Ineptly Def Quotes & Sayings

The soul establishes itself. But how far can it swim out through the eyes And still return safely to its nest? — John Ashbery

I write of the wish that comes true
for some reason, a terrifying thought. — James M. Cain

We are concerned in public affairs, but immersed in our private ones. — Walter Lippmann

Indulgence is lovely in the sinless; toleration, adorable in the pious and believing heart. — Sophie Swetchine

Another reason we know that language could not determine thought is that when a language isn't up to the conceptual demands of its speakers, they don't scratch their heads dumbfounded (at least not for long); they simply change the language. They stretch it with metaphors and metonyms, borrow words and phrases from other languages, or coin new slang and jargon. (When you think about it, how else could it be? If people had trouble thinking without language, where would their language have come from-a committee of Martians?) Unstoppable change is the great given in linguistics, which is not why linguists roll their eyes at common claims such as that German is the optimal language of science, that only French allows for truly logical expression, and that indigenous languages are not appropriate for the modern world. As Ray Harlow put it, it's like saying, Computers were not discussed in Old English; therefore computers cannot be discussed in Modern English. — Steven Pinker

Only memories have a future. — Ljupka Cvetanova

I get a headache when I hear supporters of this endless warfare complaining about the federal budget deficits. They're like arsonists complaining about the smell of smoke in the neighborhood. — Bob Herbert

Knowing things is magical, if other people don't know them. — Terry Pratchett

From the outset my main concern was with the shape and the self-contained nature of discrete things, the curve of banisters on a staircase, the molding of a stone arch over a gateway, the tangled precision of the blades in a tussock of dried grass. — W.G. Sebald

The courage to speak must be matched by the wisdom to listen. — Charles E. McKenzie

Hogwarts didn't even send me a letter and I haven't actually forgiven them for that. Wait until I go to London and find Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters and slip through to the other side and unleash my rage. I'll make Voldemort look like a sock puppet. And I'll make-out with Draco. And I'll train a bunch of house-elves to fan me and bring me grapes - — Sara Wolf

I'm unwilling to eat food that has been adulterated. — Alice Waters

Why, if those were my images of death, did I remain so unable to accept the fact that he had died? Was it because I was failing to understand it as something that had happened to him? Was it because I was still understanding it as something that had happened to me? Life — Joan Didion

Let us hold fast the great truth, that communities are responsible, as well as individuals; that no government is respectable which is not just. Without unspotted purity of public faith, without sacred public principle, fidelity, and honor, no machinery of laws, can give dignity to political society. — Daniel Webster

Lev smiles. Leave it to you to turn someone else's screwup into gold — Neal Shusterman