Things About George Quotes & Sayings

It would be a wonderful experience to stand there in those enchanted surroundings and hear Shakespeare and Milton and Bunyan read from their noble works. And it might be that they would like to hear me read some of my things. No, it could never be; they would not care for me. They would not know me, they would not understand me, and they would say they had an engagement. But if I could only be there, and walk about and look, and listen, I should be satisfied and not make a noise. My life is fading to its close, and someday I shall know. — George Woodward Warder

Money is a good thing, but every morning you have to get up with something no one else in the world gets up with - that's that image. That face you see in the mirror, you got to love it, and you better do some things that you feel good about inside of you. Of course, money is going to come, but make certain that you do some good with it. — George Foreman

Strange things began to happen that made Holmes's claims about being the devil seem almost plausible. Detective Geyer became seriously ill. The warden of Moyamensing prison committed suicide. The jury foreman was electrocuted in a freak accident. The priest who delivered Holmes's last rites was found dead on the grounds of his church of mysterious causes. The father of Emeline Cigrand was grotesquely burned in a boiler explosion. And a fire destroyed the office of District Attorney George Graham, leaving only a photograph of Holmes unscathed. — Erik Larson

I've begun worshipping the sun for a number of reasons. First of all, unlike some other gods I could mention, I can see the sun. It's there for me every day. And the things it brings me are quite apparent all the time: heat, light, food, and a lovely day. There's no mystery, no one asks for money, I don't have to dress up, and there's no boring pageantry. And interestingly enough, I have found that the prayers I offer to the sun and the prayers I formerly offered to 'God' are all answered at about the same 50% rate. — George Carlin

Max had said two things to Jean during their good-byes. First, that one had to gaze upon the dead, cremate them and bury their ashes--and then begin to tell their story. "Remain silent about the dead, and they'll never leave you in peace. — Nina George

One of the good things about the way the Gulf War ended in 1991 is, you'd see the Vietnam veterans marching with the Gulf War veterans. — George H. W. Bush

I had been in London innumerable times, and yet till that day I had never noticed one of the worst things about London-the fact that it costs money even to sit down. — George Orwell

Love and marriage are of the Father's most powerful means for the making of his foolish little ones into sons and daughters. But so unlike in many cases are the immediate consequences to those desired and expected, that it is hard for not a few to believe that he is anywhere looking after their fate--caring about them at all. And the doubt would be a reasonable one, if the end of things was marriage. But the end is life--that we become the children of God; after which, all things can and will go their grand, natural course; the heart of the Father will be content for his children, and the hearts of the children will be content in their Father. — George MacDonald

And if I'm guilty of having gratuitous sex, then I'm also guilty of having gratuitous violence, and gratuitous feasting, and gratuitous description of clothes, and gratuitous heraldry, because very little of this is necessary to advance the plot. But my philosophy is that plot advancement is not what the experience of reading fiction is about. If all we care about is advancing the plot, why read novels? We can just read Cliffs Notes.
A novel for me is an immersive experience where I feel as if I have lived it and that I've tasted the food and experienced the sex and experienced the terror of battle. So I want all of the detail, all of the sensory things - whether it's a good experience, or a bad experience, I want to put the reader through it. To that mind, detail is necessary, showing not telling is necessary, and nothing is gratuitous. — George R R Martin

Things look dim to old folks: they'd need have some young eyes about 'em, to let 'em know the world's the same as it used to be. — George Eliot

The great thing about America is, you don't have to listen unless you want to. — George W. Bush

I don't have to tell you it goes without saying there are some things better left unsaid. I think that speaks for itself. The less said about it the better. — George Carlin

But suppose it past, - suppose one of these men, as I have seen them meagre with famine, sullen with despair, careless of a life which your lordships are perhaps about to value at something less than the price of a stocking-frame ; suppose this man surrounded by those children for whom he is unable to procure bread at the hazard of his existence, about to be torn for ever from a family which he lately supported in peaceful industry, and which it is not his fault than he can no longer so support; suppose this man - and there are ten thousand such from whom you may select your victims, - dragged into court to be tried for this new offence, by this new law, - still there are two things wanting to convict and condemn him, and these are, in my opinion, twelve butchers for a jury, and a Jefferies for a judge! — George Gordon Byron

