Probably it would be truer, though not much more comforting, to say that they subscribe to the basic heresy that whatever exists has artistic significance. It is a heresy which expresses itself in various ways; like every menacing heresy it contains a grain of truth, but it seems to me just as much a killer for all art above a nursery level, for all architecture above the shed.
— Opinion, “Thoughts in progress: The New Brutalism,” Architectural Design 27
As has become de rigueur for such occasions, the scientists took pride and hope in how clearly they did not see anything.
— Dennis Overbye, “Dark Matter Experiment Has Detected Nothing, Researchers Say Proudly," The New York Times
Stuck is stuck.
— GHB
If we merely believe, but do not understand, why killing adult human beings such as ourselves is wrong, how could we conceivably show that abortion is either immoral or permissible?
— Don Marquis, “Why Abortion is Immoral”
My whole life is printed books like that.
— Guy at PHL restaurant
You’re welcome.
— Neil Ronk, Historian at Christ Church
Indeed, one of the signs of passing youth is the birth of a sense of fellowship with other human beings as we take our place among them.
— Virginia Woolf, Hours In A Library
The bending has been engineered out off our perceptual range.
— Axel Kilian
And growing up everyone always does.
— Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, "Otherside"
You’re lucky to live sad moments.
— Louis C.K., “Louis C.K. Hates Cell Phones,” Conan
Thinking causes complications. I’m sorry, but it’s part of that process that we go through of trying to figure out what’s out there in the world, what really happened. This is about truth. Absolute truth. And the pursuit of truth properly considered shouldn’t stop short of insanity.
— Errol Morris, “The Fact of the Matter,” Radiolab
So much guesswork.
— Holden Karnofsky
Everything is possible if it is well done.
— Le Corbusier, “The Core as a Meeting Place of the Arts”
When did you shout last time you were so happy?
— Aleksander Gamme, “Bliss,” Radiolab
If you are persuaded by the moral argument, but are not sufficiently motivated to act accordingly, I recommend that instead of worrying about how much you would have to do in order to live a fully ethical life, you do something that is significantly more than you have been doing so far. Then see how that feels.
— Peter Singer, The Life You Can Save
It has its depressing moments.
— Narrator, The Naked City
It’s very difficult to avoid storytelling.
— Paul Muldoon from notes
I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer.
I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do
and its wooden beams were so inviting.
— Kenneth Koch, "Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams"
That’s exactly the way that I am.
— Trampled By Turtles, “Wait So Long”
And what of the future?
— Chris Hill, The Note