Mrs. Random: Well who are you? David Huxley: I don't know. I'm not quite myself today. Mrs. Random: Well, you look perfectly idiotic in those clothes. David Huxley: These aren't *my* clothes. Mrs. Random: Well, where *are* your clothes? David Huxley:...
Danny Archer: So you think because your intentions are good, they'll spare you, huh? Benjamin Kapanay: My heart always told me that people are inherently good. My experience suggests otherwise. But what about you, Mr. Archer? In your long career as a...
Brigadier General Gavin: What's the best way to take a bridge? Maj. Julian Cook: Both ends at once. Brigadier General Gavin: I'm sending two companies across the river by boat. I need a man with very special qualities to lead. Maj. Julian Cook: Go on...
Old Biff: You always did have a way with women. Young Biff: Get the hell out of my car, old man! Old Biff: You wanna marry that girl, Biff? I can help make it happen. Young Biff: Oh-oh, yeah, who are you, Miss Lonelyhearts? Old Biff: Just get in the ...
[Al is explaining to the bank president why he made the loan to Mr. Novak] Al Stephenson: You see, Mr. Milton, in the Army I've had to be with men when they were stripped of everything in the way of property except what they carried around with them ...
Servant: [Presenting a gift] For the Tribune. With the compliments of Quintus Arrius. He awaits your pleasure. Messala: The consul here? Servant: It is Quintus Arrius the Younger, tribune. Messala: Thank him. Bring him to me. Drusus: I didn't know th...
[last lines] Ray: There's a Christmas tree somewhere in London with a bunch of presents underneath it that'll never be opened. And I thought, if I survive all of this, I'd go to that house, apologize to the mother there, and accept whatever punishmen...
[while interrogating the boys, Smecker is surprised that they are fluent in Russian] Paul Smecker: You speak any other languages? Murphy: Aye. Our mother insisted on it. Paul Smecker: French? Murphy: [in French] How do you think he figured all this o...
The secret seemed to me much more mysterious than that; it was the secret, I thought, of one who had known death; for I moved a stranger among ordinary people, like a man who has risen from the grave, and at first I merely felt rather painfully out o...
The American flag doesn't give her glory on a peaceful, calm day. It's when the winds pick up and become boisterous, do we see her strength. When she unfolds her hand, and shows her frayed fingers, where we see the stretch of red-blood lines of man t...
I do not want to be the leader. I refuse to be the leader. I want to live darkly and richly in my femaleness. I want a man lying over me, always over me. His will, his pleasure, his desire, his life, his work, his sexuality the touchstone, the comman...
If you crave for Knowledge, the banquet of Knowledge grows and groans on the board until the finer appetite sickens. If, still putting all your trust in Knowledge, you try to dodge the difficulty by specialising, you produce a brain bulging out inord...
So as soon as I tell myself I'm the first man ever to be dropped into the world, and as soon as I take that first flying leap into the frosty grass of an early morning when even birds haven't the heart to whistle, I get to thinking, and that's what I...
Science Fiction properly conceived, like all serious fiction, however funny, is a way of trying to describe what is going on, what people actually do and feel, how people relate to everything else in this vast sack, this belly of the universe, this w...
You learn more about life and people in two hours of war than in four decades of peace. War is dirty, sure, war is senseless, but come on! Civilian life is also senseless, in its sameness and it's reasonableness and because it dulls the instincts. Th...
The pioneer, the creator, the explorer is generally a single, lonely person rather than a group, struggling all alone with his inner conflicts, fears, defenses against arrogance and pride, even against paranoia. He has to be a courageous man, not afr...
If it were possible for a metaphysician to be a golfer, he might perhaps occasionally notice that his ball, instead of moving forward in a vertical plane (like the generality of projectiles, such as brickbats and cricket balls), skewed away gradually...
Then a soft air, a simple melody, rose to the ears of the suddenly hushed court; and for me, it was May Day again, and I was no longer cold, for the sun burned bright and the grass smelled of its sour-sweet bruisings and an old man fashioned a ballad...
Darks drifts covered the horizon. A strange shadow approaching nearer and nearer, was spreading little by little over men, over things, over ideas; a shadow which came from indignations and from systems. All that had been hurriedly stifled was stirri...
As he stood there lost in reflection, Auclair thought he seemed more like a man revolving plans for a new struggle with fortune than one looking back upon a life of brilliant features. The Count had the bearing of a fencer when he takes up the foil; ...
Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the mo...
