Calvino Cosmicomics Quotes & Sayings

The holiness of the church means that life, as well as truth, marks Christ's church; the behavior of Christians in the world must be remarkable enough to cause grudging admiration, astonished curiosity or threatening hostility. — Edmund Clowney

Progress is not an accident, not a thing within human control, but a beneficent necessity ... due to the working of a universal law. So surely must the things we call evil and immorality disappear; so surely must man become perfect. — Herbert Spencer

It is not a terrible thing to a wretched soul, when it shall lie roaring perpetually in the flames of hell, and the God of mercy himself shall laugh at them; when ... God shall mock them instead of relieving them; when none in heaven or earth can help them but God, and he shall rejoice over them in their calamity — Richard Baxter

The foremost reason that happiness is so hard to achieve is that the universe was not designed with the comfort of human beings in mind. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Theodore Finch leans against an SUV, hands in pockets, like he has all the time in the world and he expects me. I think of the Virginia Woolf lines, the ones from The Waves: Pale, with dark hair, the one who is coming is melancholy, romantic. And I am arch and fluent and capricious; for he is melancholy, he is romantic. He is here. — Jennifer Niven

I'm sure that in Germany people also took an oath of secrecy. We know what that eventually led to. If it works that way with us, the sanctions for breaking the secrecy are nothing compared to the sanctions there could be if we're silent. All — Studs Terkel

So let me help you out. My favorite color is-hell, I don't know. I've never cared enough to think about it. My favorite movie is-what else-ZOMBIELAND. But not because the good guys win in the end, though that's a plus, but because Emma Stone is hot."
I snorted. He was SUCH a guy.
"My favorite band is-"
"Let me guess," I interjected. "White Zombie? Slayer?"
"Red. And no, not just because I want zombies to bleed.What about you? Who do you like? Because honestly, I'm surprised you know White Z and Slayer."
"I like Red,too, but I'm partial to Skillet. Used to listen to them with my sister. But why wouldn't I know the other bands?"
"You look so angelic."
"And do you think angels are hot?" I asked primly, trying to play it cool so that I wouldn't reveal what a mess I was on the inside. All this time, he'd wanted to get to know me and date me. What craziness!
"The hottest. — Gena Showalter

In 'Cosmicomics,' I came close to science fiction - I was inspired by cosmological subjects and the workings of the universe and invented a character who was a sort of witness to everything that was happening inside the solar system. — Italo Calvino

DONNA: She doesn't like office equipment, so we let her come out here and tear up office equipment. For people who don't like TVs, they can break TVs. If you don't like cars, you can break cars. If you don't like living-room things, you can break living-room things. Do you have something that you don't like? KARL: Vandalism. So this doesn't really work for me, does it? — Karl Pilkington

I believe that peace is one of the key reasons we need to take time to reflect. We make far better decisions when we are in a peaceful state. — Laura Lane

I will be dead in a few months. But it hasn't given me the slightest anxiety or worry. I always knew I was going to die. — B.F. Skinner

I certainly can't complain. I work six days a week, if not seven, and eighteen hours out of twenty-four - fortunately, with a great deal of pleasure. Why? Because I only do something if I want to do it; I need to feel a desire, to find pleasure in moving forward, creating, moving, inventing. — Alber Elbaz

Okay, can somebody quickly just summarize for the shotgun department who it's okay and not okay to shoot? — David Wong

To explode or to implode - said Qwfwq - that is the question: whether 'tis nobler in the mind to expand one's energies in space without restraint, or to crush them into a dense inner concentration and, by ingesting, cherish them. To steal away, to vanish; no more; to hold within oneself every gleam, every ray, deny oneself every vent, suffocating in the depths of the soul the conflicts that so idly trouble it, give them their quietus; to hide oneself, to obliterate oneself; perchance to awaken elsewhere, unchanged. — Italo Calvino

Us sing and dance, make faces and give flower bouquets, trying to be loved. You ever notice that trees do everything to git attention we do, except walk? — Alice Walker