Reading Festival Adelaide 2013 Quotes & Sayings

From the beginning, of course, I had known that the pure forcefulness of my argument would not penetrate deep enough to effect any change. It almost never does. It's never worked for me when I've been in therapy. Only when one feels an insight in one's bones does one own it. Only then can one act on it and change. Pop psychologists forever talk about "responsibility assumption," but it's all words: it is extraordinarily hard, even terrifying, to own the insight that you and only you construct your own life design. Thus, the problem in therapy is always how to move from an ineffectual intellectual appreciation of a truth about oneself to some emotional experience of it. It is only when therapy enlists deep emotions that it becomes a powerful force for change. And powerlessness was — Irvin D. Yalom

The guy you've been seeing, the one you were all so secret-squirrel about, was my dad?" Cooper nodded. "Yes." "Oh, fucking hell," Ryan squeaked. "The one you said sucked dick like a Dyson? — N.R. Walker

I don't believe in telling people what they should do, so I'll tell you what you shouldn't do instead... young people can't write a book because they don't have enough life experience, teachers and parents please cover your ears for a second, that it BULLSHIT! Anyone can write a book if they have an idea. — Lili Wilkinson

We made air attacks on the Japanese anchorage, sinking and damaging several vessels. However, the Japanese were alerted to the fact that American carriers were nearby. — Jack Adams

True kinship has naught to do with blood ties, however strong they be. I think we are all kin, brothers and sisters one to the other, all children of all parents. — Lloyd Alexander

Gates's net wealth is greater than the combined net worth of the poorest 40% of Americans (112,000,000 people). — Ralph Nader

What is the most important thing you could be working on in the world right now? ... And if you're not working on that, why aren't you? — Aaron Swartz

When people ask workingwomen, "When are you going to have a baby?" what they're really asking is "When are you going to leave? — Caitlin Moran

Either in or out of time, the decision of a personal agency to commit an action happens antecedent to the action itself. Even if the deciding and the acting happened simultaneously, it would still not be true that the acting was antecedent to the deciding. Imagine God saying, Oh, look! I just created a universe. Now I'd better decide to do it. — Dan Barker

I know what love is, Mom. I've had love that burns in every fiber of my being, that drives me to be a better person and empowers me through each moment of the day. If you'd ever had something like that, you'd hold on to it with every bit of strength you had. — Richelle Mead