All Quotes

"Self-knowledge can be painful, but not half so damaging as self-ignorance."

"To be cut off from the land of the living, and yet not to be dead. How could I bear that? That's how most men live, and don't even know it."

"Some people can't see miracles when they're right in the middle of them. Better than seeing miracles that don't exist. You're determined to stand entirely alone, aren't you? That's where I've always stood."

"It never occurred to you that they might be flattering you, because you don't lie."

"It is the downfall of evil, that it never sees far enough ahead."

"This man, though, was of that rare type that knew what he wanted but didn't want anything badly enough to demand it or beg for it or hurt anyone else in the process of getting it."

"He was wild the way a mistreated dog becomes wild, not because it loves freedom, but because it has lost trust."

"She got out of the car in a smooth motion that [he] found attractive precisely because it did not seem designed to make men watch her do it."

"That was the most terrible thing that a woman could [??] to a decent man: look vulnerable and ask him for mercy. If he refused her he'd be denying all his instincts as a provider and protector."

"Maybe she just wanted to be the one to decide when things happened between them. Then again, what women didn't want to decide that?"

"How could you tell, when utter honesty and cynical manipulation would each account completely for the things she said and did?"

"Something had been given back to him. And because [she] had been a part of it, there was something between them now. A bond of loss, if loss could bind."

"Why do you bother asking, when you know the answer and you also know that you don't intend to believe it?"

"Why is doubt the one thing we're never skeptical of? We question other peoples' beliefs, and the more sure they are the more we doubt them. But it never occurs to us to doubt our own doubt. Question our own questions. We think our questions are answers."

"We're not a family. We're the opposite of a family. We're people so lonely that when we're together we make a black hole of loneliness and everything else gets sucked down into it and is never seen again."

"She never seemed to get near the edge. She lived on other people's edges. And when they fell off, she'd admire how pretty they looked as they fell."

"I believed all that stuff about pleasing myself. Can't be done. You can't please yourself by doing what you want. Because it doesn't mean anything if it's just you. There has to be somebody it matters to."

"You aren't the kind of guy who takes the law into his own hands. You left the law in other hands and it screwed you over pretty badly."

"I'm nobody's child. You're mine now. Not my child, but mine, to miss you when you go, to look out for you, to hope you'll be careful."

"She going to be free now. She can go home to Jesus. Call me selfish, but I wanted her to go home with me."

"Knowing was better than not knowing. But not by much."

"You as stupid as they come. Of course, I say this with your best interests at heart. Most people are stupid. I don't hold it against them."

"I've known some bad people and some good people in my life, and it's the bad ones who live in fear, all the time. Cause they know their own hearts... And they think everyone else is just waiting to pull the same moves on them that they've got planned to pull on somebody else."

"Good people can't out-think evil, 'cause evil think of things good folks can't think of. Can't enter your head what evil do."

"We're both damaged property, I guess. Plenty of time for renovation."

"In Vanya's family, silence had never meant surrender, only tactical retreat."

"Before the story he refused to even think about it; after the story, it became conceivable to him, and, once he could conceive of it, it soon became inevitable."

"I never had you, not since you escaped from the womb."

"More than likely, mother would simply go enigmatic on him, give him one of her inscrutable smiles, and tell him that if he didn't already understand, he never would."

"How strange it was that this other woman, this girl-child, should speak of her son so possessively, should speak of his future as if it were her own future."

"Marriage is about banality. Its purpose is banality, to create an environment of surpassing safety and predictability for young children to grow up in, the foundation of life, the root of inner peace."

"I don't know you, ma'am, and apparently I'm expected to die for you."

"Was his very boyishness the reason he was chosen? In that case, was it not a virtue to be admired, and not a failing to be despised?"

"Living with a god is not what it's cracked up to be. They think their women should be grateful just to have them around."

"How could I hurt her? She'd have to love me before I could do that."

"It was his father who had shrunk, who no longer had the power of the giant, of the god, to enfold him and keep him safe."

"In the absence of understanding, that was a good a reason as any for living together and making babies and raising them up and throwing them out of the house and then going through the long slow decline together until one of them died and left the other alone again, understanding as little as ever about what their spouses really wanted, who they really were. Was that tragedy? Or was that comedy? Was there really any difference?"

""Women's intuition" wasn't intuition at all, it was heightened observation, unconscious registration of subtle clues."

"I took the leap, yes, but I didn't like the ledge where I landed — I fought the bear, I kissed the princess, but now I don't want to be king. Well, where in the fairy tales did it ever say Cinderella had to like being queen?"

"If he was a good man, how could he leave me? So he must not be a good man. But if he isn't good, then why does it hurt so much to lose him? Is it just my pride that's wounded?"

"Love can't conquer anything. Love can't make a scholar into a warrior. Loving her can't make her love me."

"Like running hurdles. Work so hard, jump over every one, fast, high enough but no higher, because you can't afford to hang in the air. And then, when the race is over, you're dripping with sweat, either they beat you or you beat them... and then a couple of guys come out and move the hurdles out of the way. Turns out they were nothing. All that work to jump over them, but now they're gone."

"To me, the truth is what actually happened. Yet it is impossible to know anything approaching the whole truth about past events. Even the people living them could not possibly understand. That truth is always out of reach."

"They never noticed that he was in fact what they only pretended to be."

"I am doing my best to glorify the scamp or vagabond. I hope I shall succeed. For things are not so simple as they sometimes seem. In this present age of threats to democracy and individual liberty, probably only the scamp and the spirit of the scamp alone will save us from being lost in serially numbered units in the masses of disciplined, obedient, regimented and uniformed coolies. The scamp will be the last and most formidable enemy of dictatorships. He will be the champion of human dignity and individual freedom, and will be the last to be conquered. All modern civilization depends entirely upon him."

"I do not think that any civilization can be called complete until it has progressed from sophistication to unsophistication, and made a conscious return to simplicity of thinking and living, and I call no man wise until he has made the progress from the wisdom of knowledge to the wisdom of foolishness, and become a laughing philosopher, feeling first life's tragedy and then life's comedy. For we must weep before we can laugh. Out of sadness comes the awakening, and out of the awakening comes the laughter of the philosopher, with kindliness and tolerance to boot."

"The world I believe is far too serious, and being far too serious, is it has need of a wise and merry philosophy."

"To me personally, the only function of philosophy is to teach us to take life more lightly and gayly than the average businessman does, for no businessman who does not retire at fifty, if he can, is in my eyes a philosopher."

"All men and women have passions, natural desires and noble ambitions, and also a conscience; they have sex, hunger, fear, anger, and are subject to sickness, pain, suffering and death. Culture consists in bringing about the expression of these passions and desires in harmony."

"A reasonable naturalist then settles down to this life with a sort of animal satisfaction. As Chinese illiterate women put it, "Others gave birth to us and we give birth to others. What else are we to do?".... Life becomes a biological procession and the very question of immortality is sidetracked. For that is the exact feeling of a Chinese grandfather holding his grandchild by the hand and going to the shops to buy some candy, with the thought that in five or ten years he will be returning to his grave or to his ancestors. The best that we can hope for in this life is that we shall not have sons and grandsons of whom we need to be ashamed."