Oddities quotes

Oddities

53 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.

53 quotes
Dean Young
Dean Young Poet

"Poetry is not efficient. If you want to learn how to cook a lobster, it’s probably best not to look to poetry. But if you want to see the word lobster in all its reactant oddity, its pied beauty, as if for the first time, go to poetry. And if you want to know what it’s like to be that lobster in the pot, that’s in poetry too."

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Alan Watts Philosopher, Writer
Oddities

"It is a special kind of enlightenment to have this feeling that the usual, the way things normally are, is odduncanny and highly improbable. G.K.Chesterton once said that it is one thing to be amazed at gorgon or a griffin, creatures which do not exist; but it is quite another and much higher thing to be amazed at a rhinoceros or a giraffe, creatures which do exist and look as if they don't. This feeling of universal oddity includes a basic and intense wondering about the sense of things."

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Tom Waits Singer-songwriter, Actor
Oddities

"I'm interested in things when I don't know what they are. Like "Hey, Ray, what the hell is this?" Oh, that's lipstick from the 1700s, that's dog food from the turn of the century, that's a hat from World War II. I'm interested in the minutiae of things. Oddities."

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Edgar Allan Poe Poet, Writer
Oddities

"That is another of your odd notions," said the Prefect, who had a fashion of calling every thing "odd" that was beyond his comprehension, and thus lived amid an absolute legion of "oddities."

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Amartya Sen Economist, Philosopher
Oddities

"The higher education has always appealed to the South Asian social leaders across all the countries in South Asia. But primary education has been neglected. The oddity, by the way, is if you look at the contrast in India, there are some areas like Kerala where there's a long history of educational development."

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William Shakespeare Playwright, Poet
Oddities

"Sir Andrew Ague-Cheek: I'll stay a month longer. I am a fellow o' the strangest mind i' the world; I delight in masques and revels sometimes altogether (He's an oddity in that he enjoys having fun)"

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Russell Brand Comedian, Actor
Oddities

"Even in name, he seems like a Victorian oddity. "Igor, fetch 'the Crouch' from the catacombs, we're going to the graveyard"."

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Noam Chomsky Linguist, Philosopher, Activist
Oddities

"As long as people are marginalized and distracted [they] have no way to organize or articulate their sentiments, or even know that others have these sentiments. People assume that they are the only people with a crazy idea in their heads. They never hear it from anywhere else. Nobody's supposed to think that. ... Since there's no way to get together with other people who share or reinforce that view and help you articulate it, you feel like an oddity, an oddball. So you just stay on the side and you don't pay any attention to what's going on. You look at something else, like the Superbowl."

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