Like the body craves oxygen, the mind is desperate for certainty. It believes that without a safe foothold on reality, it will die. But the fascinating thing is that the illusion of certainty is exactly the opposite of safety because it hardens and n...
There are map people whose joy is to lavish more attention on the sheets of colored paper than on the colored land rolling by. I have listened to accounts by such travelers in which every road number was remembered, every mileage recalled, and every ...
Modern civilization depends on science … James Smithson was well aware that knowledge should not be viewed as existing in isolated parts, but as a whole, each portion of which throws light on all the other, and that the tendency of all is to improv...
Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage, an...
Someone knocked me down; I pushed Brinker over a small slope; someone was trying to tackle me from behind. Everywhere there was the smell of vitality in clothes, the vital something in wool and flannel and corduroy which spring releases. I had forgot...
[from the director's cut] Mr. Hand: We're very lucky when you think about it. Emma Murdoch: I'm sorry? Mr. Hand: To be able to revisit those places which have meant so very much to us. Emma Murdoch: I thought it was more that we were haunted by them....
Clementine: Let me show you something... come on... Joel: I think I heard a crack. Clementine: It's not gonna crack, or break, or... it's so thick!... Show me which constellations you know. Joel: Um... oh... I don't... know any. Clementine: Show me w...
Narrator: Meanwhile, not more than two swallow's flights away, Arthur and Bedivere had discovered something. Oh, that's an unladen swallow's flight away, obviously. There were more than two laden swallow's flights away, four really, if they had the c...
[first lines] Narrator: The film which you are about to see is an account of the tragedy which befell a group of five youths, in particular Sally Hardesty and her invalid brother, Franklin. It is all the more tragic in that they were young. But, had ...
Willy Wonka: There's no earthly way of knowing/Which direction they are going... There's no knowing where they're rowing... Mr. Salt: [weakly echoing] Rowing... Willy Wonka: Or which way the river's flowing... Is it raining, is it snowing?/Is a hurri...
Christy Cummings: It's interesting, we have kind of a family dynamic going on here which pretty much mirrors what I grew up with: I'm the mommy slash daddy, the taskmaster, the disciplinarian. Sherri Ann Cabot: Mr. Punishment over here. Christy Cummi...
I have heard that, with some persons, temperance – that is, moderation – is almost impossible; and if abstinence be an evil (which some have doubted), no one will deny that excess is a greater. Some parents have entirely prohibited their children...
I venture to suggest that the one vital quality which they had in common was spiritual receptivity. Something in them was open to heaven, something which urged them Godward. Without attempting anything like a profound analysis I shall say simply that...
New York always feels more like my hometown than the places where I actually grew up (which weren't far from New York), perhaps because I did my artistic "growing up" while working in this crazy, wonderful city back in my twenties. Although I love th...
The world, whatever we might think about it terrified by its vastness and by our helplessness in the face of it, embittered by its indifference to individual suffering—of people, animals, and perhaps also plants, for how can we be sure that plants ...
Darks drifts covered the horizon. A strange shadow approaching nearer and nearer, was spreading little by little over men, over things, over ideas; a shadow which came from indignations and from systems. All that had been hurriedly stifled was stirri...
The complexity of our present trouble suggests as never before that we need to change our present concept of education. Education is not properly an industry, and its proper use is not to serve industries, either by job-training or by industry-subsid...
Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the mo...
Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the momen...
Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the mo...
And it was to this city, whenever I went home, that I always knew I must return, for it was mistress of one's wildest hopes, protector of one's deepest privacies. It was half insane with its noise, violence, and decay, but it gave one the tender secu...