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Puck's Quote Board, page 15

Boasting 1613 quotes!
  • To enlist. To slam the door impulsively on the past, to shed everything down to my last bit of clothing, to break the pattern of my life – that complex design I had been weaving since birth with all its dark threads, its unexplainable symbols set against a conventional background of domestic white and schoolboy blue, all those tangled strands which required the dexterity of a virtuoso to keep flowing – I yearned to take giant military shears to it, snap! bitten off in an instant, and nothing left in my hands but spools of khaki which could weave only a plain, flat, khaki design, however twisted they might be.

    Speaker: John Knowles
    Source: A Separate Peace
    Rating:
    1 (1 vote)
    Posted: 17 Dec 2009 at 4:06 PM
    Posted By: Puck
    Tags: character, war
    Shared By: 2 members; sdressfancy, Puck
  • Everyone has a moment in history which belongs particularly to him. It is the moment when his emotions achieve their most powerful sway over him, and afterward when you say to this person “the world today” or “life” or “reality” he will assume that you mean this moment, even if it is fifty years past. The world, through his unleashed emotions, imprinted itself upon him, and he carries the stamp of that passing moment forever.

    Speaker: John Knowles
    Source: A Separate Peace
    Rating:
    1 (1 vote)
    Posted: 17 Dec 2009 at 4:03 PM
    Posted By: Puck
  • As I said, this was my sarcastic summer. It was only long after that I recognized sarcasm as the protest of people who are weak.

    Speaker: John Knowles
    Source: A Separate Peace
    Rating:
    1 (1 vote)
    Posted: 17 Dec 2009 at 4:01 PM
    Posted By: Puck
    Shared By: 3 members; hnorthsale, oursojeri, Puck
  • So the more things remain the same, the more they change after all – plus c’est la meme chose, plus ca change. Nothing endures, not a tree, not love, not even a death by violence.

    Speaker: John Knowles
    Source: A Separate Peace
    Rating:
    1 (1 vote)
    Posted: 17 Dec 2009 at 4:00 PM
    Posted By: Puck
    Tags: change, memory, time
  • She always wanted to have some Native American blood in her, just as everyone does, because with that blood, she thought, stupidly, comes nobility, as would excuses to do things the wrong way, or not do them at all, to do anything she wanted. Instead she is Irish or possibly even Welsh but not in any tangible sense, and thus born without any sorrow in the lives of her recent ancestors, and so she had to smile gratefully and create good things from scratch or perhaps just save people from skin disease.

    Speaker: Dave Eggers
    Source: How We Are Hungry
    Rating:
    1 (1 vote)
    Posted: 12 Dec 2009 at 7:34 PM
    Posted By: Puck
    Tags: society
  • Every question possesses a power that does not lie in the answer.
    “Man raises himself toward God by the questions he asks Him,” he was fond of repeating. “That is the true dialogue. Man questions God and God answers. But we don’t understand his answers. We can’t understand them. Because they come from the depths of the soul, and they stay there until death. You will find the true answers, Eliezer, only within yourself!”

    Speaker: Night
    Source: Elie Wiesel
    Rating:
    1 (1 vote)
    Posted: 12 Dec 2009 at 7:25 PM
    Posted By: Puck
    Tags: god, knowledge, truth
  • Why does it give so much comfort to be responsible for someones sleep? We all – don’t we? – want creatures sleeping in our homes while we walk about, turning off lights.

    Speaker: Dave Eggers
    Source: How We Are Hungry
    Rating:
    1 (1 vote)
    Posted: 26 Nov 2009 at 8:58 PM
    Posted By: Puck
    Shared By: 2 members; winswmlik, Puck
  • Why do we pursue information that we know will never leave our heads? I was inviting a permanent, violent guest into my home. He would defecate on my bed. He would shred my clothes, light fires on the walls. I could see him walking up the driveway and I stood at the door, knowing that I’d be a fool to bring him inside. But I still opened the door.

    Speaker: Dave Eggers
    Source: How We Are Hungry
    Rating:
    1 (1 vote)
    Posted: 26 Nov 2009 at 8:56 PM
    Posted By: Puck
    Shared By: 2 members; drmccadexavie, Puck
  • She liked that idea, God being in all things that she could see, because she liked seeing things and wanted to believe in these things that she loved looking at – loved the notion that it was all here and easily observable, with ones eyes being in some way the clergy, the connection between God and –

    Speaker: Dave Eggers
    Source: How We Are Hungry
    Rating:
    1 (1 vote)
    Posted: 26 Nov 2009 at 8:52 PM
    Posted By: Puck
    Shared By: 4 members; winswmlik, sdressfancy, drmccadexavie, Puck
  • This story is equally or more about surfing. People are no more interesting than waves and mountains.

