To Have Or To Be Quotes

Can one have love? If we could, love would need to be a thing, a substance that one can have, own, possess. The truth is, there is no such thing as "love." "Love" is abstraction, perhaps a goddess or an alien being, although nobody has ever seen this goddess. In reality, there exists only the act of loving. To love is a productive activity. It implies caring for, knowing, responding, affirming, enjoying: the person, the tree, the painting, the idea. It means bringing to life, increasing his/her/its aliveness. It is a process, self-renewing and self-increasing. ~ Erich Fromm

Take no revenge that you have not pondered beneath a starry sky, or on a canyon overlook, or to the lapping of waves and the mewing of a distant gull. ~ Robert Breault

Democracy has two excesses to avoid: the spirit of inequality, which leads to an aristocracy, or to the government of a single individual; and the spirit of extreme equality, which conducts it to despotism, as the despotism of a single individual finishes by conquest. ~ Baron De Montesquieu

Americans ... do not naturally apply the term "bourgeois" to themselves, or to anyone else for that matter. They do like to call themselves middle class, but that does not carry with it any determinate spiritual content ... The term "middle class" does not have any of the many opposites that bourgeois has, such as aristocrat, saint, hero, or artist all good. ~ Allan Bloom

These, of course, are not the preppy boys we go to school with; these are the dirt-in-the-cracks-of-the-hands kind of boys, farmhands and fishermen who, once school starts, we'll let drift away ... But they're nice to us because they're country, and they're just glad to have any kind of girl along. They keep coolers for us full of beers and sodas and green boiled peanuts in Ziplock bags and tell us we're pretty as models. They're either blind or lying, but you know what? It's summer, and we don't care. ~ Katie Crouch

Whether in music or in fiction, the most basic thing is rhythm. Your style needs to have good, natural, steady rhythm, or people won't keep reading your work. ~ Haruki Murakami

Moderate alcohol consumption is linked to a long list of health benefits. We'll leave it to others to decide if those health benefits come from the alcohol itself or the fact that moderate drinkers tend to do lots of things moderately, and are more likely to have the education and socioeconomic status linked to good health. ~ Lou Schuler

Acting, believe it or not, can get very self-involved! I feel fortunate to have been able to work on things with people who have a very specific point of view and perspective, and who feel like they're doing something very active. ~ Adam Driver

I've had frank conversations with theaters who say, 'We love your play, but we've already done a play by another black person this year,' or 'I don't think the kind of people you write about are the ones our audience wants to see' ... Up and coming young black female writers are still struggling to have their voices heard and have their plays produced. ~ Katori Hall

Justice demands integrity. It's to have a moral universe - not only know what is right or wrong but to put things in perspective, weigh things. Justice is different from violence and retribution; it requires complex accounting. ~ Bell Hooks

I wasn't interested in drinking beer or vodka or smoking cigarettes or doing all the other things Greta thinks I can't even imagine. I don't want to imagine those things. Anyone can imagine things like that. I want to imagine wrinkled time, and forests thick with wolves, and bleak midnight moors. I dream about people who don't need to have sex to know they love each other. I dream about people who would only ever kiss you on the cheek. ~ Carol Rifka Brunt

We're young. We're supposed to drink too much. We're supposed to have bad attitudes and shag each other's brains out. We were designed to party. We owe it to ourselves to party hard. We owe it to each other. This is it. This is our time. So a few of us will overdose, or go mental. Charles Darwin said you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. That's what it's about - breakin' eggs - by eggs, I mean, getting twatted on a cocktail of class. As. If you could see yourselves ... We had it all. We have fucked up bigger and better than any generation that came before us. We were so beautiful ... We're screw-ups. I plan on staying a screw-up until my late twenties, or maybe even my early thirties. And I will shag my own mum before I let anyone else take that away from me! ~ Andrew Espley

Every one should consider himself as intrusted not only with his own conduct, but with that of others; and as accountable, not only for the duties which he neglects, or the crimes that he commits, but for that negligence and irregularity which he may encourage or inculcate. Every man, in whatever station, has, or endeavours to have his followers, admirers, and imitators, and has therefore the influence of his example to watch with care. ~ Samuel Johnson

Marcus Garvey was one of the first advocates of Black Power, and is still today the greatest spokesman ever to have been produced by the movement of Black Consciousness ... He spoke to all Africans on the earth, whether they lived in Africa, South America, the West Indies or North America, and he made Blacks aware of their strength when united. ~ Walter Rodney

I didn't feel like it was essential to have a white host or a black host, I wanted a good host. ~ Harvey Levin

