Human lives are hard, even those of health and privilege, and don't make much sense. This is the message of the "Book of Job": Any snappy explanation of suffering you come up with will be horseshit. ~Anne Lamott
#quotes #anne-lamott #suffering #books

I lack the magnificent richness of color that animates nature. ~Paul Cezanne
#quotes #paul-cezanne #nature

For eight years Republicans worked around the clock to delegitimize Bill Clinton. For the next eight years, Democrats tried to delegitimize Bush. Now Barack Obama is enduring the rage of his conservative opposition. ~Joe Scarborough
#quotes #joe-scarborough #republicans #democrats #politics

I saw a photo of the Svoboda leader, Yatseniuk [Arseniy Yatseniuk, one of Batkivschyna leaders] and Klitschko [Vitali Klitschko, UDAR party leader] together demonstrating the unity of opposition. But I can't imagine that people like Klitschko, who position themselves as Europeans, and Yatseniuk, would willingly shake the hand of a person who in public states that Jews are the main threat to European civilization. Sometimes, while looking for and respecting opposition, we can't recognize it, ~Marek Siwiec
#quotes #marek-siwiec #arseniy-yatseniuk #batkivschyna #vitali-klitschko #udar

Socialism is a wonderful idea. It is only as a reality that it has been disastrous. Among people of every race, color, and creed, all around the world, socialism has led to hunger in countries that used to have surplus food to export. Nevertheless, for many of those who deal primarily in ideas, socialism remains an attractive idea; in fact, seductive. Its every failure is explained away as due to the inadequacies of particular leaders. ~Thomas Sowell
#quotes #thomas-sowell #socialism

I held hands with her all the time; that doesn't sound like much, I realize, but she was terrific to hold hands with. Most girls if you hold hands with them, their goddam hand dies on you, or else they think they have to keep moving their hand all the time, as if they were afraid they'd bore you or something. Jane was different. We'd get into a goddam movie or something, and right away we'd start holding hands, and we wouldn't quit till the movie was over. And without changing the position or making a big deal out of it. You never even worried, with Jane, whether your hand was sweaty or not. All you knew was, you were happy. You really were. ~J. D. Salinger
#quotes #j-d-salinger #love #hands

Well, you know it was so different from when you rehearsed. You're out there with your guitar and trying to get a sound, but it doesn't sound anything like what you expect! ~Jonathan Richman
#quotes #jonathan-richman #guitar #music

I only discovered the "Harry Potter" series in my tenth standard. I dived right into it, often reading non-stop through the day and night. It was the morning after one such readathon when I was to appear for a chemistry exam. Spending my night with the third edition of "Harry Potter" didn't help much, and I fared poorly. ~Sonam Kapoor
#quotes #sonam-kapoor #harry-potter #reading

It has become almost a cliche to remark that nobody boasts of ignorance of literature, but it is socially acceptable to boast ignorance of science and proudly claim incompetence in mathematics. ~Richard Dawkins
#quotes #richard-dawkins #science #knowledge #ignorance

As tough as things have been, I am convinced you are tougher. I've seen your passion and I've seen your service. I've seen you engage and I've seen you turn out in record numbers. I've heard your voices amplified by creativity and a digital fluency that those of us in older generations can barely comprehend. I've seen a generation eager, impatient even, to step into the rushing waters of history and change its course. ~Barack Obama
#quotes #barack-obama #politics

Men are like the stars; some generate their own light while others reflect the brilliance they receive. ~Jose Marti
#quotes #jose-marti #light

[The raindrops] played across the coast all through the night, until the soft new day shrugged itself awake, tried on amethyst and lavender for a while, and finally decided on pale yellow. ~Gary D. Schmidt
#quotes #gary-d-schmidt #night

I started off with a company, InfoSpace, with my own funding. The company was listed among the most successful companies and I went on to start Intelius and Moon Express. Now, I focus my time on using the skills of an entrepreneur to solve many of the grand challenges facing us in the areas of education, healthcare, clean water and energy. ~Naveen Jain
#quotes #naveen-jain #entrepreneurship

"Feminist comedy," practically an oxymoron, had a couple of good years after WWII. Chalk it up to the forced female autonomy that occurred during wartime, when Rosie the Riveter went to work in the factories, constructing the Allies' war machines while taking charge of the finances, the home, and the children. ~Grace Slick
#quotes #grace-slick #women

Conservatives brayed that government should stay out of the private sector; liberals bleated for nationalizing the banks. ~Steven Rattner
#quotes #steven-rattner #government #liberalism #conservativism

We live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups. I ask, in my writing, "What is real?" Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. They have a lot of it. And it is an astonishing power, that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing. ~Philip K. Dick
#quotes #philip-k-dick #society #government #media #religion

Innovating economies expand and develop. Economies that do not add new kinds of goods and services, but continue only to repeat old work, do not expand much nor do they, by definition, develop. ~Jane Jacobs
#quotes #jane-jacobs #society #innovation #economy

I had somehow always thought of the classics of literature as something apart from me, something to do with academic life and not something you enjoyed. ~Alan Bennett
#quotes #alan-bennett #literature

Even if I had expected it, even if I had known what I was going to do with my life, it would have knocked the wind out of me. When something that violent hits you, you can't help but lose your balance and fall. And after you pick yourself up, you realize you can't trust anybody to save you, not your husband, not your mother, not God. So what can you do to stop yourself from tilting and falling all over again? ~Amy Tan
#quotes #amy-tan #family

I adore clothes, they're my weakest link! My mother was the same, and she taught me always to look polished. ~Anne Robinson
#quotes #anne-robinson #clothing #mother

In truth, one cannot, it seems, oppose mechanism and finalism, one cannot oppose mechanism and anthropomorphism, for if the functioning of a machine is explained by relations of pure causality, the construction of a machine can be understood neither without purpose nor without man. A machine is made by man and for man, with a view toward certain ends to be obtained, in the form of effects to be produced, a mechanical model of any phenomena is explanatory only so long as we take machines as already granted. ~Georges Canguilhem
#quotes #georges-canguilhem #machines

All the stars that never were, are parking cars and pumping gas. ~Dionne Warwick
#quotes #dionne-warwick

You know, I think, I think the Palestinians are trying to get away without negotiating. They're trying to get a state to continue the conflict with Israel rather than to end it. They're trying to basically detour around peace negotiations by going to the U.N. and have the automatic majority in the U.N. General Assembly give them, give them a state. ~Benjamin Netanyahu
#quotes #benjamin-netanyahu #israel

Nobody who is not prepared to spoil cats will get from them the reward they are able to give to those who do spoil them. ~Compton Mackenzie
#quotes #compton-mackenzie #cat

Alone, the world offers itself freely to us. To be unmasked, it has no choice. ~Tom Robbins
#quotes #tom-robbins #world