“Why do we have such a finite capacity for pleasure but an infinite one for pain?”
Marian Keyes (1963) Irish writer
Source: The Other Side of the Story
“Why do we have such a finite capacity for pleasure but an infinite one for pain?”
Marian Keyes (1963) Irish writer
Source: The Other Side of the Story
David Lynch (1946) American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor
McKenna interview (1992)
Joseph Chamberlain (1836–1914) British businessman, politician, and statesman
Said to Beatrice Webb as recorded in her diary (12 January 1884), quoted in Webb, My Apprenticeship (Penguin, 1971), p. 141.
1880s
John Brunner The Shockwave Rider
Bk. 1, Ch. "Paradox, Next Stop After the Boondocks
The Shockwave Rider (1975)
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist
Though research done for Wikiquote indicates that the attribution of this remark to Hugo seems extensive on the internet, no source has been identified. It seems to be a statement a modern satirist might make, derived from one made circa 1910 by Mrs Patrick Campbell regarding homosexuals: "Does it really matter what these affectionate people do — so long as they don’t do it in the streets and frighten the horses?"
Disputed
Barbara Ehrenreich (1941) American writer and journalist
Source: Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America (2001), Ch. 1: Serving in Florida (p. 31)
“Oh I don't mind going to weddings, just as long as it's not my own…”
Tom Waits (1949) American singer-songwriter and actor
Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) American artist
Source: 1950's, Interview by William Wright, Summer 1950, p. 144
“In a true zero-defects approach, there are no unimportant items.”
Philip B. Crosby (1926–2001) Quality guru
Philip B. Crosby (1989), Let's Talk Quality: 96 Questions You Always Wanted to Ask Phil Crosby, p. 9