I began, I remember, because I felt I had to. I'd reached that modest height in my career, that gentle rise, from which I could coast out of gear to a soft stop. Now I wonder why not. Why not? But then duty drove me forward like a soldier. I said it was time for "the Big Book," the long monument to my mind I repeatedly dreamed I had to have: a pyramid, a column tall enough to satisfy the sky. Duty drove me the way it drives men into marriage. Begetting is expected of us, and in those days of heavy men in helmets the seed was certain, and wanted only the wind for a womb, or any slit; yet what sprang up out of those foxholes we fucked with our fists but our own frightened selves? with a shout of pure terror, too. That too - that too was expected; it was expected even of flabby maleless men like me. And now, here, where I am writing still, still in this chair, hammering type like tacks into the page, speaking without a listening ear, whose eye do I hope to catch and charm and fill with tears and understanding, if not my own, my own ordinary, unforgiving and unfeeling eye?...my eye. So sentences circle me like a toy train. What could I have said about the Boche, about bigotry, barbarism, butchery, Bach, that hasn't been said as repeatedly as I dreamed by dream of glory, unless it was what I've said? What could I have explained where no reason exists and no cause is adequate; what body burned to a crisp could I have rebelieved was bacon, if I had not taken the tack I took? ~ William H. Gass

I would never say they look exactly the same, but what I would say is that the differences are not enough to save your job, to save your life, or to save the planet. And what we have right now is a race to the bottom, between the greater and lesser evil.[Donald]Trump is a very dangerous and despicable demagogue. However, you know, policy for policy, Hillary's [Clinton] are also extremely dangerous. ~ Jill Stein

It is easy to have a lot of paintings or projects hanging around that are 'almost done.' ~ Thomas Kinkade

For love to last, you had to have illusions or have no illusions at all. But you had to stick to one or the other. It was the switching back and forth that endangered things. ~ Lorrie Moore

I'm steeped in aesthetic theory, so I tend to bring in my own amateurish way of baring a little bit - when, in practice, I'm not thinking about that when I'm working over the keyboard, or musing over musical ideas in my head. But when discussing it, we want to have some new thought about this new music. ~ John Maus

People think you get one idea for a cartoon every week, and that's not the way it works. You usually get 10 or 15, and you're - certainly when I was a cartoonist, before I was a cartoon editor, you're rushing to do what is called the batch. When I was doing that, I liked to have, in general, about 10 cartoons. ~ Robert Mankoff

Retarget your money. When your money comes in, you need to have already targeted where you are going to invest or doodad temptation will set in. ~ Robert Kiyosaki

I think that if they want people to listen to ten or twelve songs, they have to give the listener a reason to listen to ten or twelve songs or to buy ten or twelve and listen to the whole thing instead of just pulling one or two for their iPod or their computer. ~ David Byrne

One of his palms slipped into the open back of her gown, seeking the skin above the edge of her corset, and a sigh escaped him as he felt her downy softness. "Not yet," he said in a rough whisper, though whether he was talking to himself or to her was unclear. He clasped the vulnerable curve of her neck in one strong hand, and bent to feast on her parted lips, her chin, the front of her throat. "You're so sweet," he said raggedly.
She couldn't help but grin, even in the flush of desire. "Am I?"
Marcus sought her mouth with another hungering kiss. "Very sweet," he confirmed huskily. "Though if I were a lesser man, you'd have torn my head off by now."
The words drew a low laugh from her. "Now I understand the attraction between us. We're a danger to everyone but each other. Like a pair of ill-tempered hedgehogs."
-Marcus & Lillian ~ Lisa Kleypas

I know what my job is, and I'm damned good at it."

When he snorted she came back down two steps. She came down slowly, her movements deliberate, because her own temper was much too close to the boil. "Good enough to have figured out why you've hated the sight of me since I first walked in that door. Since you understood Roarke had feelings for me. Part A was easy -- a first-year rookie could have snagged onto it. I'm a cop, and that's enough for you to hold me in contempt."

He offered a thin smile. "I've had little reason to admire those in your profession."

"Part B was tougher." She came down another step so that their eyes were level. "I thought I had that figured, too, but I didn't realize that Part B had a couple of stages. Stage one: I'm not one of the glamorous, well-bred stunners that Roarke socialized with. I haven't got the looks or the pedigree or the style to suit you."

He felt a quick tug of shame, but inclined his head. "No, you don't. He could have had anyone, his pick of the cream of society."

"But you didn't want just anyone for him, Summerset. That's stage two, and I just figured that out this morning. You resent me because I'm not Marlena. That's who you wanted for him," she said quietly as the color slipped out of his cheeks. "You hoped he'd find someone who reminded you of her, instead you got stuck with an inferior mode. Tough luck all around. ~ J.D. Robb

You're right, a spleen is a strange thing-we technically don't need one, but maybe spleens are kept in our bodies in case we mutate or evolve, and if we grow wings or tentacles we need to have the spleen in place in order for them to work. ~ Douglas Coupland

You know you're a chemist when you expect your washing machine not just to have "spin" but to have "lock and shim" as well. And when your clothes don't come out clean you wonder if it's because you chose the wrong solvent from the menu or something, or maybe it ran out of N2. Or if the machine was tuned to "pants" rather than "socks" nucleus. And then you think "I'll submit it for service ~ Lukasz Pilarski

As a general rule ... people ask for advice only in order not to follow it; or if they do follow it, in order to have someone to blame for giving it. ~ Alexandre Dumas

