Kurtz Quotes

I wanted to tell you something, she says, but it slipped under a chair. ~ Swoosie Kurtz

Our Holy Father ... is very clear that, of course, the teachings of the Church must be preserved and passed on. However, we need to do this in a way that the Holy Father says is creative. We need to do it in a way that we look for new strategies that address the hearts of people. ~ Joseph Edward Kurtz

Secular humanism is avowedly non-religious. It is a eupraxsophy (good practical wisdom), which draws its basic principles and ethical values from science, ethics, and philosophy. ~ Paul Kurtz

Working with a great director is like getting a master class in acting. ~ Swoosie Kurtz

Now, 75 years later in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, iPods, and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books. Instant information is not for me. I prefer to search library stacks because when I work to learn something, I remember it. And, Oprah, can you imagine curling up in bed to read a computer? Weeping for Anna Karenina and being terrified by Hannibal Lecter, entering the heart of darkness with Mistah Kurtz, having Holden Caulfield ring you up - some things should happen on soft pages, not cold metal. ~ Harper Lee

If only there were a river of courage, - Rahel whispered. I would bend down, cup the water in my hand and drink. ~ Jane Kurtz

To make Hakomi effective a practitioner must be more than just someone who knows a method. The practitioner must be someone whose very presence can be healing, a person who has all the qualities needed to support emotional healing in another. ~ Ron Kurtz

Artists never seem to get bored with life. ~ John Kurtz

Within the context of listening and understanding and walking with people together, we discover anew what were the teachings of Jesus, what he presented to us. ~ Joseph Edward Kurtz

In this age of Twitter and Snark every misstep gets posted online in twelve seconds. ~ Howard Kurtz

Arrested me, and he stood by civilly, holding a half-pint champagne bottle (medical comforts) with the candle stuck in it. To my question he said Mr. Kurtz had painted this - in this very station more than a year ago - while waiting for means to go to his trading-post. 'Tell me, pray,' said I, 'who is this Mr. Kurtz? ~ Joseph Conrad

Mastery is the natural result of mindfulness. ~ Ron Kurtz

Dogs don't hold back. They see something they want and go after it. No matter what obstacles get in the way, the sheer act of chasing becomes the reward in and of itself. ~ Gila Kurtz

Only a fool of a scientist would dismiss the evidence and reports
in front of him and substitute his own beliefs in their place. ~ Paul Kurtz

It's great that I don't have to apologize about being over 26. ~ Swoosie Kurtz

Spirituality points, always, beyond: beyond the ordinary, beyond possession, beyond the narrow confines of the self, and - above all - beyond expectations. Because "the spiritual" is beyond our control, it is never exactly what we expect. ~ Ernest Kurtz

Anything approaching the change that came over his features I have never seen before, and hope never to see again. Oh, I wasn't touched. I was fascinated. It was as though a veil had been rent. I saw on that ivory face the expression of sombre pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror
of an intense and hopeless despair. Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision
he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath:
The horror! The horror! ~ Joseph Conrad

Flora threw herself forward at the signal, and the men standing nearby cheered. Two of them ran alongside for a few steps, waving their hats. "Go, pig! Pull, pig! ~ Chris Kurtz

Kurtz had been watching Andy quietly as she moved around her kitchen. "You've found her, haven't you?" Kurtz said with a gentleness Andy didn't think she'd ever heard before. She'd seen it, though. It was evident every time Kurtz looked at Tara. "Yes," Andy said, and a deep sense of rightness filled her entire body. "It's amazing, isn't it?" Andy smiled. "Yes, it is. ~ Jessica L. Webb

Our Holy Father says every one of us is in need of conversion, beginning with ourselves. We are all in need of the grace of Jesus Christ to receive the Gospel. ~ Joseph Edward Kurtz

Limitation is the condition of our lives. What matters - what allows us to reach beyond ourselves, as we are, and push at the boundaries of our ability - is that we continue. But then everything depends on how we practice, what we practice. ~ Glenn Kurtz

How can you measure the contribution that artists make to society? ~ John Kurtz

I am heartbroken that this movie would cause anyone pain. It should be a source of joy. The story is a metaphor about how we try to stay in our own little bubbles, we don't let life in, we don't take the journey. ~ Swoosie Kurtz

