Source: The Sweet Far Thing
“I don't know these people and they aren't my flowers.”
Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005), p. 43
“One possible reason why things aren't going according to plan is that there never was a plan.”
The Devil and Daniel Webster (1937)
Harijan, 30-1-1937, p. 407; In: My God (1962), Chapter 13. Pathways of God http://www.mkgandhi.org/god/mygod/pathwaystogod.html, Printed and Published by: Jitendra T. Desai, Navajivan Mudranalaya, Ahemadabad-380014 India
Posthumous publications (1950s and later)
Source: How to Speak Dragonese
“Well, the Belgians aren't a seafaring people, are they?”
In a reaction when a Belgian minister spoke negatively about the libertarian ideas of the Dutch on pornography, following the above quotation.
P.J.S. (Piet) de Jong http://www.parlement.com/9291000/biof/00652 (Parlement & Politiek)
“If numbers aren't beautiful, I don't know what is.”
Frequent remark, as quoted in My Brain Is Open : The Mathematical Journeys of Paul Erdos (1998) by Bruce Schechter, p. 14
Source: Factotum (1975), Ch. 73
Context: There were always men looking for jobs in America. There were always all these usable bodies. And I wanted to be a writer. Almost everybody was a writer. Not everybody thought they could be a dentist or an automobile mechanic but everybody knew they could be a writer. Of those fifty guys in the room, probably fifteen of them thought they were writers. Almost everybody used words and could write them down, i. e., almost everybody could be a writer. But most men, fortunately, aren't writers, or even cab drivers, and some men - many men - unfortunately aren't anything.
“It's the things that aren't accepted as conventionally beautiful that I find more attractive.”
Freeman, Hadley (2007). "The geek of chic" http://www.theage.com.au/news/fashion/the-geek-of-chic/2007/03/08/1173166892312.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap2 TheAge.com.au (accessed April 19, 2007)
