“Looking foolish does the spirit good. The need not to look foolish is one of youth’s many burdens; as we get older we are exempted from more and more, and float upward in our heedlessness, singing Gratia Dei sum quod sum.”

— John Updike

Source: Self-Consciousness : Memoirs (1989), Ch. 6; Gratia Dei sum quod sum translates to ”Thanks be to God that I am what I am”

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American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, an… 1932–2009

Richard Kadrey (1957) San Francisco-based novelist, freelance writer, and photographer

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“Only if you are afraid of looking foolish, and I would have looked far more foolish if I persisted with an erroneous belief.' Eragon said.
Why, little one, you just said something wise!'Saphira teased.”

Christopher Paolini book Eldest

Source: Eldest

“So in sum, what are we? We are the creatures that know and know too much. That leaves us with such a burden again we have a choice, to laugh or cry. No other animal does either. We do, depending on the season and the need.”

Ray Bradbury book Something Wicked This Way Comes

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“Our real discoveries come from chaos, from going to the place that looks wrong and stupid and foolish.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Invisible Monsters

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“We are all the sum total of our pasts, good and evil.”

Glen Cook book She Is the Darkness

Source: She Is the Darkness (1997), Chapter 95 (p. 614)

“Men are foolish, are they not, Mademoiselle? To eat, to drink, to breathe the good air, it is a very pleasant thing, Mademoiselle. One is foolish to leave all that simply because one has no money — or because the heart aches. L´amour, it causes many fatalities, does it not?”

Agatha Christie book The Mystery of the Blue Train

Hercule Poirot
The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928)

“people run away from burdens these days. There's nothing they hate more than to be burdened or tied. This accounts for this perverse cult of youthfulness: youth is in itself the yet unburdened state - so we worship youthful looks as the sign and symbol of that craving, almost the promise of its fulfilment. But to attempt to keep it for ever only leads to sterility in every sense: monstrous perversion of youth, destined as blossom of the fruit…”

Ida Friederike Görres (1901–1971) Austrian writer and noble

Broken Lights Diaries 1953-54.

“…there is a sum of evil equal to the sum of good, the continuing equilibrium of the world requires that there be as many good people as wicked people…”

Marquis de Sade (1740–1814) French novelist and philosopher

Justine or The Misfortunes of Virtue (1787)

“Basically, to sum up: We're a generation of anarchists, and we just haven't gotten our hands on the means of production yet so we can fetter the wheels. We haven't been handed the controls yet except to the Internet, which is why it looks like it does.”

Mark Pesce (1962) American writer

An Afternoon with Mark Pesce: The Uncut Version http://hyperreal.org/~mpesce/interview.html

“There is no refuge from memory and remorse in this world. The spirits of our foolish deeds haunt us, with or without repentance.”

Gilbert Parker (1862–1932) Canadian novelist and British politician

“Looking foolish does the spirit good. The need not to look foolish is one of youth’s many burdens; as we get older we are exempted from more and more, and float upward in our heedlessness, singing Gratia Dei sum quod sum.”

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