Do you think that the things people make fools of themselves about are any less real and true than the things they behave sensibly about? They are more true: they are the only things that are true. — George Bernard Shaw

We were fighting about nothing important while dreaming of the same things. — Boy George

I believe that if a child has a feel for writing and wants to write, there is an audience. Children should just dive in and go at it. I would encourage children to write about themselves and things that are happening to them. It is a lot easier and they know the subject better if they use something out of their everyday lives as an inspiration. Read stories, listen to stories, to develop an understanding of what stories are all about. — Jean Craighead George

Yes, the ugliness of humanity can destroy you, it can lead to your destruction, you can sabotage others unknowingly or self-sabotage yourself and in the end, you will learn to secretly despise yourself and despise others at the same time. People never talk about what comes with freedom. The price of freedom. The lives that were lost in the process of its beautiful acquisition. They do not seem to realise that in the wrong hands it was a commodity for generations. People were lynched for it. They were raped for it. Nasty things (instead people will say let us sign papers and treaties and draw up constitutions). The bits and pieces of history become the literally and figuratively the past. Change yourself and you will change the past's 'yolk of blood'. — Abigail George

One of the amazing things about 'Seven Samurai' is that there are a lot of characters. And considering you have so many, and they all have shaved heads, and you've got good guys and bad guys and peasants, you get to understand a lot of them without too much being said. — George Lucas

How is it that the poets have said so many fine things about our first love, so few about our later love? Are their first poems their best? or are not those the best which come from their fuller thought, their larger experience, their deeper-rooted affections? The boy's flute-like voice has its own spring charm; but the man should yield a richer, deeper music. — George Eliot

They laughed at him, but they didn't know, they didn't know about all the nice things he had. No one knew. No one. Only someday he'd see somebody different, somebody to give his things to, somebody who would give him all their things. Yes. He'd like that. He'd know her when he saw her.
He'd know just what to say. — George R R Martin

A man learns to skate by staggering about and making a fool of himself. Indeed he progresses in all things by resolutely making a fool of himself. — George Bernard Shaw

Diamond, however, had not been out so late before in all his life, and things looked so strange about him! - just as if he had got into Fairyland, of which he knew quite as much as anybody;
for his mother had no money to buy books to set him wrong on the subject. — George MacDonald

The Patriot Act is certainly a concern; all of those things are dangerous. I think more important than me preaching is that we as a nation have to have the debate. I don't know what the answers are. I just know that if the idea is to say talking about it makes you unpatriotic, I've got to call your bluff on that. — George Clooney

It is hardly fair to accuse us of ignorance when it was made a crime under the former order of things to learn enough about letters to even read the Word of God. — George H. White

I love horror. I love 'The Shining,' 'Friday the 13th,' 'Halloween,' all those kinds of things. I love zombies, especially '28 Days Later' and '28 Weeks Later,' where the zombies are going faster than the George Romero ones. I love being scared; there's something that's awesome about your heart rate going up like that. — Ricky Schroder

There's a school of thought that says if you legalize drugs it will solve the problem. We're all good liberals, we said let's do it and see what happens. We wanted to be honest about it. So in our brainstorming sessions we'd say, what if? The finding was that all the negative things came out also. The answer is that we didn't believe in the full legalization of drugs. But we don't believe in the criminalization of drugs, either. — George Pelecanos

I like to walk about amidst the beautiful things that adorn the world. — George Santayana

I think that one of the nice things about the Yellow Submarine movie is that it seems to be perennial. People enjoy watching from each generation. And it was like the Beatles themselves. You know the Beatles seem to find new audience each time another generation comes along. — George Martin

I just got hooked on the radio, the voice of it all. It was my connection to metropolitan America, if you will. Sports, in particularly baseball then 'cause of its rich sediment of numbers, was one of the first things a young person could peg up with adults on - that is, you could know as much about Jimmy Fox as your father did. — George Will

The real issues I don't think most people touch. The Clinton jokes are all about Monica Lewinsky and all that stuff and not about the important things, like the fact that he wouldn't ban landmines ... I'm not tempted to write a song about George W. Bush. I couldn't figure out what sort of song I would write. That's the problem: I don't want to satirize George Bush and his puppeteers, I want to vaporize them. And that's not funny ... OK, well, if I say that, I might get a shock laugh, but it's not really satire. — Tom Lehrer

