Upmarket Fiction Quotes & Sayings

Education has nothing whatever to do with moral deterioration; and if one must admit that it develops a resolute spirit among the people, that is far from being a defect. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

To breath the air of Paris preserves the soul. — Victor Hugo

Most people surrendered fairy tale hopes in exchange for cookie cutter lives — Roy L. Pickering Jr.

On occasion he would think back to the fiercest passion it had been his pleasure to experience and reflect on what might have been. He would look upon the woman who occupied the opposite half of his bed and feel his life had not quite lived up to the promise of another day. These moments would be mercifully brief, or so he hoped. — Roy L. Pickering Jr.

It was almost as if she had willed him into existence, into standing before her at the precise moment she was willing to accommodate him, arriving not a minute too early or too late. — Roy L. Pickering Jr.

Life was a swirl of mysteries, each one waiting to be plucked up and explored, but not necessarily solved. As the weight of responsibility bore down on a person, it could feel like a long list of chores leading up to the final one - figuring out how to die with dignity. But Quincy's interpretation of his surroundings seemed a truer representation of life's meaning, or rather, the lack of meaning other than to dazzle and delight and befuddle from cradle to grave. — Roy L. Pickering Jr.

You want to know the secret of my success? Let me tell you about eugenics ... — Zach Braff

...forever meant different things to people at different times. They could imagine what infinity looked and felt like as much as they wanted, but could never truly grasp its meaning nor bear its full weight. — Roy L. Pickering Jr.

His fierce appreciation of female beauty, the unrelenting desire he felt for their company, the pleasure he both derived and sought to give, had led him in and out of quite a few bedroom doors. — Roy L. Pickering Jr.

There is something inherent in our democracy that tends to want to level. America is a little uncomfortable in the presence of someone who is distinctly superior in whatever way. — Carlisle Floyd

If you don't have a leg to stand on, you can't put your foot down. — Robert Altman

Once you break someone's heart, you are forever its master. — Roy L. Pickering Jr.

If Audrey sensed what he was contemplating, her silence did not let on. He turned from the window and found her looking at him with a flawless poker face. It may have been attentiveness and curiosity to hear what he would say next, or perhaps she was expecting from him what women throughout the ages, often against their better judgment, had expected of men. — Roy L. Pickering Jr.

The Talker needs attention. The Talker needs validation. The Talker would rather talk about an idea than confront the complexities, its obstacles. The Talker wants the glory but none of the hard work. — Jack Heffron

Nothing felt better to him than the act of waiting for her. As long as he believed it wasn't in vain, he was able to justify his presence. — Roy L. Pickering Jr.

These people live in many lands, speak different languages, practice different religions, may even hate one another- yet none of these differences prevented them from cooperating to produce a pencil. How did it happen? Adam Smith gave us the answer two hundred years ago. — Milton Friedman

Eat an apple,sing a song,
Don't touch a snake as it wriggles along.
Run for an hour, walk for a day,
Hark to the birds and heed what they say. — Joan Aiken

Perhaps all love stories no matter how varied are essentially the same. — Roy L. Pickering Jr.

Was happiness (which was perhaps achieved not by getting what you wanted, but rather, by obtaining what you didn't know you wished for until it was in hand) a hologram that would continually change appearance with the slightest shift of perspective? Or maybe happiness by definition was a temporary state of being recognizable only in hindsight. It was impossible to catch what always managed to be overrun and end up in the rear view mirror. — Roy L. Pickering Jr.

...the locale did not make him think of her, nor did most things. He felt no negativity about the time they had spent together, but simply did not dwell on it much. She had been a seat filler, memorable as the smiling face of a beautiful girl in the window of a passing train, inspiring a fleeting moment of joy and promise, immediately forgotten with the opening of that day's newspaper. — Roy L. Pickering Jr.

I am showering, naked as a jaybird, and here comes Rahm Emanuel, not even with a towel wrapped around his tush, poking his finger in my chest, yelling at me. — Eric Massa

And although he recognized that tenderness was not the same as passion, and certainly not equivalent to love, for now it seemed to him a suitable substitute. — Roy L. Pickering Jr.

It is our noticing them that puts things in a room, our growing used to them that takes them away again and clears a space for us. — Marcel Proust

If everyone agreed to become vegetarian, leaving little or nothing for livestock, the present 1.4 billion hectares of arable land (3.5 billion acres) would support about 10 billion people, — E. O. Wilson

Perspective is the most powerful element in the process of reality creation. — Neale Donald Walsch

I should never have loved him . I should never love anyone because it ends up being worse than being alone. — Brian James