The tragedy of contemporary philosophy is that it has been castrated. ~ Paul Kurtz

To succeed, this movement will have to change our ideals in fundamental ways. It will have to kill off the traditional American dream, the idea of constant striving for a better future, symbolized by the middle-class goal of a rising income and the purchase of a little house with a yard - not to mention the freedom to move where you please, run your life, and govern your town with your neighbors when you get there. Greg Galluzzo, Obama's mentor and the man who created the grassroots crusade that inspired Building One America, dismisses the American dream as a sham. What really makes Americans move to the suburbs, says Galluzzo, is 'racism and greed. ~ Stanley Kurtz

As I see it, creative achievement is the very heart of the human enterprise ... The destiny of man, of all men and of each man, is that he is condemned to invent what he will be - condemned if he is fearful but blessed if he welcomes the great adventure. We are responsible in the last analysis, not simply for what we are, but for what we will become; and that is a source of either high excitement or distress. ~ Paul Kurtz

Good point." Sophia said at last. "I'm not very good at saying sorry, but I apologize. ~ Chris Kurtz

UFO mythology is similar to the message of the classical religions where God sends his Angels as emissaries who offer salvation to those who accept the faith and obey his Prophets. Today, the chariots of the gods are UFOs. What we are witnessing in the past half century is the spawning of a New Age religion. ~ Paul Kurtz

It had been a bad trip ... fast and wild in some moments, slow and dirty in others, but on balance it looked like a bummer. On my way back to San Francisco, I tried to compose a fitting epitaph. I wanted something original, but there was no escaping the echo of Mistah Kurtz' final words from the heart of darkness: The horror! The horror! ... Exterminate all the brutes! ~ Hunter S. Thompson

It was as though an animated image of death carved out of old ivory had been shaking its hand with menaces at a motionless crowd of men made of dark and glittering bronze. ~ Joseph Conrad

'The Daily Beast' and Howard Kurtz have parted company. ~ Tina Brown

I'd love to do a musical. I have a little list of them in my head. ~ Swoosie Kurtz

I love to be directed, and I can glean something from almost anyone. ~ Swoosie Kurtz

The stars were extra bright tonight, and they shone and glimmered as if each one had something it wanted to say. ~ Chris Kurtz

Many humanists have argued that happiness involves a combination of hedonism and creative moral development; that an exuberant life fuses excellence and enjoyment, meaning and enrichment, emotion and cognition. ~ Paul Kurtz

Prior to Flew, major apologies for atheism were those of Enlightenment thinkers (David Hume, Arthur Schopenhauer, Ludwig Feuerbach, and Friedrich Nietzsche).

Major philosophers of Flew's generation who were atheists: W. V. O. Quine and Gilbert Ryle. But none took the step of developing book-length arguments to support their personal beliefs.

In later years, atheist philosophers who critically examined and rejected the traditional arguments for God's existence: Paul Edwards, Wallace Matson, Kai Nielsen, Paul Kurtz, J. L. Mackie, Richard Gale, Michael Martin. But their works did not change the agenda and framework of discussion the way Flew's innovative publications did. ~ Antony Flew

To deny our errors is to deny ourself, for to be human is to be imperfect, somehow error - prone. To be human is to ask unanswerable questions, but to persist in asking them, to be broken and ache for wholeness, to hurt and to try to find a way to healing through the hurt...Spirituality accepts that "If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly. ~ Ernest Kurtz

You read the Company's confidential correspondence?' I asked. He hadn't a word to say. It was great fun. 'When Mr. Kurtz,' I continued severely, 'is General Manager, you won't have the opportunity.' He blew the candle out suddenly, and we went outside. The moon had risen. Black ~ Joseph Conrad

Hakomi is a path taken by those who work to go beyond the half remembered hurts and failed beliefs that linger unexamined in the mind and body, hurts that act through barely conscious habits and reactions. This work is a part of that heroic labor, a cousin to sitting meditation, to singing bowls and chanting monks. ~ Ron Kurtz

A great yellow circle above the cornfield had slipped out from behind some clouds. The moon. It was the first moon Flora had ever seen. Her heart filled with the beauty of it, and she made a promise to herself. I will be prepared. And I won't live forever inside this pen. ~ Chris Kurtz

