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1 " Don't go on discussing what a good person should be. Just be one. "
― Marcus Aurelius , Meditations
2 " The hardest bones, containing the richest marrow, can be conquered only by a united crushing of all the teeth of all dogs. That of course is only a figure of speech and exaggerated; if all teeth were but ready they would not need even to bite, the bones would crack themselves and the marrow would be freely accessible to the feeblest of dogs. If I remain faithful to this metaphor, then the goal of my aims, my questions, my inquiries, appears monstrous, it is true. For I want to compel all dogs thus to assemble together, I want the bones to crack open under the pressure of their collective preparedness, and then I want to dismiss them to the ordinary life they love, while all by myself, quite alone, I lap up the marrow. That sounds monstrous, almost as if I wanted to feed on the marrow, not merely of bone, but of the whole canine race itself. But it is only a metaphor. The marrow that I am discussing here is no food; on the contrary, it is a poison. "
― Franz Kafka , Investigations of a Dog
3 " Well, in the meantime, Carter and I have been discussing the matter of Ryan." This time it wasn't the clang of a pan I heard, but instead a messy smack--the contact of Carter's backhand with Dean's head, I presumed. " Just hear me out. You have options. I have an Italian uncle. He'll make sure Ryan is sleeping with the fishes by next week." " Dean!" Unable to repress my amusement, my eyes flew wide and my grin grew." Either that, or we can go all Sweeney Todd on him and--" " Oh, will you stop?" My laughter was crippling. " There will be no calls to your uncle and no trip to the barber shop--please, leave Sweeney Todd out of it. "
4 " Skip your fancy talk, Captain Lord Blackthorn. If I do your bidding, and I’m still discussing that with the Almighty, it will only be to save my arse.” Katie O'Reilly to Captain Lord Jack Blackthorn in " Titanic Rhapsody "
5 " At the tattoo parlor, my friend worked with needle and ink applying a design to the skin on his client's back, as the three of us sat discussing our spiritual desires and ambivalence about religion. In the midst of our conversation, the man under the needle turned and said, 'Jesus is cool, it's just that they have f***ed with Jesus. I mean, Christianity was at its best when it was secret and hidden and you could die for it.' This profound, if crass, statement recognizes that the power of the gospel lay in its ability to be a counter-cultural and revolutionary force - not only a story to believe, but a distinctive way of life. The man's comment prompted me to consider the questions: Am I in some measure complicit in the domestication of Jesus? "
6 " Understanding knowledge as an essential element of love is vital because we are bombarded daily with messages that tell us love is about mystery, about that which cannot be known. We see movies in which people are represented as being in love who never talk with one another, who fall into bed without ever discussing their bodies, their sexual needs, their likes and dislikes. Indeed, the message is received from the mass media is that knowledge makes love less compelling; that it is ignorance that gives love its erotic and transgressive edge. These messages are brought to us by profiteering producers who have no clue about the art of loving, who substitute their mystified visions because they do not really know how to genuinely portray loving interaction. "
7 " Parents who discipline their child by discussing the consequences of their actions produce children who have better moral development , compared to children whose parents use authoritarian methods and punishment. "
― Simon Baron-Cohen , The Science of Evil: On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty
8 " Dear 2600: I think my girlfriend has been cheating on me and I wanted to know if I could get her password to Hotmail and AOL. I am so desperate to find out. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks. And this is yet another popular category of letter we get. You say any help would be appreciated? Let’s find out if thats true. Do you think someone who is cheating on you might also be capable of having a mailbox you don’t know about? Do you think that even if you could get into the mailbox she uses that she would be discussing her deception there, especially if we live in a world where Hotmail and AOL passwords are so easily obtained? Finally, would you feel better if you invaded her privacy and found out that she was being totally honest with you? Whatever problems are going on in this relationship are not going to be solved with subterfuge. If you can’t communicate openly, there’s not much there to salvage. "
― , Dear Hacker: Letters to the Editor of 2600
9 " Never waste your precious time in discussing the good and bad qualities of others. "
10 " It is better to purposefully spend time with people talking about things that could improve them or talk about things that could improve me than to just waste time discussing irrelevant things. "
― , How To Become Great Through Time Conversion: Are you wasting time, spending time or investing time?
