Olbert Stainless Quotes & Sayings

The second volume of Reiner Stach's epic biography of Franz Kafka ... [is] a tangle of counter-grained and often under-sourced life stories, but reading Stach's magnificent narrative (wonderfully translated by Shelley Frisch) straight through brings death, not life, to the forefront. Stach is a compulsively readable writer ... [A]s in the previous volume, the prose in The Years of Insight is supple and very appealingly complex
all of which, once again, is perfectly rendered by Frisch. — Steve Donoghue

The greatest possesion of man is character — Marcus Garvey

Flatter not thyself in thy faith to God, if thou wantest charity for thy neighbor; and think not thou halt charity for thy neighbor, if thou wantest faith to God; where they are not both together, they are both wanting; they are both dead, if once divided. — Francis Quarles

They were like magnets completely drawn to each other, mirroring one another's movements and stances. They were like the opposite poles north and south completely different to one another yet they seemed to reflect and bring out the rare pure beauty and goodness within each other. Her heart thumped and walloped around in her chest cavity as if she had just completed a marathon. Her stomach fluttered nervously at the mere sight of him looking at her like that way. — Ali Harper

It's hard to hate someone once you understand them. It felt so mixed up. — Lucy Christopher

When you lay your life out there, you want it to be as true as possible. — Jim Morris

In the name of social order, liberal thought, and sometimes even Christianity, the novelist is asked to be the handmaid of his age. — Flannery O'Connor

Well I'll be honest ... sometimes it's really hard-"
"I know." I smirked, feeling saucy. "I can tell. I'm pretty much straddling you right now."
"Really hard to stop, smart-ass," Brendan emphasized, giving me a playful squeeze before cocking an eyebrow at me. — Cara Lynn Shultz

Lucy Marie Maris ... I am completely and utterly in love with you. And as god is my witness- no matter how long it takes- someday I will be worthy enough to be your husband, because I can't bear the thought of living without you. — Gina L. Maxwell

Urgency and despair don't get along well. — N.K. Jemisin

Good art is a truing of vision, in the way a saw is trued in the saw shop, to cut more cleanly. It is also a changing of vision. Entering a good poem, a person feels, tastes, hears, thinks, and sees in altered ways. Why ask art into a life at all, if not to be transformed and enlarged by its presence and mysterious means? — Jane Hirshfield