Karlin Quotes & Sayings

Aquinas brought an Aristotelian view of reason back into European culture, and lighted the way toward the Renaissance. — Ayn Rand

Neurotic means he is not as sensible as I am, and psychotic means he's even worse than my brother-in-law. — Karl A. Menninger

Ben Karlin is a friend of mine and was a writer on 'The Daily Show.' He's just put out a book and asked a bunch of writers from various disciplines to contribute. It was called 'Things I've Learned from Women Who've Dumped Me,' and of course I agreed, and then I actually had to sit down and write it. God, writing fiction is terrifying. — Tom McCarthy

He hadn't wanted to be helped the way I wanted to help him, the way that helped me. — Ross Macdonald

Wit, like hunger, will be with great difficulty restrained from falling on vice and ignorance, where there is great plenty and variety of food. — Henry Fielding

Our society's almost doctrinal emphasis upon deductive reasoning, convergent thinking and selective retention perversely excludes divergent thinking, approximation and, importantly, guessing. If we are truly to understand the adolescent mind and develop effective ways to minimize the effects of risk-taking behaviour, we really need to understand these processes and engage with them. There is no logic involved with drug-taking and gambling. Adults can learn, too; understanding these mechanisms will also allow us to encourage creativity and value the spontaneity so characteristic of the adolescent mind. — Tony Little

In the great non zero sum games of history, if you're part of the problem, then you'll likely be a victim of the solution. — Robert Wright

That passion is better than stoicism or hypocrisy; that straightforwardness, even in evil, is better than losing oneself in trying to observe traditional morality; that the free man is just as able to be good as evil, but that the unemancipated man is a disgrace to nature, and has no share in heavenly or earthly bliss — Friedrich Nietzsche

It could have been so beautiful.
The way our elbows always collide and not a single word was needed to make each other laugh. I laughed at your existence, I said, and you laughed even harder and that's how we spent our time.
It could have been so beautiful
the way the first hit felt good and something to deserve
because I've read every psychology book you can find on human behaviour and know for a fact that anger grows from caring
too much
and so it was a privilege to be in the war zone with someone like you.
How much you must have cared to hit that well
and that hard
and I remember saying thank you
and I'm sorry
at the same time
because what else is there to say. — Charlotte Eriksson

What was it that kept me coming back when Reason and Practicality were screaming, "Let it go, dickwad!" (You should know that Reason and Practicality are mean.) — Ben Karlin

People don't read to enlighten themselves or seek to gain some valuable insight into their own psychology. People read to escape. — Dermot Davis

You breathe in so that you can really understand what the Buddha meant when he said that the first noble truth is that life is suffering. What does that mean? With every in-breath, you try to find out by acknowledging the truth of suffering, not as a mistake you made, not as a punishment, but as part of the human condition. With every in-breath, you explore the discomfort of the human condition, which can be acknowledged and celebrated and not run away from. Tonglen — Pema Chodron

I like to write books that touch my heart. I want to entertain, and I love to entertain myself. — Simone Elkeles

By this method thousands of humans have been brought to think that humility means pretty women trying to believe they are ugly and clever men trying to believe they are fools. And since what they are trying to believe may, in some cases, be manifest nonsense, they cannot succeed in believing it and we have the chance of keeping their minds endlessly revolving on themselves in an effort to achieve the the impossible. — C.S. Lewis

The purpose of models is not to fit the data but to sharpen the question. — Samuel Karlin

The beth din is the court of the chief rabbi. I see myself taking an active role within the beth din. — Ephraim Mirvis

It was actually an Israeli cartoonist, Nurit Karlin, who made me think that I could draw for 'The New Yorker.' I saw her work published in the magazine in the early 1970s - she was the only woman working as a cartoonist at 'The New Yorker' at the time. — Liza Donnelly