James Keller Quotes

It is so often true that whether a person carries with him an atmosphere of gloom and depression or one of confidence and courage depends on his individual outlook. ~ James Keller

A young man, just beginning the study of musical composition, once went to Mozart and asked him the formula for developing the theme of a symphony. Mozart suggested that a symphony was rather an ambitious project for a beginner: perhaps the young man might better try his hand at something simpler first. "But you were writing symphonies when you were my age." the student protested. "Yes, but I didn't have to ask how." ~ James Keller

Some time ago we heard a strange story. The pilot of a small plane said that he had been caught in a one hundred fifty mile gale, which held his plane perfectly still. The motor was roaring, he claimed, but the plane was not moving. "It was weird," he said , "to be going one hundred fifty miles an hour and yet not be going anywhere at all." ~ James Keller

A young lady went into a bookstore and asked the clerk for Irving Stone's book, "Immoral Wife." The title is "Immortal Wife," the clerk replied. "I'll get it for you." Oh, please don't bother, If that's the correct name of the book, I don't think I'd care for it. I had something else in mind. ~ James Keller

A Seattle lawyer once interrupted his lengthy cross-examination of a witness and exclaimed, "Your Honor, one of the jurors is asleep." "You put him to sleep," replied the judge. "Suppose you wake him up." ~ James Keller

During a heavy storm at sea a nervous woman passenger on a large liner went to the captain, seeking reassurance. "Captain," she asked tremulously, "are we in great danger?" "Don't worry, madam," he answered, "after all, we in the hands of God." "Oh," she gasped, terror written on her face, "is it as bad as that?" ~ James Keller

We heard recently the touching story of a young flier who was killed in action. Before he died, he had time to scrawl only a few words as a brief final message to his parents back home. The note read: "Dear Mom and Pop; I had time to say my prayers. Jack." ~ James Keller

She's right, Kate's right, I'm right and you're wrong. If you drive her away from here it will be over my dead - chair, has it never occurred to you at on one occasion you might be consummately wrong? ~ William Gibson

When Babe Didrickson Zaharias, often called the 'athletic phenomenon of all time,' won the British woman's gold tournament, people said of her what they had said many times before: "Oh, she's an automatic champion, a natural athlete." When Babe started golfing in earnest thirteen years ago she hit as many as 1,000 balls in one afternoon, playing until her hands were so sore they had to be taped. ~ James Keller

The Metropolitan Museum of Art some time ago held a display of contemporary art at which $52,000 was awarded to American sculptors, painters, and artists in allied fields. The award for the best painting went to the canvas of an Illinois artist. It was described as "a macabre, detailed work showing a closed door bearing a funeral wreath." Equally striking was the work's title: "That which I should have done, I did not do." ~ James Keller

The will of a wealthy New York woman, in addition to distributing her worldly goods to her children, left them the following advice: Love one another. Hold fast to that whether you understand one another or not, and remember nothing really matters except being kind to one another in the name of Christ and to all the world as far as you can reach. ~ James Keller

A young lady had only one complaint about her good husband: "My husband always praises me to other people," she said, "Often I hear from friends the wonderful things he has said about me. But I miss something, because he never gets around to saying these some things to me, to my face." ~ James Keller

A candle loses nothing of its light by lighting another candle. ~ James Keller

What this country needs is more people to inspire others with confidence, and fewer people to discourage any initiative in the right direction more to get into the thick of things, fewer to sit on the sidelines, merely finding fault more to point out what's right with the world, and fewer to keep harping on what's wrong with it and more who are interested in lighting candles, and fewer who blow them out. ~ James Keller

A high-school girl, seated next to a famous astronomer at a dinner party, struck up a conversation with him by asking: "What do you do for a living?" "I study astronomy," he replied. "Really? said the teenager, wide-eyed. "I finished astronomy last year." ~ James Keller

During a rehearsal of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony the members of the orchestra were so overwhelmingly moved by the conducting of Arturo Toscanini that they rose as one man and applauded him. When the spontaneous cheering has subsided, Toscanini turned to his men, tears glistening in his eyes. "Please ... please! Don't do this! You see, gentlemen, it isn't me you should applaud. It's Beethoven!" ~ James Keller

In Holman Hunt's painting, "The Light of the World, "Christ is shown in a garden at midnight, holding a lantern in His left hand. With His right hand He is knocking on a heavily paneled door. When the painting was unveiled, a critic remarked to the painter, "Mr. Hunt, the work is unfinished. There is no handle on the door." "That," Hunt answered, "is the door to the human heart. It can be opened only from the inside." ~ James Keller

