I've got two daughters who will have to make their way in this skinny-obsessed world, and it worries me, because I don't want them to be empty-headed, self-obsessed, emaciated clones; I'd rather they were independent, interesting, idealistic, kind, o...
Okay," said Harry, staring at it, "Pear Drop. Er – Licorice Wand. Fizzing Whizbee. Drooble's Best Blowing Gum. Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans… oh no, he doesn't like them, does he?… oh just open, can't you?" He said angrily. "I really need to...
Literature is as old as speech. It grew out of human need for it and it has not changed except to become more needed. The skalds, the bards, the writers are not separate and exclusive. From the beginning, their functions, their duties, and their resp...
I think people should take mythology much more seriously, because it tells us an awful lot about the history of the human race. We tend to dismiss it as 'fairy tales,' when it isn't. Fairy tales in themselves are about fundamentals of human nature. A...
Most of my friends like words too well. They set them under the blinding light of the poem and try to extract every possible connotation from each of them, every temporary pun, every direct or indirect connection - as if a word could become an object...
I believe we inherit a great river of knowledge, a flow of patterns coming from many sources. The information that comes from deep in the evolutionary past we call genetics. The information passed along from hundreds of years ago we call culture. The...
In so far as I listen with interest to a record, it’s usually to figure out how it was arrived at. The musical end product is where interest starts to flag. It’s a bit like jigsaw puzzles. Emptied out of the box, there’s a heap of pieces, all s...
I recently heard a talk about identity in which the speaker said it's almost as though we are born into a world in which we are constantly being labeled by others -- our parents, our friends, our family, and people we don't even know. Each person, fr...
It is no longer just engineers who dominate our technology leadership, because it is no longer the case that computers are so mysterious that only engineers can understand what they are capable of. There is an industry-wide shift toward more "product...
[T]he heart is a very unreliable coinpass, and even will and knowledge, as all ideological factors in general, are not to be trusted as guides if they are without any material basis…. [I]t is not love nor help which is the guiding rule of our time,...
People care about animals. I believe that. They just don’t want to know or to pay. A fourth of all chickens have stress fractures. It’s wrong. They’re packed body to body, and can’t escape their waste, and never see the sun. Their nails grow ...
Troy: Why do we inflict this on ourselves? Ben: Why? I'll tell you why, 'cause the Red Sox never let you down. Troy: Huh? Ben: That's right. I mean - why? Because they haven't won a World Series in a century or so? So what? They're here. Every April,...
Men love war because it allows them to look serious. Because they imagine it is the only thing that stops women laughing at them. In it they can reduce women to the status of objects. That is the great distinction between the sexes. Men see objects, ...
Don’t make stuff because you want to make money — it will never make you enough money. And don’t make stuff because you want to get famous — because you will never feel famous enough. Make gifts for people — and work hard on making those gi...
You cannot reconcile creativeness with technical achievement. You may be perfect in playing the piano, and not be creative. You may be able to handle color, to put paint on canvas most cleverly, and not be a creative painter...having lost the song, w...
Mayor Grundy: Next, a newcomer to the Pie Eat, but one we expect great things from in the future. Young master David Hogan! Bill Travis: [Trips Lardass, who falls and hits his large belly on the stage] Are you all right, young man? Lardass Heckler #1...
Christian: [after testing some explosives] Fuck! That was sick! Imagine if we use one of the big ones. His car will be blown to pieces. Elias: Whose car? Christian: That asshole, Lars. Elias: You want to blow up his car? Christian: Sure. Elias: Someo...
Principal Evans: Mr. and Mrs. Abagnale, this is not a question of your son's attendance. I regret to inform you that, for the past week, Frank has been teaching Mrs. Glasser's French class. Paula Abagnale: He what? Principal Evans: Your son has been ...
Sydney Chaplin: [Charlie is playing the violin] Alright Sonny boy, tell your poor little brother today's problem. Charlie Chaplin: Same as the day before, and the day before that and the day before that. Sydney Chaplin: And the day before that, and t...
Randal Graves: I thought you weren't even allowed to watch a lot of TV in your house cause you're all Christian and shit. Elias: Well, as it turns out, cars and trucks that turn into robots aren't really that blasphemous. Because my pastor says that ...
Ronnie Neary: Roy, what did it look like? Roy Neary: It was like an ice cream cone. Ronnie Neary: What flavor? Roy Neary: Orange. It was orange - and it wasn't like an ice cream cone. It was, it was more like a shell. You know, it was like this. Ronn...
