A theory can be proved by experiment but no path leads from experiment to the birth of a theory.

You collect art: you must know that the miniature artists, at the end of careers spent painting the tiniest, most exacting details that no one would ever look at, would often put their eyes out with needles. Too much beauty, yes, but also too much seeing. They were tired of seeing. The dark was safe and warm and comfortable. Blindness was a gift. I still have seeing to do.

Ian McDonald

Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes -- our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking around.

G. K. Chesterton

You know, the period of World War I and the Roaring Twenties were really just about the same as today. You worked, and you made a living if you could, and you tired to make the best of things. For an actor or a dancer, it was no different then than today. It was a struggle.

James Cagney

The civilized are those who get more out of life than the uncivilized, and for this we are not likely to be forgiven.

Cyril Connolly

I hope you love birds, too. It is economical. It saves going to Heaven.

Emily Dickinson, Letter in Lette

In any war story, but especially a true one, it's difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen. What seems to happen becomes its own happening and has to be told that way. The angles of vision are skewed. When a booby trap explodes, you close your eyes and duck and float outside yourself. .. The pictures get jumbled, you tend to miss a lot. And then afterward, when you go to tell about it, there is always that surreal seemingness, which makes the story seem untrue, but which in fact represents the hard and exact truth as it seemed.

Tim O'Brien

We got on his label, and the Bizarre organization is just going up and up. So we have faith.

Alice Cooper

Consult. To seek another's approval of a course already decided on.

Ambrose Bierce

I have a farm and I love it there. There's really nothing to do, but even watching the chickens, its fun.

Salma Hayek

Strength is a matter of a made up mind.

John Beecher

Humanity I love you because when you're hard up you pawn your intelligence to buy a drink.

e. e. cummings

Praise out of season, or tactlessly bestowed, can freeze the heart as much as blame.

Pearl Buck