One of the dumbest things you were ever taught was to write what you know. Because what you know is usually dull. Remember when you first wanted to be a writer? Eight or ten years old, reading about thin-lipped heroes flying over mysterious viny jung...
Society has put up so many boundaries, so many limitations on what’s right and wrong that it’s almost impossible to get a pure thought out. It’s like a little kid, a little boy, looking at colors, and no one told him what colors are good, befor...
Certainly, if money could have been raised upon the book, Robert Herrick would long ago have sacrificed that last possession: but the demand for literature, which is so marked a feature in some parts of the South Seas, extends not so far as the dead ...
Life's an act of magic, too. Claire Hamill sings a line in one of her songs that really sums it up for me: 'If there's no magic, there's no meaning.' Without magic- or call it wonder, mystery, natural wisdom- nothing has any depth. It's all just surf...
He was rather a low sort of pony. The fact is, he had been originally jobbed out by the day, and he never quite got over his old habits. He was clever in melodrama too, but too broad--too broad. When the mother died, he took the port-wine business.' ...
Eight-and-twenty years,' said I, 'I have lived, and never a ghost have I seen as yet.' The old woman sat staring hard into the fire, her pale eyes wide open. 'Ay,' she broke in; 'and eight-and-twenty years you have lived and never seen the likes of t...
We took a right at the fork, heading farther north. The charred houses continued. To the right, a large sign nailed to an old telephone post shouted DANGER in huge red letters. Underneath in crisp black letters was written: IM-1: Infectious Magic Are...
A Chipewyan guide named Saltatha once asked a French priest what lay beyond the present life. 'You have told me heaven is very beautiful,' he said. 'Now tell me one more thing. Is it more beautiful than the country of the muskoxen in the summer, when...
One more word about giving instruction as to what the world ought to be. Philosophy in any case always comes on the scene too late to give it. As the thought of the world, it appears only when actuality is already there cut and dried after its proces...
Indian forms of yoga have spread throughout the world due to their objectives of promoting health and harmony. Japan is but one of many countries that have received these age-old teachings. While Indian yogic disciplines (Hatha yoga in particular) ha...
Ghosts! […] I almost think we are all of us ghosts. It is not only what we have inherited from our father and mother that ‘walks’ in us. It is all sorts of dead ideas, and lifeless old beliefs, and so forth. They have no vitality, but they clin...
[about a bum on a park bench] Ann: Every time I see one of those old guys, I always think the same thing. Mark: What do you think? Ann: I always think that he was once somebody's baby boy. Really, I do. I think he was once somebody's baby boy, and he...
Frank Marino: [Narrating] What could I say? If I had given them the wrong answer, I mean, Nicky, Ginger, Ace - all of them could have wind up getting killed. Because there's one thing you gotta know about these old timers, they don't like any fucking...
Matt Buckner: So basically, firms are gangs? Pete Dunham: Kind of... but we're a far cry from all that Bloods and Crips bullshit. I mean shootin' a machine gun out of a movin' car at an 8 year old girl, that's just cowardly. See, we might be into fig...
Graveyard Keeper: Yeah, you know every town has something like this happen... I remember over in Russellville, old Charlie Bowles, about fifteen years ago... One night, he finished dinner, and he excused himself from the table. He went out to the gar...
[about Jimmy Chitwood] Myra Fleener: You know, a basketball hero around here is treated like a god, er, uh, how can he ever find out what he can really do? I don't want this to be the high point of his life. I've seen them, the real sad ones. They si...
Lucius: What are we doing here, Bob? Bob: We're protecting people. Lucius: Nobody asked us. Bob: You need an invitation? Lucius: I'd like one, yes. We keep sneaking around, and... You remember Gazer Beam? Bob: Yeah, there was something about him in t...
Matthias: [Answering the summons of the door] My legs are old and bent, my ears are grizzled, yes? Centurion: There's one place we didn't look. Guards! [the guards troop into the house] Matthias: ...Nose is knackered. Centurion: Have you ever seen an...
Hidetora: What madness have I spoken? Wherein lies my senility? Saburo Naotora Ichimonji: I'll tell you. What kind of world do we live in? One barren of loyalty and feeling. Hidetora: I'm aware of that. Saburo Naotora Ichimonji: So you should be! You...
Ronnie "Sunshine" Bass: I can't make that pitch Coach. Coach Boone: Yes you can. When I was fifteen years old I lost my mother and my father in the same month Ronnie, same month. 12 brothers and sisters I was the youngest one of them, now I wasn't re...
Sean Parker: Your major is French. Amy: And yours? Sean Parker: Mine? I don't have one. Amy: You haven't declared? Sean Parker: I don't go to school. Amy: You're kidding! Sean Parker: No. Amy: Well, where did you go to school? Sean Parker: William Ta...
