I "love" reading. It makes me feel like I am swallowing up Christ, Homer, Confucius, Newton, Franklin, Socrates, Caesar, and the whole world into one gigantic invincible Sir Moffat. Mine is creative reading. I read building empires in mind. I pray I ...
What does the doctrine of American exceptionalism empower the United States to do? Nothing more than to act better than traditional empires - committed to looting and conquest - have done. So that's American exceptionalism: an exceptionalism based on...
Bastian: What is that? The Childlike Empress: One grain of sand. It is all that remains of my vast empire. Bastian: Fantasia has totally disappeared? The Childlike Empress: Yes. Bastian: Then, everything's been in vain. The Childlike Empress: No, it ...
If I'm in Rome for only 48 hours, I would consider it a sin against God to not eat cacio e pepe, the most uniquely Roman of pastas, in some crummy little joint where Romans eat. I'd much rather do that than go to the Vatican. That's Rome to me.
He tries to get close to her because he wants to know what her glow feels like. She’s alone on the dance floor and even though she’s dancing, there’s a kind of sadness lurking about her, like her heart is somewhere else. Roman doesn’t think h...
I'm definitely not a nerd.
Shakespeare's bitter play [Troilus and Cressida] is therefore a dramatization of a part of a translation into English of the French translation of a Latin imitation of an old French expansion of a Latin epitome of a Greek romance. (p. 55)
I'm fairly fond of boys, but my preference is for girls; When I have enough of a girl, she serves me still as a boy.
So long as he was personally present, [Alcibiades] had the perfect mastery of his political adversaries; calumny only succeeded in his absence.
Parvus: It doesn't matter! You're all going to die in a day or two. Gregory: It may not matter to you, Roman, but it certainly matters to us. Doesn't it, darling? Mrs. Gregory: Oh, rather. Gregory: Under the terms of the Roman occupancy, we're entitl...
Roman Castevet: I think we're offending Rosemary... Rosemary Woodhouse: I wasn't offended, really I wasn't. Roman Castevet: You're not religious, my dear, are you? Rosemary Woodhouse: I was brought up a Catholic... now, I don't know.
The Japanese had no idea what elements of Western culture and institutions where the crucial ones, so they ended up copying everything, from western clothes and hair styles to the European practice of colonizing foreign people. Unfortunately, they to...
His mother and father were agnostics, and Jim respected devout Christians in the same way that he respected people who were members of the Graf Zeppelin Club or shopped at the Chinese department stores, for their mastery of an exotic foreign ritual. ...
Marsh: Our best efforts were never even a mild annoyance to the Lord Ruler." Kelsier: Ah, but being an annoyance is something that I am very good at. In fact, I'm far more than just a 'mild' annoyance--people tell me I can be downright frustrating. M...
Courage cannot be left like bones in a bag. It must be brought out and shown the light again and again, growing stronger each time. If you think it will keep for the times you need it, you are wrong. It is like any other part of your strength. If you...
A theist can't empirically prove that God exists but he believes in God because no one can allegedly disprove God's existence. By his logic, you must believe in anything you can't disprove. That means all things are real until disproved--including th...
I first became aware of death when my father held me up to see the view from the top of the Empire State Building. I thought that if he moved me just one foot over, I would die. But I trusted him to hold me tight. I wouldn’t fall over, and he would...
Why should I have been surprised? Hunters walk the forest without a sound. The hunter, strapped to his rifle, the fox on his feet of silk, the serpent on his empire of muscles— all move in a stillness, hungry, careful, intent. Just as the cancer en...
You're back," Sam said, as if he couldn't quite believe it. She lifted her chin, stuffing her hands in her pockets. "Obviously." He tilted his head slightly to the side. "How was the desert?" There wasn't a scratch on him. Of course, her face had hea...
The stag’s enormous head turned slightly—toward the wagon, toward the small window. The Lord of the North. So the people of Terrasen will always know how to find their way home, she’d once told Ansel as they lay under a blanket of stars and tra...
You want to know what price I asked for forgiving Arobynn, Celaena?" She slowly turned. With the ongoing rain, the hall was full of shadows and light. Sam stood so still that he might has been a stature. "My price was his oath that he'd never lay a h...
