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21 " My conception of a novel is that it ought to be a personal struggle, a direct and total engagement with the author's story of his or her own life. This conception, again, I take from Kafka, who, although he was never transformed into an insect, and although he never had a piece of food (an apple from his family's table!) lodged in his flesh and rotting there, devoted his whole life as a writer to describing his personal struggle with his family, with women, with moral law, with his Jewish heritage, with his Unconscious, with his sense of guilt, and with the modern world. Kafka's work, which grows out of the nighttime dreamworld in Kafka's brain, is *more* autobiographical than any realistic retelling of his daytime experiences at the office or with his family or with a prostitute could have been. What is fiction, after all, if not a kind of purposeful dreaming? The writer works to create a dream that is vivid and has meaning, so that the reader can then vividly dream it and experience meaning. And work like Kafka's, which seems to proceed directly from dream, is therefore an exceptionally pure form of autobiography. There's an important paradox here that I would like to stress: the greater the autobiographical content of a fiction writer's work, the *smaller* its superficial resemblance to the writer's actual life. The deeper the writer digs for meaning, the more the random particulars of the writer's life become *impediments* to deliberate dreaming. "
― Jonathan Franzen , Farther Away
22 " A decent life, even a short life, will always be far better than an exceptionally long life lived in ruin. "
― Steven J. Carroll
23 " Sad is one of those words that has given up its life for our country, it's been a martyr for the American dream, it's been neutralized, co-opted by our culture to suggest a tinge of discomfort that lasts the time it takes for this and then for that to happen, the time it takes to change a channel. But sadness is real because once it meant something real. It meant dignified, grave; it meant trustworthy; it meant exceptionally bad, deplorable, shameful; it meant massive, weighty, forming a compact body; it meant falling heavily; and it meant of a color: dark. It meant dark in color, to darken. It meant me. I felt sad. "
― Claudia Rankine , Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric
24 " Why do customers (and that includes you and me) find it so difficult to recall more than a couple of occasions when they felt that they were treated exceptionally by the salespeople who dealt with them? "
25 " Everybody is standing, but you must stand out.Everybody is breaking grounds; but you must breakthrough!Everybody scratching it; but you must scratch it hard!Everybody is going, but you must keep going extra miles!Dare to be exceptionally excellent and why not? "
― Israelmore Ayivor
26 " There once were four sistersWho were exceptionally ordinary,But desired more than a maiden should desireRavaged by their shameful wantsTheir loving hearts never bloomedInstead four wicked bramblesGrew in their placeEach taintedWith poisonous magic "
27 " The life of Jesus suggests that to be like Abba is to show compassion. Donald Gray expresses this: " Jesus reveals in an exceptionally human life what it is to live a divine life, a compassionate life. "
28 " I have a fabulous idea." " Oh, I don't like this. Last time you had a fabulous idea, I wore a cast for six weeks. I still can't straighten my arm completely." " That was years ago," I said, brushing aside her concern. " This one will work. Do you have any exceptionally handsome men friends, willing to be my fiancé? "
29 " I have a fabulous idea.Oh, I don't like this. Last time you had a fabulous idea I wore a cast for six weeks. I still can't straighten my arm completely.That was years ago. This one will work. Do you have any exceptionally handsome men friends, willing to be my fiancé? "
30 " It does not mean you are not awesome, if no one ever appreciates your beauty. But I can see that, in your juicy eyes, funny smiles and innocent face. And I am telling you now; you are exceptionally beautiful and awesome. "
― M.F. Moonzajer , LOVE, HATRED AND MADNESS
31 " You cannot define success and do that exceptionally well without a mention of " gratitude" . "
32 " I lack nothing, I tell you!”“Nothing?” I asked. “Not even heaven?”He lowered his head and was silent. But after a moment:“Heaven is too high for me. The earth is good, exceptionally good–and near me!”“Nothing is nearer to us than heaven. The earth is beneath our feet and we tread upon it, but heaven is within us. "
― Nikos Kazantzakis
33 " The second hugely seductive move is to signal that we view the other person with a mixture of tenderness and realism. It’s often imagined that it’ll be seductive to convey an air of adoration, to hint that the other strikes us as exceptionally attractive or accomplished. But surprisingly, it is deeply worrying to be obviously adored, because everyone, from the inside, knows very well that they don’t deserve intense acclaim, are often disappointing and sometimes quite simply pitiful.So seduction involves suggesting both that one likes the other person a lot – and yet can see their frailty quite clearly, that one cope with it and forgive it with gentle indulgence. One might, towards the end of the evening drop in a small warm tease that alludes to our understanding of some less than perfect side of them: ‘I suppose you stayed under the duvet feeling a bit sorry for yourself after that?’ we might ask, with a benign smile.Such a gesture implies that we like another person not under a mistaken notion that they are flawless but with a full and unfrightened appreciation of their frailties. That ends up being powerfully seductive because it is, first and foremost, reassuring. It suggests the ideal way that we would like someone to view us within the testing conditions of a real relationship. We crave not admiration, but to be properly known and yet still liked and forgiven. "
― Alain de Botton
34 " The pleasure we found in working together made us exceptionally patient "
35 " Rather nice night, after all. Stars are out and everything. Exceptionally tasty assortment of them. "
― F. Scott Fitzgerald , The Beautiful and Damned
36 " Amazing, life-altering anonymous picture quotes on FaceBook: Are they created by graphic designers who steal quotes or don't bother to research the author, or are they original and just have exceptionally less ego than I do? Cos if I ever write something that brilliant it's gonna have flashing headlights. "
― Fierce Dolan
37 " Mr. Gweta looked ten years younger than Professor Khupe had expected. His jet-black hair was trimmed so neatly that it would make a manicured golf course look scruffy. His face was exceptionally smooth, giving the impression that he had been born without skin pores and transitioned through puberty devoid of any facial hair to pockmark his countenance. Mr. Gweta’s face was perfectly symmetrical. An ant walking from one side to the other would experience a serious case of déjà vu. "
― Taona Dumisani Chiveneko , The Hangman's Replacement: Sprout of Disruption
38 " If you wish to succeed as a leader, you should be capable of transforming the souls of people, which control their intellect, mind and body. A good leader transforms the souls of the people, which then become like his own soul...Once the nature of the followers is changed, they ‘willingly’ follow the path of their leader A leader transforms ordinary men into exceptionally powerful people just like a strong magnet transforms an ordinary piece of iron into a powerful magnet. "
― Awdhesh Singh
39 " Don't worry,' she told him. 'I am exceptionally good at keeping secrets.'- Frankie Landau-Banks "
― E. Lockhart , The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks
40 " It was likely her due, then, that a familiar voice halted her progress just as she started to ascend the staircase. “You’ve certainly turned the afternoon on its head.” Lucas regarded her with a wry smile from the first landing, his thick brown hair blending into an exceptionally large portrait of Gravethorne’s favorite hounds. “How does it feel to be the most notorious debutante in London?”Sparring with Lucas Bellamy held little appeal to her at the moment, but Amy was incapable of letting a jab go unanswered. She gripped the decorative knob on the newel post and lifted her chin. “Slightly inconvenienced yet decidedly more powerful, I think. "