When I went travelling around Europe there was the Eurovision song contest on, and I got a bit dunk and we missed our train to Budapest the next day. Anyway, when I got back I kind of realised how many songs there were about people giving up things for somebody, so I thought I'd make a song about giving up things I don't have. These elaborate things that I don't have that I could give up to somebody, and I kind of thought there was kind of some sweet sentiment in that. — George Ezra

The two great things about computer CG stuff are I can now do gags I would never have dreamed of in the old day. — George A. Romero

Their world is like the one that George Orwell depicted in his novel. I'm sure you realize that there are plenty of people who are looking for exactly that kind of brain death. It makes life a lot easier. You don't have to think about difficult things, just shut up and do what your superiors tell you to do. You never have to starve. — Haruki Murakami

Of course we've lost so many superstars who've made jazz what it is. We've lost so many musicians who created new things and changed the way we think about music and who took jazz to a new level. So jazz is suffering from that. But we still have a lot of incredible people playing jazz in the world. We have a lot of people leading the way. — George Benson

To me, the writer's main job is to just make the story unscroll in such a way that the reader is snared - she's right there, seeing things happen and caring about them. And if you dedicate yourself to this job, the meanings more or less take care of themselves. That's the theory, anyway. — George Saunders

Katie Prudent: One of the greatest things about those times was that everything he [George Morris] taught us in the equitation had form with meaningful function. Your straight back was for strength, and your heels were your anchor. Everything he taught us made so much sense and that knowledge translated from equitation to the jumpers. — George H. Morris

I don't remember who wins awards [Oscars]. I've won a few but what I really remember are movies. I love films, so I'm not concerned about speculation about winning things because I really enjoy being in films that last longer than an opening weekend. That's my goal in life. — George Clooney

We put the kettle on to boil, up in the nose of the boat, and went down to the stern and pretended to take no notice of it, but set to work to get the other things out. That is the only way to get a kettle to boil up the river. If it sees that you are waiting for it and are anxious, it will never even sing. You have to go away and begin your meal, as if you were not going to have any tea at all. You must not even look round at it. Then you will soon hear it sputtering away, mad to be made into tea. It is a good plan, too, if you are in a great hurry, to talk very loudly to each other about how you don't need any tea, and are not going to have any. You get near the kettle, so that it can overhear you, and then you shout out, "I don't want any tea; do you, George?" to which George shouts back, "Oh, no, I don't like tea; we'll have lemonade instead - tea's so indigestible." Upon which the kettle boils over, and puts the stove out. — Jerome K. Jerome

I'm also not very analytical. You know I don't spend a lot of time thinking about myself, about why I do things — George W. Bush

Storytelling is about two things; it's about character and plot. — George Lucas

I prefer doing things rather than sitting around talking about doing things. — George Kaiser

There are some themes, some subjects, too large for adult fiction; they can only be dealt with adequately in a children's book. In adult literary fiction, stories are there on sufferance. Other things are felt to be more important: technique, style, literary knowingness ... The present-day would-be George Eliots take up their stories as if with a pair of tongs. They're embarrassed by them. If they could write novels without stories in them, they would. Sometimes they do. We need stories so much that we're even willing to read bad books to get them, if the good books won't supply them. We all need stories, but children are more frank about it. — Philip Pullman

A memory came to me. One time, in middle school, a famous author came to talk to our class and give a writing workshop. One of the things she told us about writing a novel was that the story should be about what the main character wants. Dorothy wants to go home to Kansas. George Milton wants a farm of his own. Amelia Sedley wants to marry her darling George and live happily ever after. The end of the story, according to the famous author, is when the character either gests what he wants or realizes he's never going to get it. Or sometimes, she said, like Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind, realizes she doesn't actually want what she thought she wanted all along.
pg. 324 of Bewitching — Alex Flinn

Lots of people wrote to the magazine to say that Marilyn vos Savant was wrong, even when she explained very carefully why she was right. Of the letters she got about the problem, 92% said that she was wrong and lots of these were from mathematicians and scientists. Here are some of the things they said: 'I'm very concerned with the general public's lack of mathematical skills. Please help by confessing your error.' -Robert Sachs, Ph.D., George Mason University ... 'I am sure you will receive many letters from high school and college students. Perhaps you should keep a few addresses for future columns.' -W. Robert Smith, Ph.D., Georgia State University ... 'If all those Ph.D.'s were wrong, the country would be in very serious trouble.' -Everett Harman, Ph.D., U.S. Army Research Institute — Mark Haddon

Is grey, and I like that about all the characters, the killer, the driver ... the movie has a very unlikely Hollywood ending, at the same time it helps you for a sequel too. Those are the things that I think are attractive, it's more, its real life, and people can identify with it and it just grounds it to a certain degree. That's the reason why. — George Tillman Jr.

