Famous Quotes & Sayings

Barbara Kingsolver

So one time when I was working in this motel one of the toilets leaked and I had to replace the flapper ball. Here's what it said on the package; I kept it till I knew it by heart: 'Please Note. Parts are included for all installations, but no installation requires all of the parts.' That's kind of my philosophy about men. I don't think there's an installation out there that could use all my parts.

Baruch Spinoza

Philosophy has no end in view save truth; faith looks for nothing but obedience and piety.

Baruch Spinoza

I do not presume that I have found the best philosophy, I know that I understand the true philosophy.

Augustine Birrell

History is a pageant and not a philosophy.

Ayelet Waldman

Those of us whose parenting style can be described as "a series of reflexes, instincts, and minute-by-minute adjustments," as Julie of A Little Pregnant puts it, rather than as a philosophy, are less invested in our own practices. What we do is often less a matter of conviction than one of convenience. What we need to remember is that there is no need to apologize for that, even in the face of the most red-faced outrage.

Ayn Rand

The men who are not interested in philosophy need it most urgently; they are most helplessly in its power.

Ayn Rand

Devotion to the truth is the hallmark of morality; there is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of devotion than the act of a man who assumes the responsibility of thinking.

Ayn Rand

Rationality is the recognition of the fact that nothing can alter the truth and nothing can take precedence over that act of perceiving it.

Ayn Rand

Let no man posture as an advocate of peace if he proposes or supports any social system that initiates the use of force against individual men, in any form.

Brandon Sanderson

I am a writer who works from an outline. What I generally do when I build an outline is I find focal, important scenes, and I build them in my head and I don't write them yet, but I build towards them.

Brandon Sanderson

I take two hours off for my family every day. And then I write fourteen hours.

Anthony Shadid

The best journalism is sometimes about footnotes—when we write small to say something big.

Ben Mezrich

There's always going to be controversy when you write the way I write.

Ben Marcus

When I started writing at 18 or 19, I had a fear of anything autobiographical, but I've come to realise that my writing is very autobiographical at the emotional level.

Ben Okri

The best writing is not about the writer, the best writing is absolutely not about the writer, it's about us, it's about the reader.

Barbara Kingsolver

I know I have to write about the things that keep me awake at night.

Barbara Kingsolver

If you're writing, you're a writer. If you're talking about it or thinking about it, I'm not so sure. Writing is ninety-eight percent work and two percent magic.

Barbara Kingsolver

There is no perfect time to write. There is only now.

Mel Kohn

This is something we need to do a lot more talking about.

Barbara Kingsolver

The talkers are rising above the thinkers.

Brian K. Vaughan

I'm the one who started spreading that particular factoid, about Bendis, Azz and me all being bald Brian's from Cleveland, just to get my name mentioned in the same sentence as two much-better writers, and it's worked like a goddamn charm. Next up, I'm going to grow a big, disgusting beard, just so people will start talking about Alan Moore and me in the same breath.

Brenda Ueland

We should all know this: that listening, not talking, is the gifted and great role, and the imaginative role.

Jamie Bell

When I see people talking about TV, they're way more animated, way more passionate than when they talk about films.

Calvin Coolidge

Theodore Roosevelt was always getting himself in hot water by talking before he had to commit himself upon issues not well-defined.

James Woods

No matter what it is, if you get 10 people in the business talking about something, you get 10 different opinions, but you know, they're amazingly well informed.

Aung San Suu Kyi

Peace, development, and justice are all connected to each other. We cannot talk about economic development without talking about peace. How can we expect economic development in a battlefield?

Dana Perino

Once you break someone of the habit of up-talking, they can start to see immediate improvement in their careers.