65th National Book Awards Quotes & Sayings

The more varied the characters, the better, as far as I'm concerned. — Tim Roth

It is always for greater joy that you give up the lesser. This is practical religion-the attainment of freedom, renunciation. Renounce the lower so that you may get the higher. Renounce! Renounce! Sacrifice! Give up! Not for zero. Not for nothing. But to get the higher. — Swami Vivekananda

The Sage of Toronto ... spent several decades marveling at the numerous freedoms created by a "global village" instantly and effortlessly accessible to all. Villages, unlike towns, have always been ruled by conformism, isolation, petty surveillance, boredom and repetitive malicious gossip about the same families. Which is a precise enough description of the global spectacle's present vulgarity. — Guy Debord

I do not believe there ever was a man who was his own master, but that every man has a master of some kind or other. — Charles Spurgeon

For the ancient Greeks, who lacked our social media, the only way to achieve mass duplication of the details of one's life in the apprehension of others was to do something wondrously worth the telling. Our wondrous technologies might just save us all the personal bother. Kleos is a tweak away. — Rebecca Goldstein

I remember seeing some little wrinkles in my early 30s and thinking they were interesting. But you know the horror of it is that the screen image has to be perfect. — Claire Bloom

Passion and courtesy are two polar opposite traits that serve to balance each other into a full-blooded whole.
Without socialization, passion is a crude barbarian, and without passion, the elegant and polite are dead.
Allow both passion and courtesy into your life in equal measure, and be complete. — Vera Nazarian

Science only means knowledge; and for [Greek] ancients it did only mean knowledge. Thus the favorite science of the Greeks was Astronomy, because it was as abstract as Algebra ... We may say that the great Greek ideal was to have no use for useful things. The Slave was he who learned useful things; the Freeman was he who learned useless things. This still remains the ideal of many noble men of science, in the sense they do desire truth as the great Greeks desired it; and their attitude is an external protest against vulgarity of utilitarianism. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

I'd never looked up and enjoyed the stars for being stars; I'd missed out on the beauty. First I was too afraid and then I was too busy. — Bridget Blackwood

Empowering small farmers to increase productivity, improve crop quality and access reliable markets is critical to addressing global hunger and poverty. — Sylvia Mathews Burwell