Penciling It In Quotes

A fellowship of secret scholars spent five hundred years on this task. Now we're penciling it in for a Friday morning. ~ Robin Sloan

Jean-Claude's eyes widened just a bit. 'Ma petite, you have had a busy night, I see.' His French accent was as thick as I'd heard it in a while, which meant he was feeling strong emotions that he couldn't quite hide, but he was trying. I appreciated the effort, because the accent alone meant that what he wanted to say was his version of, You are covered in blood and worse, which means you were in horrible danger and probably nearly died … again! How can you keep risking yourself like that when I love you so much? ~ Laurell K. Hamilton

There's something about small venues that's amazing for developing material. It's almost like you can not only hear people's response, but you can understand it. In bigger venues you lose that, but you gain this sense of camaraderie in the audience. ~ Mike Birbiglia

We have it in our head that if we fill our stomachs, we'll fill our hearts. ~ Kate Wicker

...the spiritual disorder of our time, the civilizational crisis of which everyone so readily speaks, does not by any means have to be born as an inevitable fate; that, on the contrary, everyone possesses the means of overcoming it in his own life. And our effort should not only indicate the means, but also how to employ them. No one is obliged to take part in the spiritual crises of society; on the contrary, everyone is obliged to avoid the folly and live his life in order. ~ Eric Voegelin

You are not born with a fixed amount of resilience. Like a muscle, you can build it up, draw on it when you need it. In that process you will figure out who you really are - and you just might become the very best version of yourself. ~ Sheryl Sandberg

Since McDougall contrasts the behaviour of a
highly organised group with what has just been described,
we shall be particularly interested to learn
in what this organisation consists, and by what
factors it is produced. The author enumerates five
principal conditions '
for raising collective mental
life to a higher level.
The first and fundamental condition is that there
should be some degree of continuity of existence in
the group. This may be either material or formal:
the former, if the same individuals persist in the
group for some time; and the latter, if there is
developed within the group a system of fixed positions
which are occupied by a succession of individuals.
The second condition is that in the individual
member of the group some definite idea should be
formed of the nature, composition, functions and
capacities of the group, so that from this he may
develop an emotional relation to the group as a
whole.
The third is that the group should be brought
into interaction (perhaps in the form of rivalry) with
other groups similar to it but differing from it in
many respects.
The fourth is that the group should possess
traditions, customs and habits, and especially such as
determine the relations of its members to one
another.
The fifth is that the group should have a definite
structure, expressed in the specialisation an ~ Sigmund Freud

The primitive idea of justice is partly legalized revenge and partly expiation by sacrifice. It works out from both sides in the notion that two blacks make a white, and that when a wrong has been done, it should be paid for by an equivalent suffering. It seems to the Philistine majority a matter of course that this compensating suffering should be inflicted on the wrongdoer for the sake of its deterrent effect on other would-be wrongdoers; but a moment's reflection will shew that this utilitarian application corrupts the whole transaction. For example, the shedding of blood cannot be balanced by the shedding of guilty blood. Sacrificing a criminal to propitiate God for the murder of one of his righteous servants is like sacrificing a mangy sheep or an ox with the rinderpest: it calls down divine wrath instead of appeasing it. In doing it we offer God as a sacrifice the gratification of our own revenge and the protection of our own lives without cost to ourselves; and cost to ourselves is the essence of sacrifice and expiation. ~ George Bernard Shaw

In the early '20s, with the war over, there was a period of celebration, and you can see it in the fashion. ~ Michelle Dockery

Then why would you buy it?" I ask, and then answer for him sarcastically, "Oh it's a collectible. I get it. You could mount it somewehere in the backseat of the car." I smirk at him. "Or, I could put you in the backseat and mount it in the front." My mouth falls open slightly. Andrew grins and slides the record back in the box. ~ J.A. Redmerski

You're just a young kid. What are you doin' here? You oughta be out in a convertible, why ... bird-doggin' chicks and bangin' beaver. What are ya doin' here, for Christ's sake? What's funny about that? Jesus, I mean, you guys do nothin' but complain about how you can't stand it in this place here and then you haven't got the guts just to walk out! ~ Ken Kesey

I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart)I am never without it (anywhere
I go you go,my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing,my darling)
I fear no fate (for you are my fate,my sweet)I want no world (for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart) ~ E. E. Cummings

Sam Vimes could parallel process. Most husbands can. They learn to follow their own line of thought while at the same time listening to what their wives say. And the listening is important, because at any time they could be challenged and must be ready to quote the last sentence in full. A vital additional skill is being able to scan the dialogue for telltale phrases such as "and they can deliver it tomorrow" or "so I've invited them for dinner?" or "they can do it in blue, really quite cheaply. ~ Terry Pratchett

