Alvah Quotes & Sayings

The Master acts without doing, and everything gets done. — Laozi

When you're dealing with monkeys, you've got to expect some wrenches. — Alvah Bessie

And this tattooing, had been the work of a departed prophet and seer of his island, who, by those hieroglyphic marks, had written out on his body a complete theory of the heavens and the earth, and a mystical treatise on the art of attaining truth; so that Queequeg in his own proper person was a riddle to unfold; a wondrous work in one volume; but whose mysteries not even himself could read, though his own live heart beat against them; and these mysteries were therefore destined in the end to moulder away with the living parchment whereon they were inscribed, and so be unsolved to the last. — Herman Melville

This guy was beyond lucky. He was Midas with a better attorney, or the owner of a Monkey's Paw version 2.0, or Richard Cory on Prozac. — John L. Monk

I take the only desire one can really permit oneself. Freedom, Alvah, freedom." "You call that freedom?" "To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing." "What if you found something you wanted?" "I won't find it. I won't choose to see it. It would be part of that lovely world of yours. I'd have to share it with all the rest of you - and I wouldn — Ayn Rand

Ah, beer, my one weakness. My Achille's heel, if you will. — Homer

Things will go as they will, and there is no need to hurry to meet them. — J.R.R. Tolkien

So, my sweetheart back home writes to me and wants to know what this gal in Bombay's got that she hasn't got. So I just write back to her and says, Nothin', honey. Only she's got it here. — Alvah Bessie

I nudged myself closer to the ledge and closed my eyes and thought 'Oh what a life this is, why do we have to be born in the first place, and only so we can have our poor gentle flesh laid out to such impossible horrors as huge mountains and rock and empty space,' and with horror I remembered the famous Zen saying, 'When you get to the top of a mountain, keep climbing.' The saying made my hair stand on end; it had been such cute poetry sitting on Alvah's straw mats. — Jack Kerouac

All the giants of the spirit whom I've broken. I don't think anybody ever realized how much I enjoyed doing it. It's a kind of lust. I'm perfectly indifferent to slugs like Ellsworth Toohey or my friend Alvah, and quite willing to leave them in peace. But just let me see a man of a slightly higher dimension - and I've got to make a sort of Toohey out of him. I've got to. It's like a sex urge. — Ayn Rand

Alvah Scarret had never hated anything, and so was incapable of love. — Ayn Rand

Maybe! Maybe! Maybe if your aunt had a beard, she'd be your uncle. — Alvah Bessie

You can bring your enemies to their knees with the possible exception of the North Vietnamese. — James Taylor

God is a challenge because there is no proof of his existence and therefore the search must continue. — Donald Knuth

I try to write in the mornings, as soon as I'm up and caffeinated, and to stay in the chair as long as I can be productive. — Adam Mansbach

Dear Diary:
I have a confession to make: I've become a total idiot over French pastries.
They're my new favorite food.
My new-found edible souvenir.
My new favorite sin.
Dunkin Donuts is so yesterday. — Kimberley Montpetit

From now on, if I ever get to burn another newspaper, I'll remember what a few cents can buy. — Alvah C. Bessie

That's what the cat said to the canary when he swallowed him - 'You'll be all right.' — Alvah Bessie

You should never die for your beliefs, because what if you're wrong? — Richard Jeni

Death is only one of many ways to lose your life. — Alvah Simon