    Speaker: Dave Eggers
    Source: How We Are Hungry
    Rating:
    1 (1 vote)
    Posted: 26 Nov 2009 at 8:50 PM
    Posted By: Puck
    Tags: beauty, humor, writing
  • She always wanted to have some Native American blood in her, just as everyone else does, because with that blood, she thought, stupidly, would come nobility, as would excuses to do things the wrong way, or not do them at all, or do anything she wanted. But instead she is Irish or possibly even Welsh but not in any tangible sense, and thus born without any sorrow in the lives of her recent ancestors, and so she had to smile gratefully and create good things from scratch or perhaps just save people from skin disease.

    Speaker: Dave Eggers
    Source: How We Are Hungry
    Rating:
    1 (1 vote)
    Posted: 26 Nov 2009 at 8:48 PM
    Posted By: Puck
    Tags: race, society
  • There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.

    Speaker: Willa Cather
    Source: O Pioneers!
    Rating:
    1 (1 vote)
    Posted: 19 Nov 2009 at 9:46 PM
    Posted By: Puck
    Shared By: 3 members; drmccadexavie, winswmlik, Puck
  • Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.

    Speaker: Confucius
    Rating:
    1 (1 vote)
    Posted: 11 Nov 2009 at 4:06 PM
    Posted By: Puck
    Tags: passion, work
    Shared By: 3 members; sdressfancy, winswmlik, Puck
  • I certainly have no qualms with the idea of killing animals. After years of research, I have come to the conclusion that animals enjoy being eaten; they think it’s fun.

    Speaker: Chuck Klosterman
    Source: Fargo Rock City
    Rating:
    1 (1 vote)
    Posted: 08 Nov 2009 at 8:33 PM
    Posted By: Puck
    Tags: humor
    Shared By: 2 members; sdressfancy, Puck
  • Nonbreathing people get all of the breaks. Clearly, the easiest way to become “great” is to get “good” and then get “dead.”

    Speaker: Chuck Klosterman
    Source: Fargo Rock City
    Rating:
    1 (1 vote)
    Posted: 08 Nov 2009 at 8:32 PM
    Posted By: Puck
    Tags: fame
    Shared By: 3 members; winswmlik, sdressfancy, Puck
  • I thought about the way so many of my friends bitched about their parents; they all seemed to think they were destroying their lives. I never felt like that. My parents were undoubtedly crazy, but they never did anything except make my life better. I was their seventh and final child, and they did not need this. To this day, I never want them to know anything about my life that makes me seem like the horrible person I truly am. In fact, the thought of them reading this book keeps me awake at night. It makes me want to get drunk.

    Speaker: Chuck Klosterman
    Source: Fargo Rock City
    Rating:
    1 (1 vote)
    Posted: 08 Nov 2009 at 8:31 PM
    Posted By: Puck
    Tags: family, writing
    Shared By: 3 members; sdressfancy, drmccadexavie, Puck
  • Here again, heavy metal was an aqueduct for vicarious, harmless evil. Even as an adolescent, I understood that the kind of kid who thought Bruce Dickinson was telling him to worship Satan was the same kind of kid who would have been corrupted by the hum of a refrigerator.

    Speaker: Chuck Klosterman
    Source: Fargo Rock City
    Rating:
    1 (1 vote)
    Posted: 08 Nov 2009 at 8:28 PM
    Posted By: Puck
    Tags: culture, music
    Shared By: 2 members; sdressfancy, Puck
  • Regardless of how many people still describe themselves as “Christian” in census surveys, we live in a primarily agnostic culture. Intellectually, agnosticism makes more sense. But the downside is that when people lose their convictions about the existence of God and Satan, they are less able to have personal perspectives on what’s right and what’s wrong. They are more open-minded about old taboos, but they’re also less able to see what’s obvious (and therefore susceptible to propaganda).

    Speaker: Chuck Klosterman
    Source: Fargo Rock City
    Rating:
    1 (1 vote)
    Posted: 08 Nov 2009 at 8:26 PM
    Posted By: Puck
    Shared By: 3 members; sdressfancy, drmccadexavie, Puck
  • A widely held opinion in the aesthetic community insists an artist is more credible if he doesn’t consider his audience during the creative process; the philosophy suggests that a true artists has to make his art for personal reasons, regardless of whether or not people like it (or even want it). That’s plainly stupid, and Bon Jovi knew it. Art is not intrinsic to the universe; art is a human construction. If you killed off all the world’s people, you would kill off all the art. The only thing important about art is how it affects people. It only needs to affect one person to be interesting, but it has to affect many people to be important.

    Speaker: Chuck Klosterman
    Source: Fargo Rock City
    Rating:
    1 (1 vote)
    Posted: 08 Nov 2009 at 8:23 PM
    Posted By: Puck
    Tags: aesthetics, art
    Shared By: 2 members; sdressfancy, Puck
  • I have always tried to live by a simple principle: If I am sober enough to drive, I am too sober to dance.

    Speaker: Chuck Klosterman
    Source: Fargo Rock City
    Rating:
    1 (1 vote)
    Posted: 08 Nov 2009 at 8:21 PM
    Posted By: Puck
    Tags: humor
    Shared By: 3 members; sdressfancy, winswmlik, Puck