11 " The policemen agreed they were living with a most peculiar fellow. One moment he was reading classical literature in the original French and quoting Tennyson, and the next he would be discussing the best way to blow up a train. "
12 " I was of course discussing the book of Leviticus. I don't know why your mind is so filthy these days, Bingley. "
― Marsha Altman , The Darcys & the Bingleys: A Tale of Two Gentlemen's Marriages to Two Most Devoted Sisters (Pride and Prejudice Continues, # 1)
13 " If Darwinists are opposed to mentioning scientific problems with their view, you would think they would be even more opposed to mentioning intelligent design. Yet Darwinists have been discussing ID in public school science classes for years... Biology textbooks have been mentioning intelligent design since the late 1990s—but only to misrepresent and disparage it. "
― Jonathan Wells , The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design
14 " In a school community, someone who reads a book for some secretive purpose, other than discussing it, is strange. What was she reading for? "
― John Irving , The World According to Garp
15 " As we began discussing authorship of a white paper summarizing our conclusions, we debated who our target audience should be and what kind of outcome we were hoping to achieve. "
― Jennifer A. Doudna , A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution
16 " Therefore it is not arrogance or narrow-mindedness that leads the economist to discuss these things from the standpoint of economics. No one, who is not able to form an independent opinion about the admittedly difficult and highly technical problem of calculation in the socialist economy, should take sides in the question of socialism versus capitalism. No one should speak about interventionism who has not examined the economic consequences of interventionism. An end should be put to the common practice of discussing these problems from the standpoint of the prevailing errors, fallacies, and prejudices. It might be more entertaining to avoid the real issues and merely to use popular catchwords and emotional slogans. But politics is a serious matter. Those who do not want to think its problems through to the end should keep away from it. "
― Ludwig von Mises , Interventionism: An Economic Analysis
17 " Politics is clearly a not so happening topic in our young blood. I could clearly see many students yawning. Some might have been discussing the new Shakira video amongst themselves, the one shown on MTV these days. Bloody donkeys, if it was a porno movie featuring an interracial orgy, their eyes might have ogled out and ears might have become sensitive to the oohs and aahs but not for causes of the nation. Hrmpf …youth power indeed! "
― Faraaz Kazi
18 " I, a woman, find wearing high heels agreeable only on the very rare occasion that (1) I will be ferried between destinations upon a palanquin or (2) I am going to a cocktail party and, at five feet two, don't want to spend the evening discussing the latest movies with somebody's nipples. "
― Lauren Collins
19 " In fact, his travelogues spend amazingly little time discussing his blindness. Only one passage stands out for its frank discussion of his handicap and how it changed his worldview. In it, Holman was reminiscing about a few rendezvous from his past. Disarmingly, he admitted that he had no idea what his paramours looked like, or even whether they were homely. Moreover, he didn't care: by abandoning the standards of the sighted world, he argues, he could tap into a more divine and more authentic beauty. Hearing a woman's voice and feeling her caresses -- and then filling in what was missing with his own fancy -- gave him more pleasure than the mere sight of a women ever had, he said, a pleasure beyond reality. " Are there any who imagine," Holman asked, " that my loss of eyesight must necessarily deny me the enjoyment of such contemplation? How much more do I pity the mental darkness which could give rise to such an error. "
20 " I'm going out on a limb here and say that I believe my morality should have no bearing on the discussion of the pictures I made. ... Oscar Wilde, when attacked in a similar ad hominem way, insisted that it is senseless to speak of morality when discussing art, asserting that the hypocritical, prudish, and philistine English public, when unable to find the art in a work of art, instead looked for the main in it. "
― Sally Mann , Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs
