De Kleine Johannes Quotes & Sayings

I owe all my originality, such as it is, to my determination not to be a literary man. Instead of belonging to a literary club I belong to a municipal council. Instead of drinking and discussing authors and reviews, I sit on committees with capable practical greengrocers and bootmakers ... Keep away from books and from men who get their ideas from books, and your own books will always be fresh. — George Bernard Shaw

The sky this evening bloomed
like a broken purple flower,
like a ripped-in-half and
colour-bleeding-everywhere
flower, like a lavender only
just discovering what it means
to be a lavender.

Like a lavender only just discovering
how to fit into itself. Only just
discovering what it means
to be alive.

We are like this, too. — Darshana Suresh

My father was a miner and he worked down a mine. — Kevin Keegan

Was that Will?" she said finally.
Henry arched one ginger eyebrow. "Perhaps he's been kidnapped and replaced by an automaton," he suggested. "It seems possible ... "
For once Charlotte could only find herself in agreement. — Cassandra Clare

The buck stops with the guy who signs the checks. — Rupert Murdoch

we should also consider the remoter analogy of the animals. Many birds and animals, especially the carnivorous, have only one mate, and the love and care of offspring which seems to be natural is inconsistent with the primitive theory of marriage. If we go back to an imaginary state in which men were almost animals and the companions of them, we have as much right to argue from what is animal to what is human as from the barbarous to the civilized man. The record of animal life on the globe is fragmentary, - the connecting links are wanting and cannot be supplied; the record of social life is still more fragmentary and precarious. Even if we admit that our first ancestors had no such institution as marriage, still the stages by which men passed from outer barbarism to the comparative civilization of China, Assyria, and Greece, or even of the ancient Germans, are wholly unknown to us. Such — Plato

For two hundred years Haiti has been swimming upstream. We were the first country in which independence was won by a group of slaves - black slaves. Across the water, the country that had just achieved independence - the U.S. - still practiced slavery. — Michele Montas

Neal would just go on driving, neither grim or happy or sardonic, just there - doing the movements. I understood. it was necessary. it was his bull ring, his racetrack. it was holy and necessary — Charles Bukowski

Music fills the gap between the conscious and the subconscious mind with endless joy and bliss. — Debasish Mridha

A Prayer
Refuse to fall down
If you cannot refuse to fall down,
refuse to stay down.
If you cannot refuse to stay down,
lift your heart toward heaven,
and like a hungry beggar,
ask that it be filled.
You may be pushed down.
You may be kept from rising.
But no one can keep you from lifting your heart
toward heaven
only you.
It is in the middle of misery
that so much becomes clear.
The one who says nothing good
came of this,
is not yet listening.
— Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Inspiration is not the exclusive privilege of poets or artists. There is, there has been, there will always be a certain group of people whom inspiration visits. It's made up of all those who've consciously chosen their calling and do their job with love and imagination ... Difficulties and setbacks never quell their curiosity. A swarm of new questions emerges from every problem that they solve. Whatever inspiration is, it's born from a continuous 'I don't know. — Wislawa Szymborska

We are blessed with a finite life, but our imaginations are infinite. — Debasish Mridha

Now, he had to experience his self.. . . But never, he had really found
this self, because he had wanted to capture it in the net of thought. — Hermann Hesse

All the warnings the founding fathers gave us about government proved to be true. We should have listened. — James Cook