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1 " I am often thought of as being remarkably bright, and yet my brains, more often than not, are busily devising new and interesting ways of bringing my enemies to sudden, gagging, writhing, agonizing death. "
― Alan Bradley , The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag (Flavia de Luce, #2)
2 " The universe danced towards life. Life was a remarkably common commodity. Anything sufficiently complicated seemed to get cut in for some, in the same way that anything massive enough got a generous helping of gravity. The universe had a definite tendency towards awareness. This suggested a certain subtle cruelty woven into the very fabric of space-time. "
― Terry Pratchett , Soul Music (Discworld, #16; Death, #3)
3 " Hearts may break, but hearts are the toughest of muscles, able to pump for a lifetime, seventy times a minute, and scarcely falter along the way. Even dreams, the most delicate and intangible of things, can prove remarkably difficult to kill. "
― Neil Gaiman , Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders
4 " My house seems remarkably full of people," he observed. " Is it possible we were expected. "
5 " Claptrap last week,” Lady D announced. “I think the priest is getting old.”Gareth opened his mouth, but before he could say a word, his grandmother’s cane swung around in a remarkably steady horizontal arc. “Don’t,” she warned, “make a comment beginning with the words, ‘Coming from you…’”“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he demurred.“Of course you would,” she stated. “You wouldn’t be my grandson if you wouldn’t.” She turned to Hyacinth. “Don’t you agree?”To her credit, Hyacinth folded her hands in her lap and said, “Surely there is no right answer to that question.”“Smart girl,” Lady D said approvingly.“I learn from the master.”Lady Danbury beamed. “Insolence aside,” she continued determinedly, gesturing toward Gareth as if he were some sort of zoological specimen, “he really is an exceptional grandson. Couldn’t have asked for more.”Gareth watched with amusement as Hyacinth murmured something that was meant to convey her agreement without actually doing so.“Of course,” Grandmother Danbury added with a dismissive wave of her hand, “he hasn’t much in the way of competition. The rest of them have only three brains to share among them.”Not the most ringing of endorsements, considering that she had twelve living grandchildren.“I’ve heard some animals eat their young,” Gareth murmured, to no one in particular.Hyacinth wrinkled her nose, as she always did when she was thinking hard. It wasn’t a terribly attractive expression, but the alternative was simply not to think, which she didn’t find appealing. "
6 " Don’t dash off a six-thousand-word story before breakfast. Don’t write too much. Concentrate your sweat on one story, rather than dissipate it over a dozen. Don’t loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club, and if you don’t get it you will none the less get something that looks remarkably like it. Set yourself a “stint,” [London wrote 1,000 words nearly every day of his adult life] and see that you do that “stint” each day; you will have more words to your credit at the end of the year.Study the tricks of the writers who have arrived. They have mastered the tools with which you are cutting your fingers. They are doing things, and their work bears the internal evidence of how it is done. Don’t wait for some good Samaritan to tell you, but dig it out for yourself.See that your pores are open and your digestion is good. That is, I am confident, the most important rule of all.Keep a notebook. Travel with it, eat with it, sleep with it. Slap into it every stray thought that flutters up into your brain. Cheap paper is less perishable than gray matter, and lead pencil markings endure longer than memory.And work. Spell it in capital letters. WORK. WORK all the time. Find out about this earth, this universe; this force and matter, and the spirit that glimmers up through force and matter from the maggot to Godhead. And by all this I mean WORK for a philosophy of life. It does not hurt how wrong your philosophy of life may be, so long as you have one and have it well.The three great things are: GOOD HEALTH; WORK; and a PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. I may add, nay, must add, a fourth—SINCERITY. Without this, the other three are without avail; with it you may cleave to greatness and sit among the giants." magazine, March 1903)] "
7 " Don't loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club, and if you don't get it you will nonetheless get something that looks remarkably like it. "
― Jack London
8 " Modern life seems to recede further and further away from nature, and closely connected with this fact we seem to be losing the feeling of reverence towards nature. It is probably inevitable when science and machinery, capitalism and materialism go hand in hand so far in a most remarkably successful manner. Mysticism, which is the life of religion in whatever sense we understand it, has come to be relegated altogether in the background. Without a certain amount of mysticism there is no appreciation for the feeling of reverence, and, along with it, for the spiritual significance of humility. Science and scientific technique have done a great deal for humanity; but as far as our spiritual welfare is concerned we have not made any advances over that attained by our forefathers. In fact we are suffering at present the worst kind of unrest all over the world. "