We would get rid of assault weapons. There would not be an assault weapon in the United States, whether it's for a show or someone having it in a collection. ~ Bernard C. Parks

The trees were still green, the sky still blue, which counted for something. So they went ahead and plugged their smelly paradise - God's Own Country they called it in their brochures - because they knew, those clever Hotel People, that smelliness, like other peoples' poverty, was merely a matter of getting used to. A question of discipline. Of Rigor and Air-conditioning. Nothing more. ~ Arundhati Roy

I was in college for two years, and just hated it in the '60s. ~ Kurt Loder

One of the difficulties of thinking clearly about anything is that it is almost impossible not to form our ideas in words which have some previous association for us; with the result that our thought is already shaped along certain lines before we have begun to follow it out. Again, a word may have various meanings, and our use of it in one sense may deceive our readers (or even ourselves) into supposing that we were using it in some other sense. ~ A.A. Milne

The idea of painless, nonthreatening coercion is an illusion. Fear is the inseparable companion of coercion, and its inescapable consequence. If you think it your duty to make children do what you want, whether they will or not, then it follows inexorably that you must make them afraid of what will happen to them if they don't do what you want. You can do this in the old-fashioned way, openly and avowedly, with the threat of harsh words, infringement of liberty, or physical punishment. Or you can do it in the modern way, subtly, smoothly, quietly, by withholding the acceptance and approval which you and others have trained the children to depend on; or by making them feel that some retribution awaits them in the future, too vague to imagine but too implacable to escape. ~ John Holt

The difference between 'Watchmen' and a normal comic book is this: With 'Batman's Gotham City,' you are transported to another world where that superhero makes sense; 'Watchmen' comes at it in a different way, it almost superimposes its heroes on your world, which then changes how you view your world through its prism. ~ Zack Snyder

If I've learned anything in Kabul, it is that human behavior is messy and unpredictable and unconcerned with convenient symmetries. But I find comfort in it, in the idea of a pattern, of a narrative of my life taking shape, like a photograph in a darkroom, a story that slowly emerges and affirms the good I have always wanted to see in myself. It sustains me, this story. ~ Khaled Hosseini

Now they all felt the need to relieve themselves, especially the poor boy who could not hold it in any longer, in fact, however reluctant we might be to admit it, these distasteful realities of life also have to be considered, when the bowels function normally, anyone can have ideas, debate, for example, whether there exists a direct relationship between the eyes and feelings, or whether the sense of responsibility if the natural consequence of clear vision, but when we are in great distress and plagued by pain and anguish that is when the animal side of our nature becomes most apparent. ~ Jose Saramago

We are in a tech-heavy society, plunging headlong into an unknown future. Science fiction is what allows you to stand back and analyze the impact of that and put it in context of how it affects people. ~ J. Michael Straczynski

A lizard, resting in the shade of the anthill, studied Atkinson with interest, tilting its head this way and that. Atkinson studied it in return. A small, dull brown animal, usually it would not catch Atkinson's attention, but under the circumstances it became a thing of beauty. ~ Martin Marais

I believe each individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruit of his labor, so far as it in no wise interferes with any other mans rightsthat each community, as a State, has a right to do exactly as it pleases with all the concerns within that State that interfere with the right of no other State, and that the general government, upon principle, has no right to interfere with anything other than that general class of things that does concern the whole. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Yet if we are to take the Lacanian account of singularity seriously, we must admit that what really counts in life is not our ability to evade chaos, but rather our capacity to meet it in such a manner as to not be irrevocably broken or demolished. ~ Mari Ruti

Though President Obama promised during the 2008 campaign to pass the DREAM Act, he never made it a priority and failed to bring Republicans and Democrats together to do it in his first term. ~ Juan Williams

A good compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do. You've got to kick off with a corker, to hold the attention (I started with 'Got To Get You Off My Mind', but then realised that she might not get any further than track one, side one if I delivered what she wanted straight away, so I buried it in the middle of side two), and then you've got to up it a notch, and you can't have white music and black music together, unless the white music sounds like black music, and you can't have two tracks by the same artist side by side, unless you've done the whole thing in pairs, and ... oh there are loads of rules. ~ Nick Hornby

'You can't count on the fact that they know you to protect you. They would kill you without hesitation. They would tear the flesh from your body while you were still screaming and crack your bones to suck the marrow out.'

