Williams Or Williams Quotes & Sayings

People's beliefs and faiths are as a result of their place of birth, or how they were brought up — Osazee Williams Omoregie

As soon as someone finds out something you're insecure about or that bothers you, they will use that against you, which is awful. — Maisie Williams

The term 'black' was given a rebirth by the black youth revolt. As reborn, it does not refer to the particular color of any particular person, but to the attitude of pride and devotion to the race whose homeland from times immemorial was called 'The Land of the Blacks.' Almost overnight our youngsters made 'black' coequal with 'white' in respectability, and challenged the anti-black Negroes to decide on which side they stood. This was no problem for many who are light or even near-white in complexion, for they themselves were among the first to proclaim with pride, 'call me black!' Those who hate the term but hold the majority of leadership positions feel compelled to use it to protect their leadership roles. — Chancellor Williams

I am sure that you have had, as we all have, that mysterious experience of prescience
a moment when, beyond reason and cause, at a word, or a flicker of an eyelid, or at anything at all, one has a sudden foreboding
of what,one does not know,. I am not a religious man; but sometimes I am nearly tempted to believe that the gods do speak to us, and that only in unguarded moments do we listen. — John Edward Williams

To fight a war, you must believe it can accomplish something. We fight this one to save John's kingdom, or perhaps even to save all of mankind ... but isn't that what we always think? That all wars are useless - except the one we're fighting now? — Tad Williams

Minds like beds always made up (more stony than a shore) unwilling or unable. — William Carlos Williams

The framers gave us the Second Amendment not so we could go deer or duck hunting but to give us a modicum of protection against congressional tyranny. — Walter E. Williams

Somebody said once or wrote, once: 'We're all of us children in a vast kindergarten trying to spell God's name with the wrong alphabet blocks! — Tennessee Williams

Don't scorn your life just because it's not dramatic, or it's impoverished, or it looks dull, or it's workaday. Don't scorn it. It is where poetry is taking place if you've got the sensitivity to see it, if your eyes are open.
Philip Levine, describing what he learned from William Carlos Williams, via NPR — Philip Levine

The truth is, no matter what your lifestyle or occupation, nothing can really stop you when you're allowing yourself to be exactly who you want to be. — Hayley Williams

Novelists would do well to remember that when the works of the scholar-historians create doubt in the researcher's mind, the researcher then turns to literature as a primary source for confirmation or correction. If the truth of a time, a people, a state is not available anywhere else, let it be in the novel. - from Twayne's US Authors Series: JOHN A WILLIAMS by Gilbert Muller — John A. Williams

Writers are like eremites or anchorites - natural-born eremites or anchorites - who seem puzzled as to why they went up the pole or into the cave in the first place. — Joy Williams

But who is to decide who truly fears the Lord? The magistrate has no power to enforce religious demands. The laws of the First Table of the Ten Commandments are not regulations for a civil society or a political order. They belong to the realm of religion, not politics. — Roger Williams

I believe the way to write a good play is to convince yourself it is easy to do
then go ahead and do it with ease. Don't maul, don't suffer, don't groan till the first draft is finished. A play is a pheonix and it dies a thousand deaths. Usually at night. In the morning it springs up again from its ashes and crows like a happy rooster. It is never as bad as you think, it is never as good. It is somewhere in between, and success or failure depends on which end of your emotional gamut concerning its value it approaches more closely. But it is much more likely to be good if you think it is wonderful while you are writing the first draft. An artist must believe in himself. Your belief is contagious. Others may say he is vain, but they are affected. — Tennessee Williams

You can't always pick where you fight, or who you fight ... or even ... how you fight. But do the picking ... whenever you can. — Cinda Williams Chima

Volume is often heavy when things are about to change, signaling a breakout of support or resistance, and a possible change in trend. — Billy Williams

I would prefer to keep my clothes on. Unless there's a brisk breeze or something, I tend to keep them on. — Allison Williams

There is no music more powerful than hip-hop. No other music so purely demands an instant affirmative on such a global scale. When the beat drops, people nod their heads, "yes," in the same way that they would in conversation with a loved one, a parent, professor, or minister. — Saul Williams

One becomes a grandfather and one sees the world a little differently. Certainly the world becomes a more vulnerable place when one has a grandchild, or now I have two. And I think that possibly there's some tenderness that came out of just time and age and being a parent and grandparent. — C. K. Williams

