Except for the field organizers of strikes, who were pretty tough monkeys and devoted, most of the so-called Communists I met were middle-class, middle-aged people playing a game of dreams. I remember a woman in easy circumstances saying to another e...
Dinner is the most like jazz of all the meals, in that jazz is part form and part improvisation. You decide what you’re going to have, and then while you’re preparing it – because it’s the end of the day and you have the time – you have the...
[first lines] Lorenzo: This is a true story about friendship that runs deeper than blood. This is my story and that of the only three friends in my life that truely mattered. Two of them were killers who never made it past the age of 30. The other's ...
[about his wife] Frank Alexander: She was very badly raped, you see! We were assaulted by a gang of vicious, young, hoodlums in this house! In this very room you are sitting in now! I was left a helpless cripple, but for her the agony was too great! ...
[to Altaira] Commander John J. Adams: I'm in command of 18 competitively selected super-perfect physical specimens with an average age of 24.6 who have been locked up in hyperspace for 378 days. It would have served you right if I hadn't... and he......
Mikael Blomkvist: [about Martin Vanger] For fuck's sake, Lisbeth. His father trained him to murder at age sixteen. Anyone would be sick in the head with that kind of upbringing. Lisbeth Salander: Shut up about the victimizisation! He almost killed yo...
Sid: So she picks this hair off my shoulder, and says, "If you're gonna have a second mating dance, at least pick a sloth with the same color pelt." And I'm thinkin', "Whoa! She's gonna go praying-mantis on me." Know what I'm saying? Manny: Hey, if y...
Sid: Hey, what's your problem? Manny: *You* are my problem. Sid: Well, I think you're stressed, and that's why you eat so much. I mean, it's hard to get fat on a vegan diet. Manny: I'm not fat. It's all this fur. It makes me look... poofy. Sid: Fine....
Zeke: Ooh-hoo-hoo-hoo. I can't wait to get my paws on that mammoth. Soto: Nobody touches the mammoth until I get the baby. Zeke: ...First I'm gonna slice its hindquarters in sections. I'll put the white meat in one pile, and the dark meat in another....
[George has discovered his brother Harry's tombstone] Clarence: [explaining] Your brother, Harry Bailey, broke through the ice and was drowned at the age of nine. George Bailey: That's a lie! Harry Bailey went to war! He got the Congressional Medal o...
Nemo age 9: I can remember a long time ago. Long before my birth. I was waiting with those who were not yet born. When we're not born yet, we know everything. Everything that will happen. When it's your turn, the Angels of Oblivion place a finger on ...
Captain Frye: You changed the coordinates, didn't you, General? General Hummel: That's affirmative, Captain. Sergeant Crisp: So now they think we're gutless, the feds? They think we won't actually do it? Captain Frye: They're going to come at us with...
Alvin Straight: There's no one knows your life better than a brother that's near your age. He knows who you are and what you are better than anyone on earth. My brother and I said some unforgivable things the last time we met, but, I'm trying to put ...
Marianne: When is a man to be safe from such wit if age and infirmity do not protect him? Elinor Dashwood: Infirmity? Mrs. Dashwood: If Colonel Brandon is infirm then I am at death's door. Elinor Dashwood: It is a miracle your life has extended this ...
Mattie Ross: I hope you don't think I'm going to keep you in whiskey? Rooster Cogburn: I don't buy that, I confiscate it. And a touch of it wouldn't do you any harm against the night air! Mattie Ross: I would not put a thief in my mouth to steal my b...
Uncle Monty: The older order changeth, yielding place to new. God fulfils himself in many ways. And soon, I suppose, I shall be swept away by some vulgar little tumour. Oh, my boys, my boys, we're at the end of an age. We live in a land of weather fo...
Dr. Manhattan: [remembering Janey while on Mars] Janey accuses me of chasing jailbait. She bursts into angry tears, asking if it's because she's getting older. It's true. She's aging more noticeably every day - while I am standing still. I prefer the...
Here is the tragedy of theology in its distilled essence: The employment of high-powered human intellect, of genius, of profoundly rigorous logical deduction—studying nothing. In the Middle Ages, the great minds capable of transforming the world di...
If your self esteem really does depend on how you look, you're always going to be insecure. There's no way you can get around it. Even if you get the perfect body, you're going to age. At some point, you have to take control, shift the focus, and dec...
If someone who wanted to learn to dance were to say: For centuries, one generation after the other has learned the positions, and it is high time that I take advantage of this and promptly begin with the quadrille--people would presumably laugh a lit...