Never tell your reader what your story is about. Reading is a participatory sport. People do it because they are intelligent and enjoy figuring things out for themselves.
(advicetowriters) — George V. Higgins

I am sustained by the prayers of the people in this country. I guess an appropriate way to say this, it's one of the beautiful things about America and Americans from all walks of life is that they're willing to pray for the President and his family. And that's powerful. It's hard for me to describe to you what that means. It's-let me just say this: It's a leap of faith to understand. — George W. Bush

Soothing assumptions about the good faith and shared interests of antagonists are natural to democracy, as is the desire to spend money on things other than defense. Getting a democracy to do what does not come naturally requires leadership. — George F. Will

Few things hold the perception more thoroughly captive than anxiety about what we have got to say — George Eliot

The world is less homophobic, depending on where you are in the world. As a gay man I feel very strongly about those issues around the world - there've been huge changes and developments, but there are still places where things are scary. — Boy George

What can you say about pain?
Words can trace only the shadow of the thing itself. The reality of hard, sharp physical pain is like nothing else, and it is beyond language. The world is too much with us, day and night, but when we hurt, when we really hurt, the world melts and fades and becomes a ghost, a dim memory, a silly unimportant thing. Whatever ideals, dreams, loves, fears, and thoughts we might have had become ultimately unimportant. We are alone with our pain, it is the only force in the cosmos, the only thing of substance, the only thing that matters, and if the pain is bad enough and lasts long enough, if it is the sort of agony that goes on and on, then all the things that are our humanity melt before it and the proud sophisticated computer that is the human brain becomes capable of but a single thought:
Make it stop, make it STOP! (from The Glass Flower) — George R R Martin

I bid you welcome to a new Utopia where men may be free of the so-called moral subjugations and constraints, and where for a time we may shake off those bonds of servitude wherein we are so tyrrannously enslaved."
"You are the humanist,George, not I- what the deuce does he natter on about?"
"Mostly whores and Booze," George replied with a grin.
Sandwidh contined while rapping once more upon the door, "Man is led into vice only when he is denied, my friends; for it is his nature to long after things forbidden and to desire most fervently what is denied."
"Another translation?" Philip asked George.
"Whores and booze ... in boundless supply."
"Ah,"Philip said. "I stand in renewed appreciation of the philosophers. — Emery Lee

If clearness about things produces a fundamental despair, a fundamental despair in turn produces a remarkable clearness or even playfulness about ordinary matters. — George Santayana

There's a reason education sucks, and it's the same reason it will never ever ever be fixed. It's never going to get any better. Don't look for it. Be happy with what you've got.. because the owners of this country don't want that. I'm talking about the real owners now.. the real owners. The big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. — George Carlin

Markets can't think about anything beyond about three months. This is very long-term for markets, which is why the important things in life have got to be taken outside of the marketplace. — Susan George

Wishing for things could sometimes call them forth. Wishing to study could incite a desire to do so, stimulate an interest. Reading about a region could pique interest in it, make you want to travel there and experience it. But passion could not be piped forth, could not be lured from its den by any known device or trick. It seemed to have a stubborn, independent life of its own, slumbering when it would be convenient for it to dance, springing forth when there was no reason for it, nowhere for it to spend itself. — Margaret George

Well, papa, I sometimes wish you wouldn't explain things so much. I seem to understand you all the time you are preaching, but when I try the text afterwards by myself, I can't make anything of it, and I've forgotten every word you said about it." "Perhaps that is because you have no right to understand it." "I thought all Protestants had a right to understand every word of the Bible," she returned. "If they can, — George MacDonald

He recommended I read the book Words That Work, written by Republican political strategist Frank Luntz. It's brilliant. Matt added, "If someone likes that book, then I might point them to George Lakoff. He has a great seminal work from the 1980s called Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things." He loves books about framing and language. — Timothy Ferriss