Tool," William said, ... "As in a device to perform or facilitate mechanical or manual labor?"
"That's right Encyclopedia Britannica. Or in layman's terms: screwdriver, hammer - "
"How about a wrench," William interrupted,"
"You've got a quick learner on your hands, Bryn," Paul said ... "Sure, wrench works just fine as well," ... "Whatever blows your skirt up buddy." ...
"Well a wrench would come in handy right now," William mused. "Because you definitely have a couple screws loose. — Nicole Williams

There is no possible idea," Kenneth thought as he came onto the terrace, "to which the mind of man can't supply some damned alternative or other. Yet one must act. — Charles Williams

The president has the right to select who he wants for the Supreme Court. He doesn't have to get it cleared from Congress, Senate or anybody ... No president before this has come under this kind of scrutiny ... before the committee hearings even begin. — Montel Williams

You could say one wine is like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz while another is like the mature Judy Garland, or that a big voluptuous chardonnay is like Marilyn Monroe -round, bosomy - you can remember that chardonnay, If you say a wine is snappy and lively, like Robin Williams, that's very different than the Anthony Hopkins of wine - urbane, sophisticated, measured, considered. — Karen MacNeil

Loneliness has little to do with what we do or where we do it, whether we're married or unmarried, optimists or pessimists, heterosexual or homosexual. Loneliness has to do with the sudden clefts we experience in every human relation, the gaps that open up with such stomach-turning unexpectedness. In a brief moment, I and my brother or sister have moved away into different worlds, and there is no language we can share ... It is in the middle of intimacy that the reality of loneliness most dramatically appears. — Rowan Williams

What else are we to do with our obsessions? Do they feed us? Or are we simply scavenging our memories for one gleaming image to tell the truth of what is hunting us? — Terry Tempest Williams

Was already different because I was a twin. Funny how you can say that: I am a twin. Not I am one of twins, but I actually am A Twin. Like there's two of me all the time, this other one right here beside me whether you can see him or not. Or as if you're saying, I'm a Half. — Niall Williams

I'm not in sympathy with Communism except for populations which are in a state of peasantry, actually hungry and starving. The ideal state for me is some form of Socialism, which doesn't yet exist, as far as I know, which doesn't repress the arts, or any race. Consequently I'm not a political person ... except that I'm a revolutionary. — Tennessee Williams

They say that I am a poet I wonder what they would say if they saw me from the inside I bottle emotions and place them into the sea for others to unbottle on distant shores I am unsure as to whether they ever reach and for that matter as to whether I ever get my point across or my love — Saul Williams

Well, just to dispel all the myths, Walt [Disney] was not anti-Semitic. He was not racist in any way, shape, or form. He was not frozen when his life ended. He's not in some frozen vault right now waiting to make a big comeback. — Pat Williams

I have come to believe that in the life of every man, late or soon, there is a moment when he knows beyond whatever else he might understand, and whether he can articulate the knowledge or not, the terrifying fact that he is alone, and separate, and that he can be no other than the poor thing that is himself. (from Augustus's diary) — John Edward Williams

To imitate nature involves the verb to do. To copy is merely to reflect something already there, inertly: Shakespeare's mirror is all that is needed for it. But by imitation we enlarge nature itself, we become nature or we discover in ourselves nature's active part. — William Carlos Williams

I respond to mood. I hear some phrase, or pick up a rhythm. — Miller Williams

Let's cut to the chase, the sharia controversy. I don't think I, or my colleagues, predicted just how enormous the reaction would be. I failed to find the right words. I succeeded in confusing people. I've made mistakes - that's probably one of them. — Rowan Williams

There are things within the culture that absolutely enrage me, and for me it is sacred rage. But it's not just peculiar to Mormonism - it's any patriarchy that I think stops, thwarts, or denies our creativity. — Terry Tempest Williams

Well, I don't think I've necessarily ever been a passionate football player or a passionate person. — Ricky Williams

My activism is a result of my love. So whether it's trying to preserve the wilderness in Southern Utah or writing about an erotics of place, it is that same impulse - to try to make sense of the world, to try to preserve something that is beautiful, to ask the tough questions, the push the boundaries of what is acceptable. — Terry Tempest Williams

