From Pnin:
"There’s no reason a human’s misfortune should interfere with a canine’s pleasure."
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"Pnin used to be always embarrassed by Liza’s ‘psihouslinie’ (‘psychoasinine’) interests…."
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"Why not leave private sorrows to people? Is sorrow not, one asks, the only thing in the world people really possess?"
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"Our friend [Pnin]," answered Clements, "employs a nomenclature all his own. His verbal vagaries add a new thrill to life. His mispronunciations are mythopic. His slips of the tongue are oracular. He calls my wife John."
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"I am not handsome, I am not interesting, I am not talented. I am not even rich. But, Lise, I offer you everything I have, to the last blood corpuscle, to the last tear, everything. And, believe me, this is more than any genius can offer you because a genius needs to keep so much in store, and thus cannot offer you the whole of himself as I do."
From Ada:
"Remembrance, like Rembrandt, is dark but festive."
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"Pedantic Ada once said that the looking up of words in a lexicon for any other needs than those of expression-be it instruction or art-lay somewhere between the ornamental assortment of flowers (which could be, she conceded, mildly romantic in a maidenly headcocking way) and making collage-pictures of disparate butterfly wings (which was always vulgar and often criminal). Per contra, she suggested to Van that verbal circuses, “performing words,” “poodle-doodles,” and so forth, might be redeemable by the quality of the brain work required for the creation of a great logogriph or inspired pun and should not preclude the help of a dictionary, gruff or complacent."
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"Reality, better say, lost the quotes it wore like claws-in a world where independent and original minds must cling to things or pull things apart in order to ward off madness or death (which is the master madness)."
Vladimir Nabokov
"Life can only be understood backwards but must be lived forwards"
Jean-Paul Sartre
"My town, my street,
gives me peace of mind that can't be beat."
Buck-O-Nine
"Disaster is a natural part of my evolution toward tragedy and dissolution. I'm breaking my attachment to physical power and possessions because only through destroying myself can I discover the greater power of my spirit. The liberator who destroys my property is fighting to save my spirit. The teacher who clears all possessions from my path will set me free."
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"Most people aren't listening, they're just waiting their turn to talk."
"Fight Club"
"The very purpose of existence is to reconcile the glowing opinion we hold of ourselves with the appalling things that other people think about us."
Quentin Crisp
"People think if they were rich they would contribute to charities. My experience has been if you don't start giving away your money when you have very little, you won't do it when you get a lot."
Robert Bainum
"He was making out with a ghost? 'I feel up dead people.'"
Brad
Jeannette: (trying to interest intellectual boy) I could tell him, "I wrote a symphony!"
Eve: That sounds like a lame pick-up line...
Jeannette: "You wanna come up and take a look at my symphony???"
Eve: "You should see my fourth movement!"
"No matter what a guy says - guys never mind being used by girls."
"Nate"
"What is truly significant is knowing the soul of a person, all else pales in comparison."
Petrarch
"All the degrees and scholarships in the world can't make up for the lack of romance."
Anne of Green Gables
"Dad, do words corrupt?"
"I don't know, let's find out... Alice? NIPPLE. (pause) Hmmm, no immediately noticeable effects."
Ringo Starr and Peter Sellers in "The Magic Christian"
"Science is organized knowledge, wisdom is organized life."
Immanuel Kant
"Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius."
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
"The greatest of all faults is to be conscious of none. Recognizing our limitations and imperfections is the first requisite of progress. Those who believe they have arrived believe they have nowhere to go. Some have not only closed their minds to new truth, but they sit on the lid."
Dale Turner
"Only when it's dark enough can you see the stars."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
"...History does not belong to us; we belong to it. Long before we understand ourselves through the process of self-examination, we understand ourselves in a self-evident way in the family, society, and state in which we live. The focus of subjectivity is a distorting mirror. The self-awareness of the individual is only a flickering in the closed circuits of historical life. That is why the prejudices of the individual, far more than his judgments, constitute the historical reality of his being."
Hans-Georg Gadamer
"People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if their light is from within."
Elizabeth Kubler Ross
"
The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone."
Harriet Beecher Stowe
"Pain is a part of being alive, and we need to learn that. Pain does not last forever, nor is it necessarily unbeatable, and we need to be taught that."
Rabbi Harold Kushner
"Don't you hate it when guys are emotionally constipated?!"
Anonymous
"
The compulsion to know everything is the road to insanity."
E.E. Schattschneider
"Until one is committed, there is always hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness.... whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now."
Goethe
"
After nightfall monster awakes and screams,
never forget anything, for it all matters."
shejl’s plan file
"Love, what a long way, to arrive at a kiss,
what loneliness-in-motion, toward your company."
Pablo Neruda
"The unspeakable bewitches me."
from tursm’s plan file
"Star Wars always is subordinate in the context of academia."
Professor Shade, shockingly
"In the 1960s, God was a black girl who could sing."
from someone's music class video
"Yes, I steal plan files for my own usage. I'm a plan file whore. Is that what you want to hear me say???"
Eve