― D.T. Suzuki , The Training of the Zen Buddhist Monk
9 " Has anybody ever told you you’re a remarkably cynical person?”“I like to think of it as learning from experience. "
― Benedict Jacka , Taken (Alex Verus, #3)
10 " Intelligent Design is a remarkably uncreative theory that abandons the search for understanding at the very point where it is most needed. If Intelligent Design is really a science, then the burden is on its scientists to discover the mechanisms used by the Intelligent Designer. (80) "
― Michael Shermer , Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design
11 " Dismissed like a dog. Damon groped for his jacket behind him, found it, and wished that his groping for his sense of humor could be as successful. The faces around him were all the same. They could have been carved in stone.But not stone as hard as that that was coming together again around his soul. That rock was remarkably quick to mend—and an extra layer was added, like the layering of a pearl, but not covering anything nearly so pretty. "
― L.J. Smith
12 " One thing we have learned is this: bringing compassionate, unflinching awareness to gender dynamics in groups and communities is a remarkably powerful place to begin. As in all spiritual practice, deepening awareness is itself transformative. "
― , Divine Duality: The Power of Reconciliation Between Women and Men
13 " I don't believe that humans can be reduced to homo economicus, but as a group, government officials are remarkably sensitive to financial, political, and reputational costs. Thus, when new technologies appear to reduce the costs of using lethal force, their threshold for deciding to use lethal force correspondingly drops. If killing a suspected terrorist in Yemen or Somalia or Libya will endanger expensive manned aircraft, the lives of U.S. troops, and/or the lives of many innocent civilians, officials will reserve such killings for situations of extreme urgency and gravity (stopping another 9/11, getting Osama bin Laden). But if all that appears to be at risk is a an easily replaceable drone, officials will be tempted to use lethal force more and more casually. "
― , How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything: Tales from the Pentagon
14 " Contemporary Christians have declared war on individual immorality but seem remarkably silent about the evil of systems, especially corporate greed and malfeasance. (p. 176) "
― Robin R. Meyers , Saving Jesus from the Church: How to Stop Worshiping Christ and Start Following Jesus
15 " It struck me as particularly suspicious that Yahweh was described as being remarkably human. I mean, seriously; this God is, at times, almost too human. "
― Michael Vito Tosto , Portrait of an Infidel: The Acerbic Account of How a Passionate Christian Became an Ardent Atheist
16 " I'd hoped for someone who was remarkably intelligent, but disadvantaged by home circumstance, someone who only needed an hour's extra tuition a week to become some kind of working-class prodigy. I wanted my hour a week to make the difference between a future addicted to heroin and a future studying English at Oxford. That was the sort of kid I wanted, and instead they'd given me someone whose chief interest was in eating fruit. I mean, what did he need to read for? There's an international symbol for the gents' toilets, and he could always get his mother to tell him what was on television. "
― Nick Hornby , A Long Way Down
17 " However much this annoyed me, it is accepted practice for a duellist's supporters to cheer them on- in fact, i was entitled to similar outbursts from my own admirers.'This Undriel fellow really is remarkably skilled,'Kest remarked.Undriel. That was the bastard's name.Brasti came to my defence, after a fashion. 'It's not Falcio's fault. He's getting old. And slow. Also, i think he might be getting fat. Just look at him- barely four months since he beat Shuran and already he's half the man he once was.'Always nice to have friends nearby in troubled times, i thought, batting at Undriel's blade with a clumsy parry that was testament to my increasing exhaustion. "
― Sebastien de Castell , Saint's Blood (Greatcoats, #3)
18 " So that it must be only by the imagination that Satan has access to the soul, to tempt and delude it, or suggest anything to it. And this seems to be the reason why persons that are under the disease of melancholy are commonly so visibly and remarkably subject to the suggestions and temptations of Satan... Innumerable are the ways by which the mind may be led on to all kind of evil thoughts, by the exciting of external ideas in the imagination. "
― Jonathan Edwards , The Religious Affections
19 " Granny," said Esk, in the exasperated and remarkably adult voice children use to berate their wayward elders. " I don't think you quite understand. I don't want to hit the ground. It's never done anything to me. "
20 " You’re as plain as the nose on your face,” said Mr. Pennyworth. “And your nose is remarkably obvious. As is the rest of your face, young man. As are you. For the sake of all that is holy, empty your mind. Now. You are an empty alleyway. You are a vacant doorway. You are nothing. Eyes will not see you. Minds will not hold you. Where you are is nothing and nobody. "
― Neil Gaiman , The Graveyard Book