"I think we'll have a good potato crop this year," a newspaper editor told his housekeeper one morning. "No such thing," asserted the housekeeper. "I think the crop will be poor." Ignoring her remark, the editor caused to be inserted in the evening paper his estimate of the crop situation. That night when he returned home he found the housekeeper waiting for him with a sheepish grin on her face and a copy of the paper in her hand. "I was wrong," she said apologetically. "It says right here in the paper that the crop will be excellent this fall." ~ James Keller

Perhaps the one unanswerable question in life is why so many of us choose to live in a fantasy world of our own creation that offers us nothing but pain. ~ James Rozoff

What then? Are we only to buy the books that we read? The question has merely to be thus bluntly put, and it answers itself. All impassioned bookmen, except a few who devote their whole lives to reading, have rows of books on their shelves which they have never read, and which they never will read. I know that I have hundreds such. My eye rests on the works of Berkeley in three volumes, with a preface by the Right Honourable Arthur James Balfour. I cannot conceive the circumstances under which I shall ever read Berkeley; but I do not regret having bought him in a good edition, and I would buy him again if I had him not; for when I look at him some of his virtue passes into me; I am the better for him. A certain aroma of philosophy informs my soul, and I am less crude than I should otherwise be. This is not fancy, but fact.

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"Taking Berkeley simply as an instance, I will utilise him a little further. I ought to have read Berkeley, you say; just as I ought to have read Spenser, Ben Jonson, George Eliot, Victor Hugo. Not at all. There is no 'ought' about it. If the mass of obtainable first-class literature were, as it was perhaps a century ago, not too large to be assimilated by a man of ordinary limited leisure _in_ his leisure and during the first half of his life, then possibly there might be an 'ought' about it. But the mass has grown unmanageable, even by those robust professional readers who can 'grapple with whole libraries.' And I am not a prof ~ Arnold Bennett

The great fact all the while however had been the incalculability; since he had supposed himself, from decade to decade, to be allowing, and in the most liberal and intelligent manner, for brilliancy of change. He actually saw that he *had* allowed for nothing; he missed what he would have been sure of finding, he found what he would never have imagined. Proportions and values were upside-down; the ugly things he had expected, the ugly things of his far away youth, when he had too promptly waked up to a sense of the ugly--these uncanny phenomena placed him rather, as it happened, under the charm; whereas the 'swagger' things, the modern, the monstrous, the famous things, those he had more particularly, like thousands of ingenuous enquirers every year, come over to see, were exactly his sources of dismay. They were as so many set traps for displeasure, above all for reaction, of which his restless tread was constantly pressing the spring. It was interesting, doubtless, the whole show, but it would have been too disconcerting hadn't a certain finer truth saved the situation. He had distinctly not, in this steadier light, come over *all* for the monstrosities; he had come, not only in the last analysis but quite on the face of the act, under an impulse with which they had nothing to do. ("The Jolly Corner") ~ Henry James

In creative writing, I teach that characters arise out of our need for them. ~ Marlon James

I didn't know what else to do. So now I'm here, my pride in the toilet, hoping I can stay in my ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend's bachelor pad, and I want to kill myself. And I can suffer through that if it means James will be safe. But right now I'm still waiting for your shithead of a boyfriend to show up and try to kill me. ~ Tahereh Mafi

The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook. ~ William James

I was on the point of saying that a happy chance had favoured him, but it occurs to me that one is under no obligation to call chances by flattering epithets when they have been waited for so long. ~ Henry James

Everything we release with Tool is inspired by our music. ~ Maynard James Keenan

The best things in life are unseen, thats why we close our eyes when we kiss, cry, and dream ~ Helen Keller

Johnny James was sitting on the front porch, sipping from a glass of gasoline in the December heat, when the doom-screamer came. ~ Robert McCammon

The barometer of his emotional nature was set for a spell of riot. ~ James Joyce

Regret is a waste of time. ~ James Patterson

You scared of that pip-squeak? Dude, you got a lot to learn. Freakin' Newbies. ~ James Dashner

Some of the most thrilling things in life are done on impulse. ~ Syrie James

This Great God, Like a mammy bending over her baby, Kneeled down in the dust Toiling over a lump of clay Till He shaped it in His own image. ~ James Weldon Johnson

The death-change comes. Death is another life. We bow our heads At going out, we think, and enter straight Another golden chamber of the king's Larger than this we leave, and lovelier. And then in shadowy glimpses, disconnect, The story, flower-like, closes thus its leaves. The will of God is all in all. He makes, Destroys, remakes, for His own pleasure, all. ~ Philip James Bailey

Who is Baine?" Nella asked.
"My computer," Dr. Laas said. "A man I had an affair with programmed the voice in before he left. I told him to go, you see, and this was his revenge. Baine sounds just like him."
"Do not insult me," Baine answered. " I am a thousand times superior to your fly-by-night lover. He is now in jail on Station 1217, by the way, for indecent exposure."
"Really?" Dr. Laas brightened. "How delightful. ~ Allyson James