Whether something is old-fashioned or not doesn't resolve the question of whether it's true or not. I can see the temptation of simply thinking, 'Well, there's a cultural mainstream which flows neatly in one direction. You just align with it'. And that really won't do. — Rowan Williams

If I could light my own farts I could fly to the moon or at least Uranus. — Robin Williams

It's become fashionable these days to say that the writer writes because he is not whole, he has a wound, he writes to heal it, but who cares if the writer is not whole; of course the writer is not whole, or even particularly well. — Joy Williams

My preference is live performance. Because you get the feedback. There's an energy. It's live theater. That's why I think actors like that. You know, musicians need it, comedians definitely need it. It doesn't matter what size and what club, whether it's 30 people in the club or 2,000 in a hall or a theater. It's live, it's symbiotic, you need it. — Robin Williams

The idea that you can get everything you want in one person is destructive, and maybe when you accept that the number is closer to 50 or 60 or 70 percent, that's when you can start to make some progress in choosing the right person. — Michelle Williams

This was a respect in which he paid due homage to the wise old spirit of the late Emiel Kroger, that romantically practical Teuton who used to murmur to Pablo, between sleeping and waking, a sort of incantation that went like his: Sometimes you will find it and other times you won't find it and the times you don't find it are the times when you have got to be careful. Those are the times when you have got to remember that other times you will find it, not this time but the next time, or the time after that, and then you've got to be able to go home without it, yes, those times are the times when you have got to be able to go home without it, go home alone without it ... — Tennessee Williams

I don't think fireflies have friends. They seem to be singular bugs. They travel in packs, I guess, because when you see one, usually you'll see others. but they're never flocking together, like gnats or hornets. They're individuals. They're independent. Maybe that's why I like them. They're okay by themselves. That and their butts glow green. And that's just cool. — A.C. Williams

Down in the kitchen, I open the refrigerator. There is nothing there but the prize steer of the county fair, rearranged in neat and mysterious packages. Daily, the cook pushes her hand into the cold. The result in uncertain. A gristly Ouija. It could be pot roast or brisket, eye of the round or sirloin tip. The steer has invaded their lives. He is everywhere. There is no room for the sisters' diet-cola or for their underwear on sizzling mornings. They have been eating him for weeks. — Joy Williams

People just didn't write songs that were so directly emotional in those days. They still don't. Part of Hank's [Williams] thing was that he was opening up about relationships between men and women in ways that nobody else did, and I think that's something that made him stand out so much. His songs are just so straightforward about these really deep feelings that are universal, but they're so hard to write about without sounding sappy or over the top. You think of men in that era - they didn't express themselves that way. — Michael McCaul

Having children is not an act of God. It's not like you're walking down the street and pregnancy strikes you; children are a result of a conscious decision. For the most part, female-headed households are the result of short-sighted, self-destructive behavior of one or two people. — Walter E. Williams

Horace once told me that laws were powerless against the private passions of the human heart, and only he who has no power over it, such as the poet or the philosopher, may persuade the human spirit to virtue. — John Williams

Talk to strangers
when the family fails and friends lead you astray
when Buddha laughs and Jesus weeps and it turns out God is gay.
'Cause angels and messiahs love can come in many forms:
in the hallways of your projects, or the fat girl in your dorm,
and when you finally take the time to see what they're about
perhaps you find them lonely or their wisdom trips you out. — Saul Williams

Violence is not to be undertaken by private persons. If a state or administration acts without due and visible attention to agreed international process, it acts in a way analogous to a private person. It purports to be judge of its own interest. — Rowan Williams

Everywhere I go, people hear Ricky Williams and the next thing they think is marijuana or wasted talent. — Ricky Williams

Most people can stay excited for two or three months. A few people can stay excited for two or three years. But a winner will stay excited for twenty or thirty years ... or as long as it takes to win. — Arthur L. Williams Jr.

Cash flows from operating activities are the cash effects
of revenue and expense transactions that are included in the income statement.
4
Cash flows
from investing activities are the cash effects of purchasing and selling assets, such as land and
buildings. Cash flows from financing activities are the cash effects of the owners investing in
the company and creditors loaning money to the company and the repayment of either or both. — Williams

There's sense, he told himself. You build something and then you stay there. That's the way it's meant to be. Not this running here, running there, never see your blood-family or your home roofs for a year at a time. — Tad Williams

(F)or 50 years, the well-meaning leftist agenda has been able to do to blacks what Jim Crow and harsh discrimination could never have done: family breakdown, illegitimacy and low academic achievement. — Walter E. Williams

I wear glasses, and maybe you do, too. Mine probably cost about the same as yours. Would you trade lenses with me just because I asked you to? Of course not!
That would be silly because yours fit you and mine fit me.
Reading is the same thing. Are you reading what the boss is reading or are you reading what fits you? Are you reading a book because someone sent it to you? how about because it's on the bestseller list? You wouldn't wear someone else's glasses - don't let them pick your books. Understand what your purpose is for reading and carefully discipline your choices - Fred Smith — Pat Williams

The modern museum has multiple purposes - to curate and preserve, to research, and to reach out to the public. They challenge us and ask us to question our assumptions about the past or the world around us. — Kate Williams

Jazz is very important. It's not something I can put my finger on. When I'm writing at my favorite time, I like to have the gentle side of Coltrane or Brubeck on the CD player. It creates sort of a spiritual space in which I write best. — Miller Williams

Katherine feels that she must have learned something about marriage from being married before that is now working to her benefit. However, she doesn't know quite what it is, or how, actually, it works. — Joy Williams

Lost Wax"

My love gives me some wax,
so for once instead of words
I work at something real;
I knead until I see emerge
a person, a protagonist;
but I must overwork my wax,
it loses it's resiliency,
comes apart in crumbs.

I take another block;
this work, I think, will be a self;
I can feel it forming, brow
and brain; perhaps it will be me,
perhaps, if I can create myself,
I'll be able to amend myself;
my wax, though, freezes
this time, fissures, splits.

Words or wax, no end
to our self-shaping, our forlorn
awareness at the end of which
is only more awareness.
Was ever truth so malleable?
Arid, inadhesive bits of matter.
What might heal you? Love.
What might make you whole? Love. My love. — C. K. Williams

The few things I'd sacrificed, or put on hold, to be with my husband and
baby were worth it. That broken boy on the beach seemed like a lifetime ago. Years had passed, college and the NFL, marriage and a baby, but every once in a while, when Jude looked over at me and gave me that slow, knowing smile of his, I was that girl in a black string bikini all over again, longing for a boy I never thought could be mine. — Nicole Williams

You can give in to the failure messages and be a bitter deadbeat of excuses. Or you can choose to be happy and positive and excited about life. — Arthur L. Williams Jr.

When you are with a landscape or a human being where there is no need to speak, but simply to listen, to perceive, to feel. — Terry Tempest Williams

If I am alive this is my book, and my father lives now in the afterlife that is a book, a thing not vague or virtual but something you can hold and feel and smell because to my mind heaven like life must be a thing sensual and real. And my book will be a river and have the Salmon literal and metaphoric leaping inside it and be called History of the Rain, so that his book does not perish, and you will know my book exists because of him and because of his books and his aspiration to leap up, to rise. You will know that I found him in his books, in the covers his hands held, the pages they turned, in the paper and the print, but also in the worlds those books contained, where now I have been and you have been too. You will know the story goes from the past to the present and into the future, and like a river flows. — Niall Williams

Then one day along come a Friday and that a unlucky star day and I playin' round de house and marster Williams come up and say, "Delis, will you 'low Jim walk down the street with me?" My mammy say, "All right, Jim, you be a good boy," and dat de las' time I ever heard her speak, or ever see her. We walks down whar de houses grows close together and pretty soon comes to de slave market. I ain't seed it 'fore, but when marster Williams says, "Git up on de block," I got a funny feelin', and I knows what has happened. — James Green

It was such a pleasure to work with Eugene Levy. What a treat. That's a guy I grew up watching as a kid. Guys like that, they were hilarious and didn't have to be super vile or X-rated. — Harland Williams

Those people who believe in previous lives always think they were dukes or queens or something, ignoring the fact that most people back then spent their whole lives up to their knees in shit before dying of toothless old age at thirty. — Tad Williams