I want to be Ruler of the Exumas. I like the sound of it. I want to become Kurtz and live like in 'Lord of the Flies.' ~ Johnny Depp

I keep both of my Tonys on my mantle. They're in front of a mirror so if you look at just the right angle, it looks like I have four! ~ Swoosie Kurtz

I try to tell myself I'm not schizophrenic. But when I'm not acting, I'm not alive. Everyday is just not heightened enough for me. I'm more focused, more interesting when I'm working. ~ Swoosie Kurtz

No one is infallible, and no one can claim a monopoly on truth or virtue. It would be contradictory for skepticism to seek to translate itself into a new faith. ~ Paul Kurtz

I think these are terrible times to be anything in. ~ Swoosie Kurtz

To me, getting notes, honing the part, and refining the role is the real fun of the play. ~ Swoosie Kurtz

Would get angry through the greatness of his thirst, and take a terrible vengeance. So he sweated and fired up and watched the glass fearfully (with an impromptu charm, made of rags, tied to his arm, and a piece of polished bone, as big as a watch, stuck flatways through his lower lip), while the wooded banks slipped past us slowly, the short noise was left behind, the interminable miles of silence - and we crept on, towards Kurtz. ~ Joseph Conrad

Of the approximately 2,900 Jewish Nasielskers who remained in Poland, fewer than ten survived the war. ~ Glenn Kurtz

How, then, has Obama been saddled with an image of being long on inspiration and short on details? The answer is that journalists are not accustomed to covering a candidate who moves crowds the way Obama does, who uses speech cadences and rhythm like Martin Luther King Jr. without making his talk explicitly about race. Sen. Clinton already owned the policy-wonk slot, so by default, Obama was cast as the poetic one. ~ Howard Kurtz

Historically, many southern white churches have not been places of comfort. In fact, as Ernest Kurtz observes in his essay "The Tragedy of Southern Religion," "through all these - slavery, defeat, poverty, and more - the southern white Christian churches have remained singularly blind to the nature and meaning of tragedy and thus also to the significance of suffering." Fear, defensiveness, distrust, and conformity have too often been their currency. Conformity, specifically, necessitated a strict moral code, while evangelicalism required proselytizing and conversion. Together they established a sacred canopy in the region, whereby homogeneity and the sheer volume of believers shields them from pluralism, diversity, resistance, and a reactionary backlash. ~ Angie Maxwell

Kurtz pulled the glove compartment open and handed a set of thermal-imaging goggles to Aleks. He pulled his own pair on over his face. "You get smarter every day: It's light outside, comrade space cadet. ~ Jack Silkstone

Mistah Kurtz--he dead. ~ Joseph Conrad

Journalism seems to have recovered its reason for being. ~ Howard Kurtz

The love of art in its many forms lives on and enables us to enjoy the past, the present, and look with confidence to the future. ~ John Kurtz

Secular humanism proposes ... the complete implementation of the agenda of modernism ... what is necessary for it to occur is a ... New Enlightenment. ~ Paul Kurtz

I think we're all aiming to be something better than what everyone thinks we were born to be ~ Chris Kurtz

Skepticism is essential to the quest for knowledge, for it is in the seedbed of puzzlement that genuine inquiry takes root. Without skepticism, we may remain mired in unexamined belief systems that are accepted as sacrosanct yet have no factual basis in reality. ~ Paul Kurtz

One of the disconcerting and delightful teaching of the master was: "God is closer to sinners than to saints."
This is how he explained it: " God in heaven holds each person by a string. When you sin you cut the string. then God ties it up again, making a knot-and therby bringing you a little closer to him. Again and again your sins cut the string-and with each further knot God keeps drawing you closer and closer. ~ Ernest Kurtz

No diety will save us; we must save ourselves. ~ Paul Kurtz

You'll never make it out there. You weren't made for South Pole adventures."
Flora gave her an icy look. "I think I know by now what I was made for. ~ Chris Kurtz

It's so funny whenever things come full circle. ~ Swoosie Kurtz

The first thing I ask when I'm offered a part is, Who's the director? which is something they never understand in Los Angeles. ~ Swoosie Kurtz

Free inquiry entails recognition of civil liberties as integral to its pursuit, that is, a free press, freedom of communication, the right to organize opposition parties and to join voluntary associations, and freedom to cultivate and publish the fruits of scientific, philosophical, artistic, literary, moral and religious freedom. ~ Paul Kurtz

