political limitations imposed by the vicissitudes of life and to find a deep fraternity based on empathy.
I am eternally grateful for my knack of finding in great books, some of them very funny books, reason enough to feel honored to be alive, no matter what else might be going on.
Most people think everybody feels about them much more violently than they actually do; they think other people's opinions of them swing through great arcs of approval or disapproval.
Beauty and love pass, I know... Oh, there's sadness, too. I suppose all great happiness is a little sad. Beauty means the scent of roses and then the death of roses-
The landscape had been so maimed by this new kind of warfare it was as if human architects of great genius had sat down to plan hell, since no two of them could agree on the design of heaven.
He saw that science had become as great a hoax as religion, that nationalism was a farce, patriotism a fraud, education a form of leprosy, and that morals were for cannibals
I water my driveway, and I drive a hard bargain to work (it gets great gas mileage).
To let her imagine how great a lover I’d be, I ate soup with chopsticks. She went home with another man, but I’ll bet she fantasized about me.
I’m stoic like a statue of Stonewall Jackson. I’d make a great U.S. President, but I’d make an even better chiseled piece of marble—and that’s what makes me such an amazing lover.
Beauty, my first girlfriend said to me, is that inner quality often associated with great amounts of leisure time.
Dinner was good. The conversation was great, but the food was bad, so it averaged out. I wish I were as good in bed as I am in the kitchen.
The great source of both the misery and disorders of human life, seems to arise from over-rating the difference between one permanent situation and another...
I was in Love once. I think I stayed at a Holiday Inn. Or maybe I was in Loveland, Co. But either way it felt great to be so directionless and unaware of my surroundings and so utterly lost.
Pineapple juice doesn’t come in a can—it comes in a hard, spiky shell called a pineapple. Pineapples are great and all, but of all things to grow, up is the most profitable.
Don't the great tales never end?" "No, they never end as tales," said Frodo. "But the people in them come, and go when their part's ended. Our part will end later – or sooner.
-Hey, neighbor, is your wife free for a date today? -No, I’m taking her out this afternoon? -Great! Then you won’t mind if I come over and mow your lawn. Sucker!
And here he was, a little halfling from the Shire, a simple hobbit of the quiet countryside, expected to find a way where the great ones could not go, or dared not go. It was an evil fate.
One of the most productive ways a government can spend money on the people is by building more prisons. That’s what makes the US so great. That’s what freedom is all about.
You will do great and terrible things, Bethany Rudan. Just make sure you know the difference before you choose to act. And look to the boy, the tracker. He anchors you.
You say 'I' and you are proud of this word. But greater than this- although you will not believe in it - is your body and its great intelligence, which does not say 'I' but performs 'I'.
I find that being considerate of others and keeping what I say and what I do in agreement makes for a great night's sleep.