The Church expected the Second Coming of Christ immediately, and no doubt this was so in the ordinary literal sense. But it was certainly expected also in another sense. The converts in all the cities of Asia and (soon) of Europe where the small groups were founded had known, in their conversion, one way or another, a first coming of their Redeemer. And then? And then! That was the consequent task and trouble - the then. He had come, and they adored and believed, they communicated and practiced, and waited for his further exhibition of himself. The then lasted, and there seemed to be no farther equivalent Now. Time became the individual and catholic problem. The Church had to become as catholic - as universal and as durable - as time. — Charles Williams

As part of our ongoing series of reports on the environment, 'America Goes Green,' we take on the question that can make otherwise competent adults quake with fear. We've all been there. You come to the end of the checkout line and then comes that question: 'Paper or plastic?' For that one brief moment, we grocery buyers are made to feel like the fate of the planet hinges on our decision. — Brian Williams

Looking to hire best trade show models? Vantage Advertising can provide you with a free price quote if you're in need of promo,Miami models or booth hostesses. VFD Modeling Agency Provides best Trade show models for your events. — Ryan Williams

Life's journey is but a series of steps. It only takes one step in a different direction to change that from good to bad, or from good to even better. Make sure your next step takes you in the right directions. — Jean Williams

You should not have too many people waiting on you, you should have to do most things for yourself. Hotel service is embarrassing. Maids, waiters, bellhops, porters and so forth are the most embarrassing people in the world for they continually remind you of inequities which we accept as the proper thing. The sight of an ancient woman, gasping and wheezing as she drags a heavy pail of water down a hotel corridor to mop up the mess of some drunken overprivileged guest, is one that sickens and weighs upon the heart and withers it with shame for this world in which it is not only tolerated but regarded as proof positive that the wheels of Democracy are functioning as they should without interference from above or below. Nobody should have to clean up anybody else's mess in this world. It is terribly bad for both parties, but probably worse for the one receiving the service. — Tennessee Williams

Seems like a lot of my generation as a whole is more concerned with being the cool kid; sarcastic, smug, or just all together impenetrable. So anyway, it's not always comfortable to be like, the dorky, happy girl at the party ... but that's me. — Hayley Williams

Landmines distinguish themselves because once they have been sown, once the soldier walks away from the weapon, the landmine cannot tell the difference between a soldier or a civilian - a woman, a child, a grandmother going out to collect firewood to make the family meal. — Jody Williams

A kind of joy came upon him, as if borne in on a summer breeze. He dimly recalled that he had been thinking of failure
as if it mattered. It seemed to him now that such thoughts were mean, unworthy of what his life had been. Dim presences gathered at the edge of his consciousness; he could not see them, but he knew that they were there, gathering their forces toward a kind of palpability he could not see or hear. He was approaching them, he knew; but there was no need to hurry. He could ignore them if he wished; he had all the time there was.
There was a softness around him, and a languor crept upon his limbs. A sense of his own identity came upon him with a sudden force, and he felt the power of it. He was himself, and he knew what he had been. — John Edward Williams

I have no room in my life for any form of negativity or nonacceptance. — Ricky Williams

I'm looking for Miss Right, or at least Miss Right Now — Robin Williams

In a spiritually sensitive culture, then, it might well be that age is something to be admired or envied. — Rowan Williams

You're checking me out, aren't you?" He grins, and I swear he intentionally makes his stomach muscles tighten beneath the skin.
"I am not checking you out. I'm just examining. Making sure you don't have any jellyfish or sharks hanging off of you."
His smile spreads. "Whatever. You're totally checking me out, but that's okay because I'm totally checking you out. — Nicole Williams

British passion for Chinese tea was unstoppable, but the Chinese had no desire for our offerings, however much we tried to sell them woolen clothes or cutlery. — Kate Williams

Seize the day. Because, believe it or not, each and every one of us in this room is one day going to stop breathing, turn cold, and die. — Robin Williams

My mom's chicken, with rice and gravy was my favorite dish as a kid, and it still is now. That's my favorite meal from her or from anybody. It's a family favorite. — Serena Williams

There comes a time when you look into the mirror and you realize that what you see is all that you will ever be. And then you accept it. Or you kill yourself. Or you stop looking in mirrors. — Tennessee Williams

I love the feel of a book. I love the touch and smell and sound of the pages. I love the handling. A book is a sensual thing. You sit in a chair with it or like me you take it to bed and it's, well, enveloping. Weird I am, I know(...)You either get it or you don't. — Niall Williams