After a while, you just want transportation, and things like cool cars or motorcycles are all about getting attention. I get all the attention I could ever need, so I kind of like being in a minivan and people not paying so much attention to me. — George Clooney

That's one of the great things about the feed - that you can be supersmart without ever working. Everyone is supersmart now. You can look things up automatic, like science and history, like if you want to know which battles of the Civil War George Washington fought in and shit. It's more now, it's not so much about the educational stuff but more regarding the fact that everything that goes on, goes on on the feed. — M T Anderson

So I developed very early a massive inferiority complex, and I've told the story often about how that inspired me later in life to get involved in other things, because I couldn't out-do my brothers in sports, and it's a very competitive relationship. — George J. Mitchell

There are a lot of little things about our bodies that we all know, but we never talk about. That's what interests me. These are practically universal experiences; nobody mentions them! Some of them are disgusting. Some of them are appallingly revolting and degrading even to the most degenerate mind. So let's get started with a couple of them. — George Carlin

What sickens me about left-wing people, especially the intellectuals, is their utter ignorance of the way things actually happen. — George Orwell

It struck me that perhaps a lot of the people you see walking about are dead. We say that a man's dead when his heart stops and not before. It seems a bit arbitrary. After all, parts of your body don't stop working -hair goes on growing for years, for instance. Perhaps a man really dies when his brain stops, when he loses the power to take in a new idea. Old Porteous is like that. Wonderfully learned, wonderfully good taste - but he's not capable of change. Just says the same things and thinks the same thoughts over and over again. There are a lot of people like that. Dead minds, stopped inside. Just keep moving backwards and forwards on the same little track, getting fainter all the time, like ghosts. — George Orwell

Let's talk about rape for a moment. Rape is not what George Lucas did to your childhood. Rape is not what happens when a sports team beats another sports team by a wide margin. Rape is not what happens when your electric bill is higher this month than it was last month. Rape is when a person violates another person in the most despicable, degrading way imaginable and among the myriad of terrible things humans can do to one another, rape is among the worst. I think the casual misappropriation of the concept of rape extending all the way to its widespread comical usage is disgusting even by Internet standards. Off my chest. — Jeffrey Rowland

I am so tried by the things said about God. I understand God's patience with the wicked, but I do wonder how he can be so patient with the pious! — George MacDonald

Then there is the matter of the presidential untruths. The problem is not just that Barack Obama says things that are untrue but that he lies about what Barack Obama has said. He brags that he set red lines, but then he says it was the U.N. had set red lines. He boasts of pulling out every U.S. soldier from Iraq but then alleges that President Bush, the Iraqis, or Maliki did that. He claims that ISIS are Jayvees but then claims they are serious. But his prevarication too is habitual and was known in 2008 when it was discovered that he had simply misled the nation about his relationships with Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers. He had no desire, in the transparent manner of John Kerry, Al Gore, John McCain, or George W. Bush, to release his medical records or college transcripts. If Americans find their president ill-informed, there was no record that he was informed in 2008. His gaffes were far more frequent than those of Sarah Palin, who knew there were 50 states. — Anonymous

As time goes on and you become more comfortable in your career path, and things are starting to make sense, and it's not just about work, you find that you're able to focus on other things and other people. — George Clooney

I did not worry about what a man or woman personally believed, but the nation's official religion should be outwardly practiced by all its citizens. A religion was a political statement. Being a Calvinist, a papist, a Presbyterian, an Anglican labeled a person's philosophy on education, taxes, poor relief, and other secular things. The nation needed an accepted position on such concerns. Hence the fines for not outwardly conforming to the national church. — Margaret George

It's like these ideas, these characters, kind of bubble up inside me, and one day they're not there, and the next day they are there. They're alive, and they're whispering in my head and all that stuff, and I want to write about those things. — George R R Martin

I could do without my warhorse; I could drag about in a skirt; I could let the banners and the trumpets and the knights and soldiers pass me and leave me behind as they leave the other women, if only I could still hear the wind in the trees, the larks in the sunshine, the young lambs crying through the healthy frost, and the blessed blessed church bells that send my angel voices floating to me on the wind. But without these things I cannot live; and by your wanting to take them away from me, or from any human creature, I know that your counsel is of the devil, and that mine is of God. — George Bernard Shaw

