I mean, why on earth (outside sickness and hangovers) aren’t people continually drunk? I want ecstasy of the mind all the time.
—Jack Kerouac, 1957
Archive
Quotes
Superstitions are habits rather than beliefs.
—Marlene Dietrich, 1962There is much difference between imitating a good man, and counterfeiting him.
—Benjamin Franklin, 1738The more enlightened our houses are, the more their walls ooze ghosts.
—Italo Calvino, 1967You may drive out nature with a pitchfork, yet she’ll be constantly running back.
—Horace, 20 BCGambling is the child of avarice, the brother of iniquity, and the father of mischief.
—George Washington, 1783A passion for horses, players, and gladiators seems to be the epidemic folly of the times. The child receives it in his mother’s womb; he brings it with him into the world, and in a mind so possessed, what room for science, or any generous purpose?
—Tacitus, c. 100A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.
—Arthur Miller, 1961The U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.
—Anthony Burgess, 1972Anyone who’s never experienced the pleasure of betrayal doesn’t know what pleasure is.
—Jean Genet, 1986War is sweet to those who don’t know it.
—Erasmus, 1508When poets don’t know what to say and have completely given up on the play, just like a finger, they lift the machine and the spectators are satisfied.
—Antiphanes, c. 350 BCThe sea receives us in a proper way only when we are without clothes.
—Pliny the Elder, 77