“Grand opera is a form of musical entertainment for people who hate music.”
Quote collection
People Quotes — page 781 of 5018
“The Latino military fare badly when they stumble into war with the gringos. But in the torture, murder, and massacre of their own people, they have always performed with brilliance and elan.”
“In metaphysics, the notion that earth and all that's on it is a mental construct is the product of people who spend their lives inside rooms. It is an indoor philosophy.”
“The best people, like the best wines, come from the hills.”
“Terrorism: deadly violence against humans and other living things, usually conducted by government against its own people.”
“Democracy -- rule by the people -- sounds like a fine thing; we should try it sometime in America.”
“The national parks belong to everyone. To the people. To all of us. The government keeps saying so and maybe, in this one case at least, the government is telling the truth. Hard to believe, but possible.”
“There are two kinds of people I cannot abide: bigots and any well-organized ethnic group.”
“Yes, there are plenty of heroes and heroines everywhere you look. They are not famous people. They are generally obscure and modest people doing useful work, keeping their families together and taking an active part in the health of their communities, opposing what is evil (in one way or another) and defending what is good. Heroes do not want power over others.”
“People struggled on for years with 'troubles,' but they almost always succumbed to 'complications.”
“The difference is that these young people take it for granted that they're going to get whatever they want, and that we almost always took it for granted that we shouldn't. Only, I wonder—the thing one's so certain of in advance: can it ever make one's heart beat as wildly?”
“The very good people didn't convince me; I felt they'd never been tempted. But you knew; you understood; you had felt the world outside tugging at one with all its golden hands — and yet you hated the things it asks of one; you hated happiness bought by disloyalty and cruelty and indifference.”
“It was the old New York way...the way people who dreaded scandal more than disease, who placed decency above courage, and who considered that nothing was more ill-bred than "scenes", except those who gave rise to them.”
“And all the while, I suppose," he thought, "real people were living somewhere, and real things happening to them.”
“Presently he rose and approached the case before which she stood. Its glass shelves were crowded with small broken objects —hardly recognisable domestic utensils, ornaments and personal trifles — made of glass, of clay, of discoloured bronze and other time-blurred substances. 'It seems cruel,' she said, 'that after a while nothing matters... any more than these little things, that used to be necessary and important to forgotten people, and now have to be guessed at under a magnifying glass and labeled: "Use unknown".'”
“[I]t's safer to be fond of dangerous people.”
“Wherein lies a poet's claim to originality? That he invents his incidents? No. That he was present when his episodes had their birth? No. That he was first to repeat them? No. None of these things has any value. He confers on them their only originality that has any value, and that is his way of telling them." Mark Twain "...every literature, in its main lines, reflects the chief characteristics of the people for whom, and about whom, it is written.”
“Fear is a ... it's a weird thing, when you think about it. People are only afraid of other things, they're never afraid of themselves.”
“Dead bodies are calm and silent—perfectly still, perfectly harmless. A corpse will never move, it will never laugh, and it will never judge. A corpse will never shout at you, hit you, or leave you. Far away from the zombies and junk that you see on TV, a corpse is actually the perfect friend. The perfect pet. I feel more comfortable with them than I do with real people.”
“Each life has a different purpose, and some people can find their purpose more easily than others. The key, the most important thing you can ever know, is that whatever your purpose is, that's not your only choice" "No matter why you're here, no matter why any of us are here, you're never tied down to fate. You're never locked in. You make your own choices, Kira, and you can't let anyone ever take that away from you.”