Optessimists Quotes & Sayings

Civilisation is a conspiracy. — John Buchan

It's not easy to diagnose because depending where the endometrial deposits are, the symptoms can be quite different. It's an unrecognized problem among teenage girls, and it's something that every young woman who has painful menstruation should be aware of ... it's a condition that is curable if it's caught early. If not, if it's allowed to run on, it can cause infertility, and it can really mess up your life.
[Author Hilary Mantel on being asked about being a writer with endometriosis, Nov 2012 NPR interview] — Hilary Mantel

I've done over 125 posters and I have worked with some of the best photographers in the world. They made me America's Number one Pin Up. — Cindy Margolis

It's been my experience that mankind - and I use that to encompass all the races - is seldom satisfied with what they have. Most people's striving is harmless, beneficial even. But there are those who strive for subjugation, having control over others' lives, lives held in the palm of their hand. — Lisa Shearin

I' is only a convenient term for somebody who has no real being. — Virginia Woolf

Not sorry, not calling, not crying
All will pass like smoke of white apple trees
Seized by the gold of autumn,
I will no longer be young. — Sergei Yesenin

The art of governing consists simply of being honest, exercising common sense, following principle, and doing what is right and just. — Thomas Jefferson

These views were voiced by the school of 'optessimists', i.e. philosophers who derived optimism for the future from a pessimistic appraisal of the present. The 21st Voyage, The Star Diaries — Stanislaw Lem

First of all, you don't want me to get too hungry. Ever. I'm an ever worse bastard than normal and having starved for centuries, I'm not about to deprive myself again when I don't have to. Second, let me tell you something about your 'friends.' Deimos held me down while I was branded and then took me to the human realm where I was left with nothing. No clothes, no money. Not a damn thing to call my own. Hence the aforementioned starvation. A hundred years later, M'Ordant dumped my inside a Spartan prison camp and told the commander I was a traitor to their people. You don't really want to know what the Spartans did to people they thought betrayed them. D'Alerian had me put inside a Turkish prison in the fifteenth century where I was impaled after being tortured for three weeks. So you'll have to excuse me if I have a hard time feeling too sorry for them right now. At least no one's shoving a sharp spike up their asses. (Jericho) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Comedy works in fashion cycles, in a way. And sometimes, studios will imitate those cycles a little too much. — Scot Armstrong

I am two women: one wants to have all the joy, passion and adventure that life can give me. The other wants to be a slave to routine, to family life, to the things that can be planned and achieved. I'm a housewife and a prostitute, both of us living in the same body and doing battle with each other. — Paulo Coelho

What is the most precious thing in the world? I see now that it is the knowledge that you have no part in injustice. Injustice is stronger than you, it always was and always will be, but let it not be done through you. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

When we were trying to find the woman to play Maura Isles, it was a no-brainer when Sasha came in. We just knew it was her, and she did such a fantastic job. She got the job, right then and there, in the room, and it was great. We actually played a little joke on her. She's a great lady and we've had a really, really fantastic time. — Angie Harmon

See, a good habit makes a child a man, Whereas a bad one makes a man a beast. — John Webster

Making fake promises while wearing a fancy dress ... that isn't enough. Promises take more work than that. — Jackson Pearce