Well, Hilda and I were married, and right from the start it was a flop. Why did you marry her? you say. Why did you marry yours? These things happen to us. I wonder whether you'll believe that during the first two or three years I had serious thoughts of killing Hilda. Of course in practice one never does these things, they're only a kind of fantasy one enjoys thinking about. Besides, chaps who murder their wives always get copped. However cleverly you've faked the alibi, they know perfectly well that it's you who did it, and they'll pin it onto you somehow.
When a woman's bumped off, her husband is always the first suspect -which gives you a little side glimpse of what people really think about marriage. — George Orwell

I'm not talking about loving someone in expectation of anything in return. I'm talking about loving someone because of who they are. Because of the way they talk, they smile, they fight; because of what they say and what they believe; because of all the wonderful, annoying, beautiful, frustrating, stupid, lovely, embarrassing things they do and they are. Because they are the one person in all the world who makes you finally understand how perfectly, intricately amazing a human being can be. And if they do not love me it changes nothing, because I will not love them so they love me, I will love them because I have no other choice. — George DeValier

I think one of the major misconceptions about me is that I live my life the way people think I lead my life, with hot and cold drinks running everywhere and a party all the time. They think of my life in terms of certain excesses that don't really exist. Things are actually fairly simple. — George Clooney

Fiction is lies; we're writing about people who never existed and events that never happened when we write fiction, whether its science fiction or fantasy or western mystery stories or so-called literary stories. All those things are essentially untrue. But it has to have a truth at the core of it. — George R R Martin

Possibly, a crush is merely the attraction a person has for another person. Most relationships start with some sort of attraction. You see someone you like or you see things about a person you like and feel attracted to them. Many mistake this for love, but attraction is a powerful force. — George P. Baker

What is so bad about big government? My indictment of big government is that it is bad because it attacks liberty, prosperity, progress, harmony, and morality. Thanks to big government, we have significantly less of all of those good things than we would if we had been able to keep government right-sized. Big government is cancerous. Like a cancer, it hurts the body and tends to spread, doing more and more harm as it grows. It is time for some radical surgery. — George Leef

Guard your heart:
Mysterious things happen in there.
Stand as the watchman of your soul,
And be careful about what you let in.
For, therefrom, come all your life's issues. — Manuela George-Izunwa

Think of something you really care about. Then add hour to hour and calculate the fraction of your life that you've actually spent in doing it. And then calculate the time you've spent on things like shaving, riding to and fro on buses, waiting in railway junctions, swapping dirty stories, and reading the newspapers. — George Orwell

I've always tried to live in the future and think about things and how to make things better. If you have great-grandchildren around, and their pictures are looking at you, well, that's the future. — George P. Shultz

Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires - a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution. — George W. Bush

The last real movie stars were probably Redford and Newman. And things were different then. There wasn't this amazing amount of magazines and information about them. — George Clooney

The thing about being a watcher is this: You are never really a part of things, especially if the person you must watch is yourself, always, just to make sure no one ever really sees you. . — George Hodgman

Oh, you break my heart. Why does everything have to be so sad to you? Why do you have so many negative opinions about things you don't know about, like foreign countries and diseases and everything? Why can't you be more like Chief Wayne? He has zero opinions. He's just upbeat. — George Saunders

Finally there is someone that you can invest in that looks like you, speaks like you, relates to things you relate to, and make our culture okay to talk about. — George Lopez

I think you can talk about anything if the context is correctly arranged. If you set up the context and you bring the audience along carefully enough with you, you can get them to cross the line with you. What I try to do is talk about things that bother me, and I hope that in doing so I bother other people. — George Carlin

Doing interesting things and then writing about them is the best way to become a good writer. — Jean Craighead George

It may take a decade or two before the extent of Shakespeare's collaboration passes from the graduate seminar to the undergraduate lecture, and finally to popular biography, by which time it will be one of those things about Shakespeare that we thought we knew all along. Right now, though, for those who teach the plays and write about his life, it hasn't been easy abandoning old habits of mind. I know that I am not alone in struggling to come to terms with how profoundly it alters one's sense of how Shakespeare wrote, especially toward the end of his career when he coauthored half of his last ten plays. For intermixed with five that he wrote alone, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, The Winter's Tale, Cymbeline, and The Tempest, are Timon of Athens (written with Thomas Middleton), Pericles (written with George Wilkins), and Henry the Eighth, the lost Cardenio, and The Two Noble Kinsmen (all written with John Fletcher). — James Shapiro

