“I am the opposite of a stage magician. He gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion.”
“What is that feeling when you’re driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? - it’s the too-huge world vaulting us, and it’s good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies”
“The view that people in the future matter just as much as us has deep practical implications. We have a long way to go if we are to understand these and integrate them fully into our moral thinking.”
“I kept thinking about the uneven quality of time—the way it was almost always so empty, and then with no warning came a few days that felt so dense and alive and real that it seemed indisputable that that was what life was, that its real nature had finally been revealed. But then time passed and unthinkably grew dead again, and it turned out that that fullness had been an aberration and might never come back.”
“I think this is the best-known story in the world because it is everybody’s story. I think it is the symbol story of the human soul. I’m feeling my way now—don’t jump on me if I’m not clear. The greatest terror a child can have is that he is not loved, and rejection is the hell he fears. I think everyone in the world to a large or small extent has felt rejection. And with rejection comes anger, and with anger some kind of crime in revenge for the rejection, and with the crime guilt—and there is the story of mankind. I think that if rejection could be amputated, the human would not be what he is.” OR... “Do you take pride in your hurt? Does it make you seem large and tragic? ...Well, think about it. Maybe you’re playing a part on a great stage with only yourself as audience.”
“The definition of social categories rests with society, not science, and social categories can’t be made to coincide with biological categories except by fiat.”
“When we don’t examine the deeper assumptions behind why we gather, we end up skipping too quickly to replicating old, staid formats of gathering. And we forgo the possibility of creating something memorable, even transformative.”
“It was an example, he wrote afterwards, “of what we called ‘Hershey Heaven.’ This expression comes from a reply that Alfred Hershey gave when Garen [Alan Garen, one of the phage group] once asked him for his idea of scientific happiness: ‘To have one experiment that works, and keep doing it all the time.”
“Paintings are not “taken,” like photographs; they are “made,” carefully and deliberately, and not to show an objective reality so much as to present a particular scenario.”
“Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.”
“[Raskolnikov] could not have analysed anything consciously; he was simply feeling. Life had stepped into the place of theory and something quite different would work itself out in his mind”
“[T]here seems almost a general wish of decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labor of the novelist and of slighting the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them... [novels are works] in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.”
“I look at the ugly little statue, and I start to giggle. Then I crack up. Finally, I roll with laughter. My hand jerks out and hits the trophy—I’m not sure if it was an accident or not— and it falls to the floor, breaking into several pieces.”
