"Most of life is so dull that there is nothing to be said about it, and the books and talks that would describe it as interesting are obliged to exaggerate, in the hope of justifying their own existence. Inside its cocoon of work or social obligation, the human spirit slumbers for the most part, registering the distinction between pleasure and pain, but not nearly as alert as we pretend. There are periods in the most thrilling day during which nothing happens, and though we continue to exclaim, "I do enjoy myself", or , "I am horrified," we are insincere."
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Book quotes (page 51 of 1049)
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"Literary criticism can be no more than a reasoned account of the feeling produced upon the critic by the book he is criticising."
"The ideas I stand for are not mine. I borrowed them from Socrates. I swiped them from Chesterfield. I stole them from Jesus. And I put them in a book. If you don't like their rules, whose would you use?"
"It is a good rule after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between."
"I hope no one who reads this book has been quite as miserable as Susan and Lucy were that night; but if you have been - if you've been up all night and cried till you have no more tears left in you - you will know that there comes in the end a sort of quietness. You feel as if nothing is ever going to happen again."
"Yoga is the rule book for playing the game of Life, but in this game no one needs to lose. It is tough, and you need to train hard. It requires the willingness to think for yourself, to observe and correct, and to surmount occasional setbacks. It demands honesty, sustained application, and above all love in your heart."
"Carl Jung tells in one of his books of a conversation he had with a Native American chief who pointed out to him that in his perception most white people have tense faces, staring eyes, and a cruel demeanor. He said: “They are always seeking something. What are they seeking? The whites always want something. They are always uneasy and restless. We don't know what they want. We think they are mad."
"Don't tell me what's in the Red Book. I wrote the goddamned thing. And I know that it's a lot of crap."
"A capacity and taste for reading gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others."
"The winter wind is loud and wild, Come close to me, my darling child; Forsake thy books, and mate less play; And, while the night is gathering grey, We'll talk its pensive hours away."
"All good books have one thing in common - they are truer than if they had really happened."
"No man understands a deep book until he has seen and lived at least part of its contents."
"Life is just like a book. Only after you've read it do you know how it ends. It is when we are at the end of life that we know how our life ran. Mine, until now, has been black. As black as my skin. Black as the garbage dump where I live."
"Nine-tenths of existing books are nonsense, and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense."
"Here is the treasure chest of the world - the public library, or a bookstore."
"The purpose of this book is to supply, in the form suitable for laymen, guidance in the adoption and execution of an investment policy."
"I come from that earlier time in America when palm pilot was a nickname you recieved upon entering puberty! I was more than a palm pilot I was the palm Chuck Jager. Tom Wolfe wrote a book about me called The Right Hand Stuff. I was the only guy in my class hip enough to move to the European grip."
"The New Testament is the very best book that ever was or ever will be known in the world."
"For a highly motivated learner, it's not like knowledge is secret and somehow the Internet made it not secret. It just made knowledge easy to find. If you're a motivated enough learner, books are pretty good."
"In the dime stores and bus stations, people talk of situations, read books, repeat quotations, draw conclusions on the wall."