What keeps the democracy alive at all but the hatred of excellence, the desire of the base to see no head higher than their own?
—Mary Renault, 1956
Archive
Quotes
I never know quite when I’m not writing. Sometimes my wife comes up to me at a party and says, Dammit, Thurber, stop writing. She usually catches me in the middle of a paragraph. Or my daughter will look up from the dinner table and ask, Is he sick? No, my wife says, he’s writing something.
—James Thurber, 1955One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art.
—Oscar Wilde, 1894It is remarkable that only small birds properly sing.
—Charles Darwin, 1871Bereavement is a darkness impenetrable to the imagination of the unbereaved.
—Iris Murdoch, 1974Even members of the nobility, let alone persons of no consequence, would do well not to have children.
—Yoshida Kenko, c. 1330Understanding is a very dull occupation.
—Gertrude Stein, 1937Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid.
—Frank Zappa, 1989Big head, little wit.
—French proverbOne sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.
—G.K. Chesterton, 1911Keep away from physicians. It is all probing and guessing and pretending with them. They leave it to nature to cure in her own time, but they take the credit. As well as very fat fees.
—Anthony Burgess, 1964Most authors seek fame, but I seek for justice—a holier impulse than ever entered into the ambitious struggles of the votaries of that fickle, flirting goddess.
—Davy Crockett, 1834As to the sea itself, love it you cannot. Why should you? I will never believe again the sea was ever loved by anyone whose life was married to it. It is the creation of omnipotence, which is not of humankind and understandable, and so the springs of its behavior are hidden.
—H.M. Tomlinson, 1912