The steeper the climb, the more incentive to reach the top. Even in the midst of the darkness, there is always a shard of light if we will but search for it hard enough and believe in it strongly enough. A name portrays the nature of its wearer. The ...
I was Juliet and Quinn was Romeo, and the lines weren't dead black-and-white words on a page but somehow alive, as natural and real as the argument we'd had about the spider and the fly. The rows of empty seats were gone, and we were in a candlelit b...
Normally, when you challenge the conventional wisdom—that the current economic and political system is the only possible one—the first reaction you are likely to get is a demand for a detailed architectural blueprint of how an alternative system ...
Hana: The war's over - you told me yourself. How can it be desertion? Oliver: It's not over everywhere. I didn't mean literally. Hana: [looking at Almasy] When he dies I'll catch up. Oliver: [looking over the small cache of provisions] It's not safe ...
Eddie Morra: [at a party] ... Well sure, you'd get a short-term spike, but wouldn't that rapid expansion devalue the stock completely in two years? Kevin Doyle: No, 'cause there are safeguards! Eddie Morra: Against aggressive overexpansion? There are...
[Strangelove's plan for post-nuclear war survival involves living underground with a 10:1 female-to-male ratio] General "Buck" Turgidson: Doctor, you mentioned the ratio of ten women to each man. Now, wouldn't that necessitate the abandonment of the ...
[last lines] Jerry: Oh no you don't! Osgood, I'm gonna level with you. We can't get married at all. Osgood: Why not? Jerry: Well, in the first place, I'm not a natural blonde. Osgood: Doesn't matter. Jerry: I smoke! I smoke all the time! Osgood: I do...
The notion that evil is non-rational is a more significant claim for Eagleton than at first appears, because he is (in this book [ ] as in others of his recent 'late period' prolific burst) anxious to rewrite theology: God (whom he elsewhere tells us...
Snow-melt in the stream: Mama Nature turning winter's storms into nourishment for the soil, fecundity, and beauty. This is what I must now learn to do with the stormy weather I've been passing through: turn it into beauty, turn it into art, so new li...
In older myths, the dark road leads downward into the Underworld, where Persephone is carried off by Hades, much against her will, while Ishtar descends of her own accord to beat at the gates of Hell. This road of darkness lies to the West, according...
Literature is the extant body of written art. All novels belong to it. The value judgement concealed in distinguishing one novel as literature and another as genre vanishes with the distinction. Every readable novel can give true pleasure. Every nove...
By seeing the multitude of people around it, by being busied with all sorts of worldly affairs, by being wise to the ways of the world, such a person forgets himself, in a divine sense forgets his own name, dares not believe in himself, finds being h...
When you begin to walk your own journey, to have your own unique conversation, you will naturally stop feeling envious of others. Not because you’ll realize your desires are different from theirs, but because they are so similar. You’ll discover ...
Feeling at home anywhere on earth, and a foreigner even in the country where I was born, I consider myself an earthling, a citizen of the world. I love nature dearly and all creatures that contribute to make it what it is. I see the beauty in all exp...
If we can't forget, how can we forgive? I believe that forgiving can't be done by willpower alone. I can will myself to write out my own memories and feelings. I can will myself to imagine onto the page how someone else may have felt. I can will myse...
But why must the system go to such lengths to block our empathy? Why all the psychological acrobatics? The answer is simple: because we care about animals, and we don't want them to suffer. And because we eat them. Our values and behaviors are incong...
Nick Fury: Why make me head of SHIELD? Alexander Pierce: Because you're the best. And the most ruthless person I ever met. Nick Fury: I did what I did to protect people. Alexander Pierce: Our enemies are your enemies, Nick. Disorder, war. It's just a...
Ed, the car salesman: I'll get to the bottom of this. Davenport! Davenport: Yes, Mr. Ed? Ed, the car salesman: Mr. Griswold ordered a blue sports wagon, where is it? Davenport: I don't know sir. Ed, the car salesman: [to Clark] I know what must have ...
[Terrell disobeys Khan's order to kill Kirk, who taunts Khan over the communicator] Kirk: Khan, you bloodsucker! You're going to have to do your own dirty work now! Do you hear me? Do you? Khan: Kirk? Kirk, you're still alive, my old friend? Kirk: St...
Judge Turpin: I have news for you, my friend. In order to shield her from the evils of this world, I have decided to marry my dear Johanna. Beadle: Ah, sir, happy news indeed. Judge Turpin: Strange, though, when I offered myself to her, she showed a ...
Living organisms were not independently created, but have descended and diversified over time from common ancestors. And thus, no other biological theory so elegantly explains this. Evolutionary theory has withstood the test of time—by way of vicar...
