Oscar Williams Quotes

The Praying Mantis Visits A Penthouse


The praying Mantis with its length of straw
Out of nowhere's forehead born full armed
Engaged the century at my terrace door.
Focused at inches the dinosaur insect sends
Broadsides of epic stillness at my eye,
Above the deafening projects of the age.
My love, who fears the thunder of its poise,
Has seen it and cries out. The clouds like curls
Fall in my faith as I seize a stick to stop
This Martian raid distilled to a straw with legs,
To wisps of prowess. Bristling with motionlessness
The Mantis prays to the Stick twice armed with Man.
I strike, the stick whistles, shearing off two legs
Which run off by themselves beneath some boards.
The Mantis spreads out tints of batlike wing,
The many colored pennants of its blood,
And hugs my weapon; the frantic greens come out,
the reds and yellows blurt out from the straw,
All sinews doubtless screaming insect death.
Against the railing's edge I knock the stick
Sending that gay mad body into the gulf.
Such noisy trappings in defeat wake doubts.
I search my mind for possible wounds and feel
The victim's body heavy on the victor's heart. ~ Oscar Williams

Society, civilized society at least, is never very ready to believe anything to the detriment of those who are both rich and fascinating. It feels instinctively that manners are of more importance than morals, and, in its opinion, the highest respectability is of much less value than the possession of a good chef. ~ Oscar Wilde

There's very few geniuses that come and revolutionize everything. For the rest of us that want to be artists and have something to say, it's a lot of work and a lot of luck. ~ Oscar Isaac

My introduction, implicitly echoing Oscar Wilde's remark that all bad poetry is sincere, grants the benign social decency of [Stephen] King's fictions. ~ Harold Bloom

I'd never blame anyone else who falls for the same brand of seduction. I embrace that we're all similarly flawed. That makes the self-inflicted wounds hurt less. I'd read Tennessee Williams. I just didn't expect to be living my own tainted little version of Suddenly Last Summer. ~ Dan Skinner

Discord is to be forced to be in harmony with others. One's own life - that is the important thing. As for the lives of one's neighbours, if one wishes to be a prig or a Puritan, one can flaunt one's moral views about them, but they are not one's concern. Besides, individualism has really the higher aim. Modern morality consists in accepting the standard of one's age. I consider that for any man of culture to accept the standard of his age is a form of the grossest immorality. ~ Oscar Wilde

As soon as we find a cure, we will utilize any of the donations to go toward providing medication to those who can't afford it. That is my goal. ~ Montel Williams

Be like a tree, bloom like a flower, sing like a bird, and dance like a peacock. ~ Debasish Mridha

To enjoy living and appreciate it, just explore life without commitment and certain routes will become evident to you. ~ Oscar Auliq-Ice

If he even survives." She shivered, and Amon put his arm around her, drawing her into his steady warmth.
"It's that bad?"
Raisa nodded. "He looked ... he looked awful, Amon. Willo doesn't know if he'll ... She's worried about him. My mother died, and I never got to tell her that I loved her, that I finally understood - just a little anyway. If Han dies too, I don't know what I'll do. ~ Cinda Williams Chima

Anything green is not a part of my diet. I'm a man not a caterpillar.
-Caeden Williams ~ Micalea Smeltzer

I write to create red in a world that often appears black and white. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

If I asked you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell. ~ Robin Williams

The scene is memory and is therefore nonrealistic. Memory takes a lot of poetic license. It omits some details; others are exaggerated, according to the emotional value of the articles it touches, for memory is seated predominantly in the heart. ~ Tennessee Williams

If we're going to fight a disease, let's fight one of the most terrible diseases of all, indifference. ~ Robin Williams

You look like a boy who has eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge and doesn't like the taste. ~ Cinda Williams Chima

I heard the opening bar of 'Help' as I headed down Polk Street. Every single time I've heard that tune I've taken it as some message from God, a warning of things to come, a perfect description of my mashed-potato character ~ Oscar Zeta Acosta

A lot of people have called me the black Bette Midler, and I regard that as a compliment. ~ Vesta Williams

