A Fine Selection of Daily Quotes

"Indeed, people speak sometimes about the 'animal' cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to animals, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel."

"Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons."

"It is not necessary that you leave the house. Remain at your table and listen. Do not even listen, only wait. Do not even wait, be wholly still and alone. The world will present itself to you for its unmasking, it can do no other, in ecstasy it will writhe at your feet."

"Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you."

"To hold a pen is to be at war."

"The real question is not whether machines think but whether men do. The mystery which surrounds a thinking machine already surrounds a thinking man."

"All poetry is supposed to be instructive but in an unnoticeable manner; it is supposed to make us aware of what it would be valuable to instruct ourselves in; we must deduce the lesson on our own, just as with life."

"It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one's life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than 'Try to be a little kinder.'"

"Nothing records the effects of a sad life so graphically as the human body."

"Human relationships were strange. I mean you were with one person for a while, eating and sleeping and living with them, loving them, talking to them, going places together and then it stopped. Then there was a short period when you weren't with anybody, then another woman arrived, and you ate with her and you fucked her, and it all seemed so normal, as if you had been waiting just for her and she had been waiting for you. I never felt right being alone; sometimes it felt good but it never felt right."

"It is surprising how easy it was to live that life. Everyone and everything cooperated with the process. Everything in our culture--books, television, movies, school, fashion-- is presented as if it is being seen by one pair of eyes, shaped by one set of hands, heard by one pair of ears. Even if you know you are not part of that imaginary creature--if you like country music not symphonies, read books cynically, listen to the news unbelievingly, are lesbian not heterosexual, and surround yourself with your own small deviant community--you are still shaped by that hegemony, or your resistance to it. The only way I found to resist that homogenized view of the world was to make myself part of something larger than myself."

"Actual happiness looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn’t nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamor of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand."

"A friend is someone who lets you have total freedom to be yourself."

"I am not a genius. I am just someone who has the patience to make every possible mistake."

"A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving."

"If the highest aim of a captain were to preserve his ship, he would keep it in port forever."

"I want to tell you a terrific story about oral contraception. I asked this girl to sleep with me and she said 'No.'"

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

“I want to spend the time I have doing things that make my heart rage.”