Cyril Connolly

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.
Cyril Connolly

Oscar Levant

Underneath this flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.
Oscar Levant

Helen Keller

It is a terrible thing to see and have no vision.
Helen Keller

Lois McMaster Bujold

What you are is a question only you can answer.
Lois McMaster Bujold

Abraham Lincoln

Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it.
Abraham Lincoln

Émile François Zola

Perfection is such a nuisance that I often regret
curing myself of using tobacco.
Émile François Zola

Charles Bukiwski

Some people never go crazy.
What truly horrible lives they must live.
Charles Bukiwski

Will Rogers

I have a scheme for stopping war. It's this - no nation is allowed to enter a war till they have paid for the last one.
Will Rogers

Dorothy Parker

I'm never going to be famous. I don't do anything, not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don't even do that any more.
Dorothy Parker

J.R.R. Tolkien

You can only come to the morning through the shadows.
J.R.R. Tolkien

Thich Nhat Hanh

We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness.
Thich Nhat Hanh

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Constantly risking absurdity and death whenever he performs above the heads of his audience, the poet, like an acrobat, climbs on rhyme to a high wire of his own making.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Virginia Woolf

If you do not tell the truth about yourself
you cannot tell it about other people.
Virgina Woolf

Jónsi Birgisson

I think we don't like to be a political band. We don't like to make statements - we usually don't like bands who make crazy statements. If you're going to do it you have to be educated about it, know what you're talking about.
Jónsi Birgisson

Walt Whitman

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.
Walt Whitman

Zana Briski

Something very ugly to you as a person can look beautiful through the viewfinder, but being able to find that beauty, oftentimes, means seeing the humanity within the frame. If you turn that off completely, you don't see at all.
Zana Briski

Emily Dickinson

Whenever a thing is done for the first time,
it releases a little demon.
Emily Dickinson

John Steinbeck

I've seen a look in dogs' eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs
think humans are nuts.
John Steinbeck

John Cleese

When I suddenly discovered that I could sit down with a blank sheet of paper and two hours later I could have written something that then made people laugh — this was an extraordinary moment for me, and I thought,
‘My goodness, I am creative...

John Cleese

James Baldwin

I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.
James Baldwin

Lorine Niedecker

What would they say if they knew
I sit for two months
on six lines of poetry?
Lorine Niedecker

George Bernard Shaw

I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
George Bernard Shaw

Stanislav Petrov

I made a decision and that was it....
...a nuclear war could have broken out. The whole world
could have been destroyed.
Stanislav Petrov

Pablo Picasso

It takes a long time to grow young.

Pablo Picasso

Ernest Hemingway

That is what we are supposed to do 
when we are at our best - make it all up 
- but make it up so truly
that later it will happen that way.
Ernest Hemingway

Martin Scorsese

There's no such thing as simple. Simple is hard.
Martin Scorsese

Mae West

I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it.
Mae West

Theodor Seuss Geisel

Adults are just obsolete children and the hell with them.

Theodor Seuss Geisel

Frank Lloyd Wright

Regard it as just as desirable to build a chicken house
as to build a cathedral.
Frank Lloyd Wright

Buckminster Fuller

Everyone is born a genius, but the process of
living de-geniuses them.
Buckminster Fuller