He hasn't an enemy in the world, and none of his friend like him. ~ Oscar Wilde

I've got a basketball signed by all the greats from Julius Irving to Oscar Robinson. It was at an All Star game I got them all to sign it. So that ain't going nowhere. I'm going to die with that in my casket. ~ Ice Cube

A high station in life is earned by the gallantry with which appalling experiences are survived with grace. ~ Tennessee Williams

It is a very poor consolation to be told that the man who has given one a bad dinner, or poor wine, is irreproachable in private life. Even the cardinal virtues cannot atone for half-cold entrees. ~ Oscar Wilde

The world is a stage, but the play is badly written. ~ Oscar Wilde

My dear boy, no woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals. ~ Oscar Wilde

Don't scorn your life just because it's not dramatic, or it's impoverished, or it looks dull, or it's workaday. Don't scorn it. It is where poetry is taking place if you've got the sensitivity to see it, if your eyes are open.
Philip Levine, describing what he learned from William Carlos Williams, via NPR ~ Philip Levine

Do you think I'm stupid? Only a fool would use a fast-acting poison on a target with a taster. The taster goes down before the king gets it into his system.
Lila blinked at him, as if surprised by this display of logic. ~ Cinda Williams Chima

I always like teaser trailers because they don't give too much away, you know? They give just a flavor of what the thing is. ~ Oscar Isaac

The little idiosyncrasies that only I know about: that's what made her my wife. Oh she had the goods on me too, she knew all my little peccadilloes. People call these things imperfections, but they're not. Ah, that's the good stuff! ~ Robin Williams

The dragon's blood had changed him, he realized. Not in a magical way, like in one of Shem Horsegroom's old stones - he couldn't understand the speech of animals, or see a hundred leagues. Well, that was not quite true. When the snow had stopped for a moment today, the white valleys of the Waste had leaped into clarity, seeming as near as the folds ma blanket, but stretching all the way to the dark blur of faraway Aldheorte Forest. For a moment, standing quiet as a statue despite the wind biting his neck and face, he had felt as though he did possess magical vision. As in the days when he climbed Green Angel Tower to see all Erkynland spread below him like a carpet, he had felt as if he could reach out a hand and so change the world
But moments like that were not what the dragon had brought him. Pondering as he waited for his damp gloves to dry, he looked to Binabik and Sisqi, saw the way they touched even when they did not touch, the long conversations that passed between the two of them in the shortest of glances. Simon realized that he felt and saw things differently than he had before Urmsheim. People and events seemed more clearly connected, each part of a much larger puzzle - just as Binabik and Sisqi were. They cared deeply for each other, but at the same time their world of two interlocked with many other worlds; with Simon's own, with their people's, with Prince Josua's, and Geloe's... It was really quite startling, Simon thought, how everything was part of some ~ Tad Williams

The color, the shape, and the texture
none of it is accidental. Every item we wear has a glorious (or sometimes not so glorious) history, and that history extends back years
centuries, even
before Oscar de la Renta's 2002 collection. ~ Tim Gunn

From a literary standpoint, I've been loving Raymond Carver's short stories, William Carlos Williams' poems, Richard Siken's 'Crush', John Fante, and Jim Harrison's book of ghazals. I love film and photography too, so many of my songs are very image rich from those influences. ~ Greta Salpeter

It is our goal to provide full public access to as many files as we possibly can. ~ Shirley Williams

John Williams is best known for his novels, Nothing But the Night, Stoner, Butcher's Crossing, and Augustus, for which he won the National Book Award in 1973. ~ John Edward Williams

And any time you feed your ego, it's a one-way street ... There were so many things I had to deal with that erased the positives I got from playing the game that it wasn't worth it. It's like eating a Big Mac and drinking a Diet Coke. ~ Ricky Williams

Science is what scientists do, and there are as many scientific methods as there are individual scientists. ~ Percy Williams Bridgman

With film roles, it just has to be a character either I haven't done before, or a role with somebody really interesting or with an interesting person or group of people. ~ Robin Williams

Oh, don't cough, Ernest. When one is dictating one should speak fluently and not cough. Besides, I don't know how to spell a cough. ~ Oscar Wilde