Son, you never know who will step up with the brains and talent in a time of need and be the right one for the job. ~ Chris Kurtz

If you can observe your own experience with a minimum of interference, and if you don't try to control what you experience, if you simply allow things to happen and you observe them, then you will be able to discover things about yourself that you did not know before. You can discover little pieces of the inner structures of your mind, the very things that make you who you are. ~ Ron Kurtz

You don't have to look for trouble. It will find you. And when that happens"--Luna disappeared, but her voice continued--"keep up that great spirit and make a plan, because nine lives is just a state of mind. ~ Chris Kurtz

Human life has no meaning independent of itself. There is no cosmic force or deity to give it meaning or significance. There is no ultimate destiny for man. Such a belief is an illusion of humankind's infancy. The meaning of life is what we choose to give it. Meaning grows out of human purposes alone. Nature provides us with an infinite range of opportunities, but it is only our vision and our action that select and realize those that we desire. ~ Paul Kurtz

But that night in her dream she flew high above the earth in a moonless sky. Behind her, like a falling star, sailed a silver sled. ~ Chris Kurtz

I believe that a person should take an affirmative outlook. There are always problems in life, old and new, uncertainties, and unexpected contingencies. The optimal way to deal with this is not to give up in despair, but to move ahead using the best intelligence and resources that we have to overcome adversity. ~ Paul Kurtz

Artists are always searching for beauty - and when they find it and fashion it in their own unique way - it does not seem too important to analyze how it came about. ~ John Kurtz

How unlucky she was--born with adventurous hooves that were stuck inside a pen. But she wasn't giving up. If there was a way out, Flora said to herself, she would find it. ~ Chris Kurtz

I will not let you die for a king you hate while fighting for a reason you do not support. I've already lost two men I loved. Don' make me lose another. ~ B.J. Kurtz

That's a Christian concept. No self-respecting witch would worship a Christian god of evil. ~ Katherine Kurtz

Most humans feel the transcendent temptation, the emotional drive to festoon the universe with large-scale meaning. ~ Paul Kurtz

My heart was beating out of my chest. ~ Swoosie Kurtz

But his soul was mad. Being alone in the wilderness, it had looked within itself and, by heavens I tell you, it had gone mad. ~ Joseph Conrad

To acknowledge, to accept, and to forgive one's parents - both what they gave and what they did not give, both one's dependence upon them and one's independence of them - is the ultimate hallmark of maturity: a perception as valid for institutions as for individuals. ~ Ernest Kurtz

It is not the courage to be that we must develop as much as the courage to become. We are responsible for our destiny. The meaning of life is not located in some hidden crevice in the womb of nature but is created by free persons, who are aware that they are responsible for their own futures and have the courage to take this project into their own hands. ~ Paul Kurtz

Poor fool! If he had only left that shutter alone. He had no restraint, no restraint - just like Kurtz - a tree swayed by the wind. As soon as I had put on a dry pair of slippers, I dragged him out, after first jerking the spear out of his side, which operation I confess I performed with my eyes shut tight. His heels leaped together over the little doorstep; his shoulders were pressed to my breast; I hugged him from behind desperately. Oh! he was heavy, heavy; heavier than any man on earth, I should imagine. Then without more ado I tipped him overboard. The current snatched him as though he had been a wisp of grass, and I saw the body roll over twice before I lost sight of it for ever. All the pilgrims and the manager were then congregated on the awning–deck about the pilot–house, chattering at each other like a flock of excited magpies, and there was a scandalized murmur at my heartless promptitude. What they wanted to keep that body hanging about for I can't guess. Embalm it, maybe. But I had also heard another, and a very ominous, murmur on the deck below. My friends the wood–cutters were likewise scandalized, and with a better show of reason - though I admit that the reason itself was quite inadmissible. Oh, quite! I had made up my mind that if my late helmsman was to be eaten, the fishes alone should have him. He had been a very second–rate helmsman while alive, but now he was dead he might have become a first–class temptation, and possibly cause some startling trouble. ~ Joseph Conrad

It is impossible to describe what is necessary, to those who do not know what horror means. You must make a friend of horror. ~ Col. Walter E. Kurtz