Poor dog! I've a strange feeling about the dumb things as if they wanted to speak, and it was a trouble to 'em because they couldn't. I can't help being sorry for the dogs always, though perhaps there's no need. But they may well have more in them than they know how to make us understand, for we can't say half what we feel, with all our words. — George Eliot

From about eight years old I was always making things on the sewing machine. Friends would see me making dresses and costumes, and I'd use difficult fabrics such as Lycra and elastic. But you know, my dad was creative and my brother is inventive too. — Melissa George

The interesting thing about the New Albion was that it was so
completely modern in spirit. There was hardly a soul in the firm
who was not perfectly well aware that publicity - advertising - is
the dirtiest ramp that capitalism has yet produced. In the red
lead firm there had still lingered certain notions of commercial
honour and usefulness. But such things would have been laughed at
in the New Albion. Most of the employees were the hard-boiled,
Americanized, go-getting type to whom nothing in the world is
sacred, except money. They had their cynical code worked out. The
public are swine; advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a
swill-bucket. And yet beneath their cynicism there was the final
naivete, the blind worship of the money-god. — George Orwell

Scientific method seeks to understand things as they are, while alchemy seeks to bring about a desired state of affairs. To put it another way, the primary objective of science is truth, - that of alchemy, operational success. — George Soros

The best thing you can do for your fellow, next to rousing his conscience, is - not to give him things to think about, but to wake things up that are in him; or say, to make him think things for himself. — George MacDonald

I like George Carlin's jokes. I like his humor. He's one of my heroes, and I like what he did with talking about everyday things. — Steven Wright

I don't watch the nightly newscasts on TV ... nor do I watch the endless hours of people giving their opinion about things. I don't read the editorial pages; I don't read the columnists. It can be a frustrating experience to pay attention to somebody's false opinion. — George W. Bush

George thought about it, and asked, "What are, exactly?"
"What am I?"
"Yes. You're not a performer, or just a performer. I've seen vaudevillians do a lot of things before, but I've never seen one pull reflections off glass. So what are you?"
Silenus smirked, sat back in his seat, and pulled his hat down over his eyes. "You're wrong, kid. I am just a performer. I'm just putting on a show you haven't seen before. — Robert Jackson Bennett

I told you from the beginning - as soon as I could - I told you I was afraid of myself." There was a piteous pleading in the low murmur in which Deronda turned his ear only. Her face afflicted him too much. "I felt a hatred in me that was always working like an evil spirit - contriving things. Everything I could do to free myself came into my mind; and it got worse - all things got worse. That is why I asked you to come to me in town. I thought then I would tell you the worst about myself. I tried. But I could not tell everything. — George Eliot

Doorkeepers He was not merely of the salt of the earth, but of the leaven of the kingdom, contributing more to the true life of the world than many a thousand far more widely known and honoured. Such as this man are the chief springs of thought, feeling, inquiry, action, in their neighbourhood; they radiate help and breathe comfort; they reprove, they counsel, they sympathize; in a word, they are doorkeepers of the house of God. Constantly upon its threshold, and every moment pushing the door to peep in, they let out radiance enough to keep the hearts of men believing in the light. They make an atmosphere about them in which spiritual things can thrive, and out of their school often come men who do greater things, better they cannot do, than they. Malcolm, ch. — George MacDonald

We get a deal o' useless things about us, only because we've got the money to spend. — George Eliot

Oh, I think that Lord Tyrion is quite a large man," Maester Aemon said from the far end of the table. He spoke softly, yet the high officers of the Night's Watch all fell quiet, the better to hear what the ancient had to say. "I think he is a giant come among us, here at the end of the world." Tyrion answered gently, "I've been called many things, my lord, but giant is seldom one of them." "Nonetheless," Maester Aemon said as his clouded, milk-white eyes moved to Tyrion's face, "I think it is true." For once, Tyrion Lannister found himself at a loss for words. He could only bow his head politely and say, "You are too kind, Maester Aemon." The blind man smiled. He was a tiny thing, wrinkled and hairless, shrunken beneath the weight of a hundred years so his maester's collar with its links of many metals hung loose about his throat. "I have been called many things, my lord," he said, "but kind is seldom one of them." This time Tyrion himself led the laughter. — George R R Martin