But there's so to learn," he said, with a thoughtful frown. "Yes, that's true," admitted Rhyme; "but it's not just learning things that's important. It's learning what to do with what you learn and learning why you learn things at all that matters." ...
The saddest thing of all was that their party represented a deviation from the conditions of the time. It was impossible to imagine that in the houses across the lane people were eating and drinking in the same way at such an hour. Beyond the window ...
Inside the front flap of the book were handwritten names of the dozen or so people who had checked the book out before Naomi. Instead of writing her name, Naomi had a thin paper receipt with the due date printed on it. She could never possess this bo...
This was another of our fears: that Life wouldn't turn out to be like Literature. Look at our parents--were they the stuff of Literature? At best, they might aspire to the condition of onlookers and bystanders, part of a social backdrop against which...
In a way, literature is true than life,' he said to himself. 'On paper, you say exactly and completely what you feel. How easy it is to break things off on paper! You hate, you shout, you kill, you commit suicide; you carry things to the very end. An...
These estimates may well be enhanced by one from F. Klein (1849-1925), the leading German mathematician of the last quarter of the nineteenth century. 'Mathematics in general is fundamentally the science of self-evident things.' ... If mathematics is...
Novelty and Security: the security of novelty, the novelty of security. Always the full thing, the whole subject, the true subject, stood just behind the one you found yourself contemplating. The trick, but it wasn't a trick, was to take up at once t...
In any war story, but especially a true one, it's difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen. What seems to happen becomes its own happening and has to be told that way. The angles of vision are skewed. When a booby trap explodes,...
If this was the true self it was marvelous and what’s more it seemed never to change but always to pick up from the last stop, to continue in the same vein, a vein I had struck when I was a child and went down in the street for the first time alone...
The public make use of the classics of a country as a means of checking the progress of Art. They degrade the classics into authorities.... A fresh mode of Beauty is absolutely distasteful to them, and whenever it appears they get so angry and bewild...
I figured out when I was young that things don’t make you happy, people don’t make you happy. Only by finding that which always existed inside you will you know what happiness is. Life is transitory, we all come and go. Things are gained, lost or...
I read things that male relationship experts write about women and I read things that female relationship experts write about men, then I feel a true sadness in my heart. Why can’t there be a simple, pure, direct openness? Why can’t there be a si...
I don't follow Christ because I like how it makes me feel. I don't follow Christ because it was how I was raised. I don't follow Christ and believe the things I do as a crutch or because it's hipster or trendy. I follow Jesus Christ as Lord because b...
The Joker: Joker here. TV Technician: We got interference. Call the OB unit, will ya? The Joker: Now you fellas have said some pretty mean things. Some of which *were* true under that fiend, Boss Grissom. He *was* a thief, and a terrorist. On the oth...
[Abra pleads with Adam to reconcile with his son] Abra: Mr. Trask, it's awful not to be loved. It's the worst thing in the world. Don't ask me - even if you could - how I know that. I just know it. It makes you mean, and violent, and cruel. And that'...
Maurice: I'd like you to call this number and ask for Mr. Stillman. Tell him that Maurice requires his services. Fisher: Sounds pretty mysterious. What's it all about? Maurice: There are some things, my dear Fisher, which bear not much looking into. ...
We don't know predestined ways, or what future might behold, someone leaves,someone remains, and new things replace the old. We don't know a thing for sure, what's today,is there tomorrow? Yet,somehow we still endure, through those moments filled wit...
He made a commitment, Eena.” “And you believe this ,” she spoke the word detestably, “is more important than true love?” “Yes.” “No,” she stubbornly disagreed. “Yes,” Ian insisted as he put his finger to her lips, preventing her...
An ironic religion -- one that never claims to be absolutely true but only professes to be relatively beautiful, and never promises salvation but only proposes it as a salubrious idea. A century ago there were people who thought art was the thing tha...
Birthdays were wretched, delicious things when you lived in Beau Rivage. The clock stuck midnight, and presents gave way to magic. Curses bloomed. Girls bit into sharp apples instead of birthday cake, chocked on the ruby-and-white slivers, and collap...
This tendency to defend a belief structure is true in all cases, even the rational. Never underestimate our ability to convince ourselves of what we wish to be true, especially if we have invested time and money in our beliefs.