To the followers of the murdered Caesar:
Do you march against Decimus Brutus Albinus in Gaul, or against the son of Caesar in Rome? Ask Marcus Antonius.
Are you mobilized to destroy the enemies of your dead leader, or to protect his assassins? Ask Marcus Antonius.
Where is the will of the dead Caesar which bequeathed to every citizen of Rome three hundred pieces of silver coin? Ask Marcus Antonius.
The murderers and conspirators against Caesar are free by an act of the Senate sanctioned by Marcus Antonius.
The murderer Gaius Cassius Longinus has been given the governorship of Syria by Marcus Antonius.
The murderer Marcus Junius Brutus has been given the governorship of Crete by Marcus Antonius.
Where are the friends of the murdered Caesar among his enemies?
The son of Caesar calls to you. — John Edward Williams

how will I know which one he is?' I asked puzzled by how serious they all were, like he was some ax murdrer or something.

Suranne,
Chapter 1 — Shanice Williams

Growing up with two sisters, you either play by yourself or play Barbie with them. I played by myself. — Ricky Williams

Everything diminishes with time, my darling, but my feelings for certain people pierce me daily, and it is no illusion that they center me and let me know who I am, and let me know that I have loved and have been loved, no matter how badly or clumsily. — Tennessee Williams

I think we're all here to either make someone happy, to take care of someone who may be in need, or to make a difference in a few lives, good or bad. — Shanora Williams

He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder. — Tad Williams

Art can play a major role. I look at art as an alternative source of energy, the same way we might look at wind or solar or lithium batteries. — Saul Williams

Linguists aim to describe language while teachers prescribe how English or any other language should be properly used. — Adrian J. Williams

If we buy into the notion that somehow property rights are less important, or are in conflict with, human or civil rights, we give the socialists a freer hand to attack our property. — Walter E. Williams

Institutions develop because people put a lot of trust in them, they meet real needs, they represent important aspirations, whether it's monasteries, media, or banks, people begin by trusting these institutions, and gradually the suspicion develops that actually they're working for themselves, not for the community. — Rowan Williams

I'm a very sensitive person at times. Not just to words that anybody says, but in relationships for example, the people that you open up to, you listen to, you hear - you know? So a lot of times, the key to some of my vulnerability is just through things, simple things - or critiques or whatever - or could be very simple things that are said. — Saul Williams

Humor relieves the tension between what we see or desire but repress in order to sustain a survivable illusion about the world we live in. As such it's always potent stuff, and dangerous. — Lynda Williams

Kant comes to identify the institution of property with freedom because he sees it in a fundamental sense as an extension of the self. An object which is, he argues, my property belongs solely and exclusively to myself, and it is my right to consume or use it in whatever way I please. Indeed, so strongly does the individual feel about his ownership, Kant thinks, that if somebody takes it without his consent they harm the individual just as much as though they had injured his body. From this point of view, the individual has every justification in feeling as upset about the theft of a favourite book as he has about a bruised knee. To threaten the individual's property, in the sense of its being an extension of the self, prejudices not only his feeling of well-being but also his very existence. — Howard Williams

I can't," I whispered.
"Why? Because you can't or you won't? — Nicole Williams

I believe it's important to stay young at heart, to have faith in what might seem impossible and to have goals beyond your current abilities or temporary means. — Hayley Williams

I think poetry always lives its life, and people come to it and people go away from it, 'people' in the sense of larger numbers of people. It's as though you begin to think that poetry is a resource, and that at certain times people seem to need it or want it or can find sustenance in it, and at other times they can't. — C. K. Williams

He knows I have a soft spot for RLS and not just because he was sick or because we have the same initials but because there's something impossibly romantic about him and because before he started writing Treasure Island he first drew a map of an unknown island and because he believed in invisible places and was one of the last writers to know what the word adventure means. I could give you a hundred reasons why RLS is The Man. Look in his The Art of Writing (Book 683, Chatto & Windus, London) where he says that no living people have had the influence on him as strong for good as Hamlet or Rosalind. Or when he says his greatest friend is D'Artagnan from The Three Musketeers (Book 5, Regent Classics, London). RLS said: 'When I suffer in mind, stories are my refuge, I take them like opium.' And when you read Treasure Island you feel you are casting off. That's the thing. You are casting off and leaving behind the ordinary dullness of the world. — Niall Williams