'We'd regret it in the morning, though,' Nick said mildly, earning a wicked grin from Tate. ~ Sarah Madison

I loved couriers. You had this transfer of physical information happening throughout the city and the world. Someone picking up the package, putting it in a bag, going somewhere, taking it out of the bag, giving it to someone else. I thought that was so cool. I wanted to map it, to see that flow on a big screen. ~ Jack Dorsey

Greatness is sifted through the grind, therefore don't despise the hard work now for surely it will be worth it in the end. ~ Sanjo Jendayi

To create your tomorrow, go over your day tonight when you are in bed just before you fall asleep, and feel gratitude for the good moments. If there was something you wanted to happen differently, replay it in your mind the way you wanted it to go. As you fall asleep, say, "I will sleep deeply and wake up full of energy. Tomorrow is going to be the most beautiful day of my life." Good night! ~ Rhonda Byrne

There were no clouds, the sun was going down in a limpid, gold-washed sky. Just as the lower edge of the red disk rested on the high fields against the horizon, a great black figure suddenly appeared on the face of the sun. We sprang to our feet, straining our eyes toward it. In a moment we realized what it was. On some upland farm, a plough had been left standing in the field. The sun was sinking just behind it. Magnified across the distance by the horizontal light, it stood out against the sun, was exactly contained within the circle of the disk; the handles, the tongue, the share - black against the molten red. There it was, heroic in size, a picture writing on the sun. ~ Willa Cather

Picture the Bay of Bengal as an expanse of tropical water: still and blue in the calm of the January winter, or raging and turbid with silt at the peak of the summer rains. Picture it in two dimensions on a map, overlaid with a web of shipping channels and telegraph cables and inscribed with lines of distance. Now imagine the sea as a mental map: as a family tree of cousins, uncles, sisters, sons, connected by letters and journeys and stories. Think of it as a sea of debt, bound by advances and loans and obligations. Picture the Bay of Bengal even where it is absent - deep in the Malaysian jungle, where Hindu shrines sprout from the landscape as if washed up by the sea, left behind. ~ Sunil S. Amrith

The last season of 'Rescue Me' is going to be very sort of half and half: it's how you think 'Rescue Me' would end versus something very outside the box. And, they do it in this sort of perfect way - it's only nine episodes, you know. Very stream-lined. ~ Callie Thorne

Suddenly an unexpected series of sounds began to be heard in this place up against the starry sky. They were the notes of Oak´s flute. It came from the direction of a small dark object under the hedge - a shephard´s hut - now presenting an outline to which an unintiated person might have been puzzled to attach either meaning or use. ... Being a man not without a frequent consciousness that there was some charm in this life he led, he stood still after looking at the sky as a useful instrument, and regarded it in an appreciative spirit, as a work of art superlatively beautiful. For a moment he seemed impressed with the speaking loneliness of the scene, or rather with the complete abstraction from all its compass of the sights and sounds of man. ... Oak´s motions, though they had a quiet energy, were slow, and their deliberateness accorded well with his occupation. Fitness being the basis of beauty, nobody could have denied tha his steady swings and turns in and about the flock had elements of grace. His special power, morally, physically, and mentally, was static. ... Oak was an intensely human man: indee, his humanity tore in pieces any politic intentions of his which bordered on strategy, and carried him on as by gravitation. A shadow in his life had always been that his flock should end in mutton - that a day could find a shepherd an arrant traitor to his gentle sheep. ~ Thomas Hardy

Being truthful is a necessity because when I'm not being truthful it takes a toll on me. I don't have any room for it in my life. I don't have an across-the-board opinion on honesty in relationships. But for me, personally, it's paramount. ~ Dax Shepard

I turned off the projector and Alex mumbled something in her sleep and turned over. I said, "Everything is fine, I'm going home now," and said it just so I could say I'd said it in case she was upset later that I'd left without telling her. I thought about kissing her on the forehead but rejected the idea immediately; whatever physical intimacy had opened up between us had dissolved with the storm; even that relatively avuncular gesture would be strange for both of us now. More than that: it was as though the physical intimacy with Alex, just like the sociability with strangers or the aura around objects, wasn't just over, but retrospectively erased. Because those moments had been enabled by a future that had never arrived, they could not be remembered from this future that, at and as the present, had obtained; they'd faded from the photograph. ~ Ben Lerner

I think the advent of the Internet gave us all a big boost, because by the time the Internet became mainstream and you could get it in your home, a lot of us were used to dealing in fan culture, writing to magazines or anything at the back of comic books. ~ Kevin Smith

If the first plan you adopt does not work successfully, replace it with a new plan. If this new plan fails to work, replace it, in turn, with still another, and so on until you find a plan which does work. ~ Napoleon Hill

Until you have a child, it's very tempting to look at the state of the world and say, "To hell with it, in 50 years I won't be around anyway." But if you have a child you don't say that, because even if you're not around in 50 years, your children presumably will be, and maybe even their children. You think of yourself as responsible to future generations in a whole different way. ~ Marianne Williamson