The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The scien...
Jerry Johnson: You know, I must say, we have heard some strange things coming out of your office in New Orleans. First, we heard that the Cuban exiles killed the President. Then the mob. Now your latest theory seems to be that the CIA, the FBI, and t...
Maude: [Maude is driving Harold's hearse through a cemetery] Hey, this old thing handles well! Ever drive a hearse Harold? Harold: Yeah. Maude: Well! It's a new experience for me! [the hearse is seen squealing through a curve] Maude: Good on curves! ...
Patrick: Hey, everyone! Every body! Everyone, raise your glasses to Charlie. Charlie: What did I do? Patrick: You didn't do anything. We just want to toast to our new friend. You see things and you understand. You're a wallflower. [Charlie gets embar...
Sugar: [after running back to the room to tell Josephine about the millionaire, Joe's other alter ego, and finding she's not there] Well I'll be back later. Jerry: Oh no you wait. I have a feeling she'll show up any minute. Sugar: Believe it or not, ...
Sid Loomis: It's a little idea she's wanted to do for years. She plays Jesus' mother. Partygoer: Oh. Sid Loomis: It's a whole Oedipal thing - he loves her, wants to do in the father. Well, you can see the complications. Of course, we're talking to Ir...
Remember that writing things down makes them real; that it is nearly impossible to hate anyone whose story you know; and, most of all, that even in our post-postmodern era, writing has a moral purpose. With twenty-six shapes arranged in varying patte...
I love so many books and authors that it's hard to name just a few, but I'm always particularly excited when new books by and come out. (And, of course, books by , and , and the rest of the Bordertown crew!) I'm impatiently looking forward to 's next...
Sometimes Edith came into the room and sat on the bed beside him and they talked. They talked of trivial things – of people they knew casually, of a new building going up on the campus, of an old one torn down; but what they said did not seem to ma...
Reading Aloud to My Father I chose the book haphazard from the shelf, but with Nabokov's first sentence I knew it wasn't the thing to read to a dying man: The cradle rocks above an abyss, it began, and common sense tells us that our existence is but ...
John McClane: [Getting out a pack of cigarettes] Do you smoke? Hans Gruber: [while mimicing a hostage] Yeah. [McClane hands him the pack of cigarettes] Hans Gruber: Thanks. Now, you don't work for Nakatomi, and you're not one of them. John McClane: I...
[Valentine receives a notice that Professor Arnold has been terminated] Valentine: Fuck that guy, whoever he is! I'm gonna... He made me kill Professor Arnold. Goddamn loved Professor Arnold. Gazelle: Well the good news is we know the emergency surve...
Obi-Wan Kenobi: You have allowed this dark lord to twist your mind, until now, until now you've become the very thing you swore to destroy. Anakin Skywalker: Don't lecture me, Obi-Wan! I see through the lies of the Jedi. I do not fear the dark side a...
The wonderful things in life are the things you do, not the things you have.
The great thing about movies is that they're collaborative. And the worst thing is that they're collaborative.
I think we do good things and bad things, sometimes simultaneously - or they may be the same thing.
I did mostly good things, except light things on fire.
One thing I've tried to do in writing music is take on very basic things, very archetypal things.
I've got a new invention. It's a revolving bowl for tired goldfish.
If we reward our children for doing the right things, or discipline for intentionally doing the wrong things, then we might be viewed as doing the right thing. On the other hand, we (or parents) might not fully grasp the right thing—as the “right...
From small beginnings come great things.
