Favorite Quotes

The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends,
but one who allows art to realize its purpose through him.
― Carl Jung
 
Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita. Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, an initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.
-Vladimir Nabokov: Lolita
 
Granted: I AM an inmate of a mental hospital; my keeper is watching me, he never lets me out of his sight; there's a peep-hole in the door, and my keeper's eye is the shade of brown that can never see through a blue-eyed type like me.
-Gunter Grass: The Tin Drum
 
Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.

She wanted to die, but she also wanted to live in Paris.

-Gustave Flaubert: Madame Bovary
 
Painting- The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic.

Absurdity- n. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.

Pray- To ask the laws of the universe to be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.

Quotation- n The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.

Corporation. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.

Funeral- A pageant whereby we attest our respect for the dead by enriching the undertaker.

Happiness- An agreeable sensation, arising from contemplating the misery of others.

-Ambrose Bierce: The Devil's Dictionary
 
Hawkeye: "War isn't Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse."

Father Mulcahy: "How do you figure, Hawkeye?"

Hawkeye: "Easy, Father. Tell me, who goes to Hell?"

Father Mulcahy: "Sinners, I believe."

Hawkeye: "Exactly. There are no innocent bystanders in Hell. War is chock full of them - little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for some of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander."
 
"War is how one might die. Hell is how one might suffer indefinitely.


Heaven is full of sinners reformed. Hell is full of good… skeptics.


No one can be innocent. From this perspective."
 
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Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita. Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, an initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.
-Vladimir Nabokov: Lolita

Yeah, I always liked this one too. Brilliant writing (the entire book).
 
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