“The least flexible component of any system is the user.”
Thoughtful feeling
Thoughtful Quotes — page 186 of 303
“For better or worse, I seem to gravitate toward writing about something or someone else, then have my own self shove its way into that story. It seems insanely narcissistic. But I also think there's a particular effect that comes from using my autobiography in service to another story, as opposed to being the subject. I'm much more comfortable working in that mode. And I do think I have a persona or mood that I keep coming back to: self-conscious, self-critical, unsure. I write a lot about bodies, particularly male ones, usually as a point of emphasis for my insecurities about my own.”
“There are so many misperceptions and stereotypes out there that I would love to see clarified one day.”
“one pierced moment whiter than the rest -turning from the tremendous lie of sleep i watch the roses of the day grow deep.”
“There are moments when the inner life actually 'pays,' when years of self-scrutiny, conducted for no ulterior motive, are suddenly of practical use.”
“Life - No, I've nothing to teach you about it for the moment. May be writing about it another week.”
“One minute. You know nothing about him. He probably has his own joys and interests- wife, children, snug little home. That's where we practical fellows'- he smiled-'are more tolerant than you intellectuals. We live and let live, and assume that things are jogging on fairly well elsewhere, and that the ordinary plain man may be trusted to look after his own affairs.”
“I have said that each aspect of the novel demands a different quality of the reader. Well, the prophetic aspect demands two qualities: humility and the suspension of the sense of humour.”
“I think - I think - I think how little they think what lies so near them.”
“A sentence begins quite simply, then it undulates and expands, parentheses intervene like quick-set hedges, the flowers of comparison bloom, and three fields off, like a wounded partridge, crouches the principal verb, making one wonder as one picks it up, poor little thing, whether after all it was worth such a tramp, so many guns, and such expensive dogs, and what, after all, is its relation to the main subject, potted so gaily half a page back, and proving finally to have been in the accusative case.”
“I'd far rather leave a thought behind me than a child. Other people can have children.”
“In the light of her son's comment she reconsidered the scene at the mosque, to see whose impression was correct. Yes it could be worked into quite an unpleasant scene. The doctor had begun by bullying her, had said Mrs Callendar was nice, and then - finding the ground safe - had changed; he had alternately whined over his grievances and patronized her, had run a dozen ways in a single sentence, had been unreliable, inquisitive, vain. Yes, it was all true, but how false as a summary of the man; the essential life of him had been slain.”
“Humility is a quality for which I have only a limited admiration. In many phases of life it is a great mistake and degenerates into defensiveness or hypocrisy.”
“Our prayers may be an index of how small and self-centered our world is.”
“Unless one decorates one's house for oneself alone, best leave it bare, for other people are walleyed.”
“The reaction to any word may be, in an individual, either a mob-reaction or an individual reaction. It is up to the individual to ask himself: Is my reaction individual, or am I merely reacting from my mob-self? When it comes to the so-called obscene words, I should say that hardly one person in a million escapes mob-reaction.”
“Personality and mind, like moustaches, belong to a certain age. They are a deformity in a child.... Leave his sensibilities, his emotions, his spirit, and his mind severely alone. There is the devil in mothers, that they must provoke personalresponse from their infants.”
“And in this passion for understanding her soul lay close to his; she had him all to herself. But he must be made abstract first.”
“You don't learn algebra with your blessed soul. Can't you look at it with your clear simple wits?”
“I should like [people] to like the purely individual thing in themselves, which makes them act in singleness. and They only like to do the collective thing.”