I hope scholars in the future will solve this problem so that the more profound aspects of our religion can be communicated in English.
— Gejyong Tenzin Gyatsho (The Dali Lama), An Introduction to Buddhism
You don’t have to be as good as everyone else if you’re on time and it’s always a pleasure to hear from you.
— Neil Gaiman, Neil Gaiman’s ‘Make Good Art’ speech.
We did our best, both of us, to understand, to explain.
— Samuel Beckett, “The Expelled”
Where’s the Jonny Quest guy?
— Judy’s Dad
Look at the night.
— Neil Diamond, “Sweet Caroline"
Now it understood what the man sought in the woman, and it knew that he suffered because he never would attain that sense of completion he sought.
— Paul Bowles, “The Circular Valley”
I’m fairly certain that, after a shortish time, the person through whom a poem was written is no more entitled to make revisions than any other reader.
— Paul Muldoon, Paul Muldoon Poems 1968-1998
He remembered a paper he’d once given at a conference on urban design: It is not from the château that we set upon our adventure, gentlemen, but from the shack.
— Italo Calvino, The Queen’s Necklace
The term skeuomorph (pronounced skyoo-uh-morf) refers to an element in an object’s design that’s no longer functionally necessary but has been retained anyway for ornamental purposes.
— Lev Grossman, “Flatland: Should the virtual world try to look like the real one?,” TIME: June 3, 2013
The book I remember most clearly was A Wrinkle in Time.
— Dan Brown, TIME: May 27, 2013
I just washed my hands
Then I went for my dinner.
— The Proclaimers, “Over And Done With”
Why would you do that?
— Joss Whedon, “How Shakespeare Saved ‘Avengers,’ The New York Times
It doesn’t preclude a love of things and design.
— Liz Diller
And what’ll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
— Bob Dylan, “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”
Open the kingdom.
— Philip Glass Ensemble, “Open The Kingdom (Liquid Days, Part II)”
The most bizarre thing I think I’ve ever seen.
— Zach Sobiech, “My Last Days”
She got sunset on her breath now.
— Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros
Came out by the same door where in I went.
— Edward FitzGerald, The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám
Well, its still a hell of a quote.
— James T. Kirk, Star Trek Into Darkness
It’s a hell of a thing, ain’t it. Hell of a thing.
— Mud, Mud