Brona Penny Quotes & Sayings

Grammar and ordinary language are bad guides to metaphysics. A great book might be written showing the influence of syntax on philosophy. — Bertrand Russell

People are interested in crime fiction when they're quite distanced from crime. People in Darfur are not reading murder mysteries. — Denise Mina

Examine every word you put on paper. You'll find a surprising number that don't serve any purpose. — William Zinsser

It is a lonely programme. The very virtues you cultivate become walls that inevitably separate you from your kind ... A new danger comes to your soul, and intolerance and impatience with those who are as you have been all but destroy that which you have taken such pains to build up. Not alone are there spiritual barriers between you and the friends that you have, but your business training has made your mind incisive. In the swift rush of business you have no time for small debates and petty dilemmas. — Alice Foote MacDougall

Seeing that our senses sometimes deceive us, I was willing to suppose that there existed nothing really such as they presented to us; and because some men err in reasoning, and fall into paralogisms, even on the simplest matters of geometry, I, convinced that I was as open to error as any other, rejected as false all the reasonings I had hitherto taken for demonstrations; and finally, when I considered that the very same thoughts (presentations) which we experience when awake may also be experienced when we are asleep, while there is at that time not one of them true, I supposed that all the objects (presentations) that had ever entered into my mind when awake, had in them no more truth than the illusions of my dreams. — Rene Descartes

And what, if you don't mind me asking, is really important?"
Valkyrie holds her hand palm upwards, and it starts to glow from within. She smiles at him.
"Magic," she says. — Derek Landy

I basically took something that was extremely erotic and very intentional, and I reduced it to a simple kiss. I got a lot of criticism for that. — Steven Spielberg