After a lie truth bursts out, and it is no longer the radiant and serene goddess knew or hoped for - it is a disease, it is a moral syphilis and will ravage until the body in which it can dwell has been purged. ~ James Stephens

What a ghastly place this is! It is perhaps fortunate I am not wearing my white pantaloons. ~ Paisley James

I mean, I didn't - I should have demanded attention of the boss maybe, or something like that that might have backfired. This I would just take as it came. ~ James Stockdale

My favorite wines are Zinfandels. ~ Thomas Keller

Some changes of language are to be regretted, as they lead to false inferences, and society is always a loser by mistaking names for things. ~ James F. Cooper

I'm thinking about Bert.'
Without hearing any more about it, she knew what this meant: Wally had had his fun, and now he was getting ready to get out from under. She waited a moment or two, as she often did when angered, but in spite of her effort to sound casual, her voice had a vibrant sound to it. 'And what about Bert? ~ James M. Cain

Sophistication is upscale conformity. ~ James Richardson

The French dine to gratify, we to appease appetite," observed John Sanderson. "We demolish dinner, they eat it." The general misconception back home was that French food was highly seasoned, but not at all, wrote James Fenimore Cooper. The genius in French cookery was "in blending flavors and in arranging compounds in such a manner as to produce ... the lightest and most agreeable food." The charm of a French dinner, like so much in French life, was the "effect. ~ David McCullough

You are part of the world's most feared and trusted force. Engage your brain before you engage your weapon. ~ James Mattis

Sometimes, it is almost frightening to realise how poorly most people know themselves; it seems to put one at an almost priestly advantage over people's souls. ~ James Wood

You should never trust anyone who listens to Mahler before they're forty. ~ Clive James

That can't be good. If something has a nickname, that means it's big and being talked about. Not good at all. ~ James Dashner

Sophistication might be described as the ability to cope gracefully with a situation involving the presence of a formidable menace to one's poise and prestige ... ~ James Thurber

It's like someone jammed an electric light bulb in your face, and busted it. I thought half my head was blowed off ... When he knocked me down I could have stayed there for three weeks. ~ James J. Braddock

there, but it was some half-assed firework or ~ James Patterson

At one point Jo excused herself to go powder her nose, a euphemism since she never wore makeup. Erik bowed as she left the table, then sat back down, not noticing his necktie had draped across his plate. His eyes continued to follow Josie's egress as, taking up knife and fork he went about cutting his necktie into tiny bite-sized slices.
"How's yer steak?" asked J.
"It's a bit stringy," Erik confessed. ~ James Hold

When I was growing up, Belfast City Hall was surrounded by security, and we had no access to it. But now, people come in and out of it all the time. On a nice day, office workers and students sit on the lawn outside and have lunch. It's great to see how Northern Ireland has changed. To be part of that is fantastic. ~ James Nesbitt

Your demons are always with you," Skale answered. His voice seemed even raspier than the day before. "Don't you understand that by now? Always with you, impossible to escape. But you never can guess how they might manifest themselves. ~ James Dashner

I elbowed James as he shot my army guy in the head yet again.
"This game is so sexist," I complained. "I can't believe that there isn't even an option for me to play as a girl."
"Do you think that if you were playing as a busty blonde it would distract me?" James asked, amused.
"It couldn't hurt."
He tossed his controller on the ground. I gave a little embarrassing shriek as he tossed me over his shoulder. "We're done, guys. Buttercup wants to distract me. Consider me distracted. ~ R.K. Lilley

The man was not merely very human; he was humanity. And I reflected that it is only by preserving faith in human dreams that we may, after all, perhaps some day make them come true. ~ James Branch Cabell

Unilateral disarmament by Britain is opposed to our country's best interests, could begin the unravelling of NATO and therefore jeopardise the stability of Europe. ~ James Callaghan

Networks are reluctant to take a chance. They put on shows that they know will work on some level, but to get the innovative show, it's very difficult. ~ James Burrows

The thing that usually gets me through the writing is that my feelings of wretched inadequacy are irregularly punctuated by brief flashes of omnipotence. ~ James L. Brooks

Let's show Dr. God what hell feels like. ~ James Patterson

You are going to bed," James snaps.
"Ooh, James," Fia whispers dramatically. "Not in front of my sister. She hates you. ~ Kiersten White

The pounding of the cylinders increased: ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa. ~ James Thurber

If we were all suddenly somebody else. ~ James Joyce

In Europe we have cities wealthier and more populous than yours and we are not happy. You dream of your posterity; but your posterity will look back to yours as the golden age, and envy those who first burst into this silent, splendid Nature ... ~ James Bryce

You do a James Bond film, you're being part of an anachronism, a tradition. ~ Minnie Driver