To have a caring and committed heart toward someone - a heart so firm in its devotion as to sooner stop beating than neglect the object of its desire despite the person's state of health, appearance, reputation, finances, troubles, or challenges - that, dear world, is love. It is a rare find. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Probably right at the end of JAG, I would love to have a child or two. I ultimately want to have two kids. ~ Catherine Bell

It is hard to have patience with people who say, 'There is no death' or 'Death doesn't matter.' There is death. And whatever is matters. And whatever happens has consequences, and it and they are irrevocable and irreversible. You might as wel say that birth doesn't matter. ~ C.S. Lewis

Practically from birth - or so it seemed to him - he had been aware that the elegant, filigreed, eminently reasonable world around him was destined to collapse under its own weight, like some elaborate architectural folly; the obvious response, to any sensible observer, was to have as little to do with such a world as possible. ~ John Wray

I want the life I'm meant to have, Etta. It's as simple as that. My father always says that the way to truly live is to do so without expectation or fear hanging over you, affecting your choices - and that's bloody hard to do with you travelers coming and going. I want to know you the way you know me one day. I want to play my violin, make mistakes, fall in love, live in as many different cities as I can. Would you really take that from me? ~ Alexandra Bracken

I was really sad after 'The Avengers' when I realized I was not going to have a part in 'Thor 2' or 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier.' But I'm not arguing with my fantastic plane and my really cool car. ~ Clark Gregg

I try to have a balance of things you like and things you don't like about a character. But once you start that, all these scripts are like, "You play the douchebag friend of Ashton Kutcher." It's all these characters that are overconfident or hyper-masculine. ~ Jemaine Clement

On the TV screen in Harry's is The Patty Winters Show, which is now on in the afternoon and is up against Geraldo Rivera, Phil Donahue and Oprah Winfrey. Today's topic is Does Economic Success Equal Happiness? The answer, in Harry's this afternoon, is a roar of resounding "Definitely," followed by much hooting, the guys all cheering together in a friendly way. On the screen now are scenes from President Bush's inauguration early this year, then a speech from former President Reagan, while Patty delivers a hard-to-hear commentary. Soon a tiresome debate forms over whether he's lying or not, even though we don't, can't, hear the words. The first and really only one to complain is Price, who, though I think he's bothered by something else, uses this opportunity to vent his frustration, looks inappropriately stunned, asks, "How can he lie like that? How can he pull that shit?"

"Oh Christ," I moan. "What shit? Now where do we have reservations at? I mean I'm not really hungry but I would like to have reservations somewhere. How about 220?" An afterthought: "McDermott, how did that rate in the new Zagat's?"

"No way," Farrell complains before Craig can answer. "The coke I scored there last time was cut with so much laxative I actually had to take a shit in M.K."

"Yeah, yeah, life sucks and then you die."

"Low point of the night," Farrell mutters.

"Weren't you with Kyria the last time you were there?" Goodrich asks. "Wasn't that ~ Bret Easton Ellis

Inspirational leaders need to have a winning mentality in order to inspire respect. It is hard to trust in the leadership of someone who is half-hearted about their purpose, or only sporadic in focus or enthusiasm. ~ Sebastian Coe

I found that those friends of mine who welcomed the unseen into the realm of their seen offered immediate understanding. Some are Christians, some are not. Most are artists of some kind or other; artistry can extend to a way of being, of living lovingly in this world. Many seem to have almost a spiritual affinity for the unmarked trail, armed only with True North. ["Leap With Faith" Blogpost By Carolyn Weber - July 27, 2011] ~ Carolyn Weber

Grandpa's farm had belonged to our people ever since there had been a farm in that place, or people to own a farm. Grandpa's father had left it to Grandpa and his other sons and daughters. But Grandpa had borrowed money and bought their shares. He had to have it whole hog or none, root hog or die, or he wouldn't have it at all. ~ Wendell Berry

If you really think that houses prices are going to go up next year and the year after, you feel if I don't buy it this year, I'm going to have to buy it next year. And when somebody makes it very easy for you to do it by saying you don't really have to put up my money, you can lie about your income a little, or we'll give you 100 percent mortgage, you're going to do it, because everybody that's done it has been proven right. You have what they call social tools, and, you know, you're going to feel like an idiot if you didn't do it, because the house cost more. ~ Howard Warren Buffett

It's hard to have a serious conversation with you when you're wearin' lighted cocks on your head."
AJ defiantly thrust out her chin and the penises bobbled. "We aren't having a conversation. You're give me tough-guy attitude. If you won't acknowledge me in public, you don't have the right to chastise me for anything I do in public or in private. And now you lost the right to do anything to me in private either, bucko."
"Quit bein' so goddamm childish."
Her eyes narrowed to silver slits. "Quit bein' such a goddamn dickhead."
"You're the one with dicks on your head, baby doll."
"Yeah? I can take mine off any old time I please, but you wear your dickhead like a second skin. Or should I say as a second foreskin? ~ Lorelei James

I think a lot of people in their lives feel like they don't fit in, even if it looks like they do. People feel like outsiders even if others think we, the lives we live, have everything. If they are popular or they have everything they are supposed to have. Even then, people still don't feel quite included. ~ Shirley Manson