quotes for a friend

Day, like a weary pilgrim, had reached the western gate of heaven, and Evening stooped down to unloose the latchets of his sandal shoon. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Hyperion


Writing is a way of talking without being interrupted. ~Jules Renard, Journal, 10 April 1895


A book must be an ice-axe to break the seas frozen inside our soul. ~Franz Kafka


The fact that political ideologies are tangible realities is not a proof of their vitally necessary character. The bubonic plague was an extraordinarily powerful social reality, but no one would have regarded it as vitally necessary. ~Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism


The right to private property meant at the same time the right and duty to be personally concerned about your own well-being, to be personally concerned about your family's income, to be personally concerned about your future. This is hard work. ~Mikhail Khodorkovsky


Perfect behavior is born of complete indifference. ~Cesare Pavese, This Business of Living: Diaries


The act of bellringing is symbolic of all proselytizing religions. It implies the pointless interference with the quiet of other people. ~Ezra Pound


New York, the nation's thyroid gland. ~Christopher Morley, Shore Leave


I've been smoking nearly 50 years now. I just don't feel safe breathing anything I can't see! ~Dave Beard


One of the best parts of growing older? You can flirt all you like since you've become harmless. ~Liz Smith


People that hate cats will come back as mice in their next life. ~Faith Resnick


The bicycle is just as good company as most husbands and, when it gets old and shabby, a woman can dispose of it and get a new one without shocking the entire community. ~Ann Strong


Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in awhile, or the light won't come in. ~Alan Alda


The roots of all goodness lie in the soil of appreciation for goodness. ~Dalai Lama


One more fagot of these adamantine bandages is the new science of Statistics. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson


The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane. ~Marcus Aurelius


"It's snowing still," said Eeyore gloomily. "So it is." "And freezing." "Is it?" "Yes," said Eeyore. "However," he said, brightening up a little, "we haven't had an earthquake lately." ~A.A. Milne


Your Honor, a courtroom is a crucible. In it, we burn away irrelevancies until we're left with a pure product - the truth, for all time. ~Star Trek: The Next Generation, "The Measure of a Man," Jean-Luc Picard


I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move. ~Robert Louis Stevenson


The least thing upset him on the links. He missed short putts because of the uproar of butterflies in the adjoining meadows. ~P.G. Wodehouse