Two centuries ago, a former European colony decided to catch up with Europe. It succeeded so well that the United States of America became a monster, in which the taints, the sickness, and the inhumanity of Europe have grown to appalling dimensions.
—Frantz Fanon
For a transitory enchanted moment, man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald
I confess I enjoy democracy immensely. It is incomparably idiotic, and hence incomparably amusing.
—H. L. Mencken
Politicians are the same all over; they promise to build a bridge even where there is no water.
—Nikita Kruschchev
Don’t do it. Don’t go to that job you hate. Do something you love today. Ride a roller coaster. Swim in the ocean. Go to the airport and get on the next flight to anywhere just for the fun of it. Maybe stop a spinning globe with your finger and then plan a trip to that very spot; even if it’s in the middle of the ocean you can go by boat. Eat some type of ethnic food you’ve never even heard of. Stop a stranger and ask her to explain her greatest fears and her secret hopes and aspirations in detail and then tell her you care because she is a human being. Sit down on the sidewalk and make pictures with colorful chalk. Close your eyes and try to see the world with your nose—allow smells to be your vision. Catch up on your sleep. Call an old friend you haven’t seen in years. Roll up your pant legs and walk into the sea. See a foreign film. Feed squirrels. Do anything! Something! Because you start a revolution one decision at a time, with each breath you take. Just don’t go back to that miserable place you go every day.
—Matthew Quick in Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
I think in terms of the day's resolutions, not the years'.
—Henry Moore
A man is already halfway in love with any woman who listens to him.
—Brendan Francis
Things are only impossible until they're not.
—Hannah Louise Shearer
America believes in education: the average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week.
—Evan Esar
There is nothing more dreadful than imagination without taste.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better.
—Albert Camus
Hell, madam, is to love no longer.
—Georges Bernanos
Start every day off with a smile and get it over with.
—W. C. Fields
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some hire public relations officers.
—Daniel J. Boorstin
It takes so little to change everything. If you really thought about it, it would scare you to death.
—Sarah Dessen in The Moon and More