there, and here

Perhaps it is our perennial fate to be surprised by the simultaneity of events, by the sheer extension of the world in time and space. That we are here, prosperous, safe, unlikely to go to bed hungry or be blown to pieces this evening, while elsewhere in the world, right now in Grozny, in Najaf, in the Sudan, in the Congo, in Gaza, in the favelas of Rio....

To be a traveler—and novelists are often travelers—is to be constantly reminded of the simultaneity of what is going on in the world, your world and the very different world you have visited and from which you have returned home.

-- Susan Sontag

holding on

The bravest thing that men do is love women.

-- Mort Sahl

dedicated to the one I love

Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary. The people we trust with that important talk can help us know that we are not alone.

-- Fred Rogers

life is but a dream

I dreamed I was a butterfly, flitting around in the sky; then I awoke. Now I wonder: Am I a man who dreamt of being a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man?

-- Chuang Tzu

indisposed

It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy;-- it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others.

-- Jane Austen

I guess I just prefer to see the dark side of things. The glass is always half empty. And cracked. And I just cut my lip on it. And chipped a tooth.

-- Janeane Garofalo

this and that, and them

Pair off in threes.

-- Yogi Berra

trifling matters

One way to get high blood pressure is to go mountain climbing over molehills.

-- Earl Wilson

fleetly float

My method is to take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then to say it with the utmost levity.

-- George Bernard Shaw

it is to see, or to not

That's the thing with magic. You've got to know it's still here, all around us, or it just stays invisible for you.

-- Charles de Lint

born again

Madness need not be all breakdown. It may also be break-through. It is potential liberation and renewal as well as enslavement and existential death.

-- R.D. Laing

low and slow

It was an instinct to put the world in order that powered her mending split infinitives and snipping off dangling participles, smoothing away the knots and bumps until the prose before her took on a sheen, like perfect caramel.

-- David Leavitt

wonked out

Round the world and home again
That's the sailor's way
Faster faster, faster faster
There's no earthly way of knowing
Which direction we are going
There's no knowing where we're rowing
Or which way the river's flowing
Is it raining, is it snowing
Is a hurricane a-blowing
Not a speck of light is showing
So the danger must be growing
Are the fires of Hell a-glowing
Is the grisly reaper mowing
Yes, the danger must be growing
For the rowers keep on rowing
And they're certainly not showing
Any signs that they are slowing

-- Roald Dahl

tippytoes

There's a magical tie to the land of our home, which the heart cannot break, though the footsteps may roam.

-- Eliza Cook

inconsequentiality

One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. Which road do I take? she asked. Where do you want to go? was his response. I don't know, Alice answered. Then, said the cat, it doesn't matter.

-- Lewis Carroll

upon the embracing

You cannot help but learn more as you take the world into your hands. Take it up reverently, for it is an old piece of clay, with millions of thumbprints on it.

-- John Updike

the loss of innocence

There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.

-- Howard Zinn

down in back

Are we to paint what's on the face, what's inside the face, or what's behind it?

-- Pablo Picasso

walk this way

I'll walk where my own nature would be leading: It vexes me to choose another guide.

-- Emily Bronte

look differently

Don’t believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding. Find out what you already know and you will see the way to fly.

-- Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull