Alan Bissett Quotes

Peer pressure!'
'Alvin son, you are the only virgin we know...'
'Nae mingers for me,' I emote, waving a Shakespearean finger. 'When this shagger starts, it will be with the finest creation on God's earth'
'Tyra's probably gettin a ride at the back of the Maniqui right now,' Frankie mutters, 'Brian's probably fuckin shagged her already!'
Brian turns to him, snappily. 'Whit ye tryin to say?'
'Brian, you cannae get it up unless yer surrounded by bin-bags ~ Alan Bissett

If we build more windows and fewer walls, we will have more friends. ~ Alan Loy McGinnis

Tomorrow and plans for tomorrow can have no significance at all unless you are in full contact with the reality of the present, since it is in the present and only in the present that you live. There is no other reality than present reality, so that, even if one were to live for endless ages, to live for the future would be to miss the point everlastingly. ~ Alan W. Watts

Being alone," I snapped, without meaning to be intentionally rude. I was simply being truthful. "Being alone," she said, nodding. I could see that she was not put off by my bristling reply. "There's a lot to be said for being alone. But you and I know, don't we, Flavia, that being alone and being lonely are not at all the same thing?" I brightened a bit. Here was someone who seemed at least to have thought through some of the same things I had. ~ Alan Bradley

There is another story of a Chinese sage who was asked, "How shall we escape the heat?" - meaning, of course, the heat of suffering. He answered, "Go right into the middle of the fire." "But how, then, shall we escape the scorching flame?" "No further pain will trouble you! ~ Alan W. Watts

They offered you a choice between the death of your principles and the death of your body. You said you'd rather die. You faced the fear of your own death, and you were calm and still. ~ Alan Moore

The virtue of the market is not that it is always right or that the right outcomes always emerge from it, but that beneficial outcomes emerge from it more often than from any other system. ~ Alan Ebenstein

Champions do not become champions when they win the event, but in the hours, weeks, months and years they spend preparing for it. The victorious performance itself is merely the demonstration of their championship character. ~ Alan Armstrong

Each act is an island in time, to be judged on its own. ~ Alan Lightman

When the church is in mission, it is the true church. The church itself is not only a product of that mission but is obligated and destined to extend it by whatever means possible. The mission of God flows directly through every believer and every community of faith that adheres to Jesus. To obstruct this is to block God's purposes in and through his people. ~ Alan Hirsch

If we want to keep the old language, still using such terms as "spiritual" and "material," the spiritual must mean "the indefinable," that which, because it is living, must ever escape the framework of any fixed form. Matter is spirit named. After all this, the brain deserves a word for itself! For the brain, including its reasoning and calculating centers, is a part and product of the body. It is as natural as the heart and stomach, and, rightly used, is anything but an enemy of man. But to be used rightly it must be put in its place, for the brain is made for man, not man for his brain. In other words, the function of the brain is to serve the present and the real, not to send man chasing wildly after the phantom of the future. ~ Alan W. Watts

It's hard for me to get interested in stories that ignore death, which is what American marketing culture would like to do: pretend that death doesn't exist, that you can buy immortality; just buy these products, and you'll be forever young and happy. ~ Alan Ball

What you go through is nothing compared to who you are. ~ Alan Cohen

Much of magic as I understand it in the Western occult tradition is the search for the Self, with a capital S. This is understood as being the Great Work, as being the gold the alchemists sought, as being the Will, the Soul, the thing we have inside us that is behind the intellect, the body, the dreams. The inner dynamo of us, if you like. Now this is the single most important thing that we can ever attain, the knowledge of our own Self. And yet there are a frightening amount of people who seem to have the urge not just to ignore the Self, but actually seem to have the urge to obliterate themselves. This is horrific, but you can almost understand the desire to simply wipe out that awareness, because it's too much of a responsibility to actually posses such a thing as a soul, such a precious thing. What if you break it? What if you lose it? Mightn't it be best to anesthetize it, to deaden it, to destroy it, to not have to live with the pain of struggling towards it and trying to keep it pure? I think that the way that people immerse themselves in alcohol, in drugs, in television, in any of the addictions that our culture throws up, can be seen as a deliberate attempt to destroy any connection between themselves and the responsibility of accepting and owning a higher Self and then having to maintain it. ~ Alan Moore

I'm not gay, but I don't think you have to be gay to have a gay hero. Growing up, Alan Turing was certainly mine. I'm also not the greatest mathematician of my generation. We have lots of biographical differences, but nonetheless, I always identified with him so much. ~ Graham Moore

My mother kept asking me, 'When are you going to do a gospel album?' And I've always wanted to do a gospel album. Everybody was going on about it, so mom started hounding me more. ~ Alan Jackson

When somebody plays music, you listen. you just follow those sounds, and eventually you understand the music. the point can't be explained in words because music is not words, but after listening for a while, you understand the point of it, and that point is the music itself. in exactly the same way, you can listen to all experiences. ~ Alan W. Watts

You can watch actors create their illusions, but if you don't see where they get the pigeons from, you don't really know how they're doing it. ~ Alan Alda

After John gave his little speech to the orchestra, he turned to Paulie and said, "What do you think, mate? Are you with me or not." Paul said, "Not. You're on your own." John said, "No, I'm not on my own. You're with me. I was being rhetorical. It wasn't a question." Paul said, "Yes, it was. You said, 'Are you with me or not?' You started your sentence with the word 'are'. By definition, any sentence with the word 'are' at the beginning of it is a question." John said, "That's not necessarily true. I didn't upturn my voice, and if there's no upturn, there's no question. ~ Alan Goldsher

How I changed my mind about women in leadership came through the gradual piling up of anomalies against a powerful but unsustainable paradigm. ~ Alan F. Johnson

If you look at that incredible burst of fantastic characters that emerged in the late 19th century/early 20th century, you can see so many of the fears and hopes of those times embedded in those characters. Even in throwaway bits of contemporary culture you can often find some penetrating insights into the real world around us. ~ Alan Moore

His mind drifted back to times past. He missed the companionship of his old pack. He had grown up in the pack and knew each wolf by sight and smell. They had played and hunted, bred and cared for the young, and fought and died together. His bonds to the other wolves had been very close – particularly his mate. She had been the strongest and the swiftest female. She had reared their young well and had always yelped and whined with affection after he returned from the hunt. He remembered the comfort he had felt on so many starry nights, lying beside her with his head resting upon her neck in a sign of affection. However, she was gone now, and he could not bring her back. The two-legged ones had seen to that. ~ Alan Kinross

Alan Ladd was a marvelous person in his simplicity. In so many ways we were kindred spirits. We both were professionally conceived through Hollywood's search for box office and the types to insure the box office. And we were both little people. Alan wasn't as short as most people believe. It was true that in certain films Alan would climb a small platform or the girl worked in a slit trench. We had no such problems together. ~ Veronica Lake

Alan Alda and his wife Arlene are two of the most life-affirming people I've ever met. He espoused equal rights for women while producing, writing, acting in and directing 'M*A*S*H'; he used to commute between the set and home because he didn't want to disrupt his kids' schooling. ~ Sanjeev Bhaskar

Some actors come to the set ready to do their parts a certain way. ~ Alan J. Pakula

I'm going to make it. Nothing is going to stop me. Nothing. I want it too much. ~ Alan Ladd

We need people like me in the Labour party. ~ Alan Johnson

No one is too busy to do what they actually prefer. ~ Alan Cohen

Writing from the perspective of women survivors of violence, Moore is at his most appealing; though his writing about sex and brutality can verge on the exploitative, he sometimes reveals an unexpected sympathy with dominated women. ~ Zoe Brigley

The Judge does not make the law. It is people that make the law. Therefore if a law is unjust, and if the Judge judges according to the law, that is justice, even if it is not just. ~ Alan Paton

Guilt: punishing yourself before God doesn't. ~ Alan Cohen

As a human being it is just my nature to enjoy and share philosophy. I do this in the same way that some birds are eagles and some doves, some flowers lilies and some roses. ~ Alan Watts

We're all responsible. I'm the leader, the captain of the ship, and I have to take responsibility. ~ Alan Trammell

I drew in a deep breath, sucking the sour tange into my lungs and savoring the chemical smell of decay. But this was no time for pleasant reflections. ~ Alan Bradley

They sat as if the weight of the world had in this minute been lifted from them both and left them dumb with surprise. But this lasted only for the moment. Arthur held her murderously tight, as if to vanquish her spirit even in the first short contest. But she responded to him, as if she would break him first. It was stalemate, and they sought relief from the great decision they had just brought upon themselves. He spoke to her softly, and she nodded her head to his words without knowing what they meant. Neither did Arthur know what he was saying; both transmission and reception were drowned, and they broke through to the opened furrows of the earth. ~ Alan Sillitoe

I believe employment regulations for women, whereby the prospective employer is not able to inquire about the interviewee's status regarding children, childcare, or indeed their intention of becoming a parent, are counterproductive. ~ Alan Sugar

Archaeopteryx probably cannot tell us much about the early origins of feathers and flight in true protobirds because Archaeopteryx was, in the modern sense, a bird. ~ Alan Feduccia

Heroes are important not only because they symbolize what we believe to be important, but because they also convey universal truths about personal self-discovery and self-transcendence, one's role in society, and the relation between the two. ~ Alan Hirsch

Surrounded by darkness yet enfolded in light ~ Alan Brennert

Clichés can be quite fun. That's how they got to be clichés. ~ Alan Bennett

In a certain sense, Zen is feeling life instead of feeling something about life. ~ Alan Watts

No asshole would stop Harley Wright's epic quest for pussy. He would fight every bum in Manhattan for a fine piece of ass like Sorcha! ~ Alan Kinross

Those who do not forgive history are assigned to repeat it until compassion replaces judgment. ~ Alan Cohen

The death of the individual is not disconnection but simply withdrawal. The corpse is like a footprint or an echo - the dissolving trace of something which the Self has ceased to do. ~ Alan W. Watts

When you look at the clouds they are not symmetrical. They do not form fours and they do not come along in cubes, but you know at once that they are not a mess. [...] They are wiggly but in a way, orderly, although it is difficult for us to describe that kind of order. Now, take a look at yourselves. You are all wiggly. [...] We are just like clouds, rocks and stars. Look at the way the stars are arranged. Do you criticize the way the stars are arranged? ~ Alan W. Watts

I felt responsible to use my gifts, but in future churches, that pointed in the direction of children's or music ministry. But, like many women in the church whom I knew, I felt neither a call nor a predisposition to children or song. ~ Alan F. Johnson

My father contracted polio on a troop train in Korea. ~ David Alan Grier

The critical period in matrimony is breakfast-time. ~ Alan Patrick Herbert

Nowadays we raise our children in a cocoon of domesticated security, far from any sense of risk or adventure. ~ Alan Hirsch

Only twenty-seven people in Britain can explain why the day after Christmas Day is called Boxing Day, but that doesn't stop millions from marking it by staying home from work. An intriguing side effect of thus having two consecutive public holidays is that no matter what days of the week they fall on, the British can easily justify taking the whole week off.
Suppose Christmas Day falls on a Tuesday, with Boxing Day on the Wednesday. Well, then, what is the point, the contemporary Bob Cratchit cries, of bother to open up the office or factory on Monday, when we all plan to knock off work by lunchtime because it's Christmas Eve? And it's hardly worth cranking up the heat for a working week that's now been whittled down to just two days. By the time we finish complaining about our ingrate in-laws and the cheesy Christmas television programs and the blatant materialism of our kids, it's time to go home for the weekend. Isn't it simpler for Mr. Scrooge to close the countinghouse until the New Year? (He can still pay us, of course.)
This creative logic is a little more challenging when Christmas Day is a Thursday, but several Plumley residents had pulled it off... ~ Alan Beechey