Littauer Quotes & Sayings

The purpose of pruning is to improve the quality of the roses, not to hurt the bush. — Florence Littauer

An idyllic period of my existence was when I had a den attached to my home ... a writing den, and no one had access to that unless they had their own special visa, applied for weeks in advance. — Wole Soyinka

Gorgons and Hydras, and Chimaeras - dire stories of Celaeno and the Harpies - may reproduce themselves in the brain of superstition - but they were there before. They are transcripts, types - the archetypes are in us, and eternal. How else should the recital of that which we know in a waking sense to be false come to affect us at all? Is it that we naturally conceive terror from such objects, considered in their capacity of being able to inflict upon us bodily injury? O, least of all! These terrors are of older standing. They date beyond body - or without the body, they would have been the same ... That the kind of fear here treated is purely spiritual - that it is strong in proportion as it is objectless on earth, that it predominates in the period of our sinless infancy - are difficulties the solution of which might afford some probable insight into our ante-mundane condition, and a peep at least into the shadowland of pre-existence. — Charles Lamb

She just gave your IQ a blow job and she's not even here. — Moriah Jovan

It's the same reason why someone has a Web page or why people feel comfortable going on reality TV. — Charlene Li

We will go. Nowhere we know. We don't have to talk at all. — Ann Brashares

Put a rogue in the limelight and he will act like an honest man. — Napoleon Bonaparte

When it comes to the recording and writing, it's still mostly Mickey and I. But now there's this whole live entity that's a whole different thing, and it seems to be where we're gaining the most popularity. — Gene Ween

The beauty of the written word is that it can be held close to the heart and read over and over again. — Florence Littauer

[Responding to the Bishop of Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce's question whether he traced his descent from an ape on his mother's or his father's side]
A man has no reason to be ashamed of having an ape for his grandfather. If there were an ancestor whom I should feel shame in recalling it would rather be a man - a man of restless and versatile intellect - who ... plunges into scientific questions with which he has no real acquaintance, only to obscure them by an aimless rhetoric, and distract the attention of his hearers from the real point at issue by eloquent digressions and skilled appeals to religious prejudice. — Thomas Henry Huxley

I have met the people who run the world, and I am not in awe of them. — Ken Livingstone

For some, transformation comes quickly, but for most of us, the changes are gradual. — Florence Littauer

You don't pick your revolution. It picks you. — Daniel H. Wilson

The only true thing is what's in front of you right now. — Ramona Ausubel

To tell the truth, this was one of the few cases in which she had not told him just what she was thinking. Usually, she let him know whatever thoughts happened to come to her, and indeed he never took it amiss if she let slip a word that might pain him, because when all was said and done that was the price one paid for sincerity. — Ismail Kadare

If intellectual life involves a certain amount of self-awareness about alternative interpretations or a certain amount of tentativeness in exploring the connection between evidence and conclusions, it was hard to find any encouragement for the intellectual life in the self-assured dogmatism of fundamentalism. — Mark A. Noll

So often we think that to be encouragers we have to produce great words of wisdom when, in fact, a few simple syllables of sympathy and an arm around the shoulder can often provide much needed comfort. — Florence Littauer

Giving encouragement to others is a most welcome gift, for the results of it are lifted spirits, increased self-worth, and a hopeful future. — Florence Littauer

Our children do not need a makeover, they just need to be understood. If you understand their emotional needs now, you can save them a lifetime of searching for what they never had as a child. — Florence Littauer