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“More than iron doors, more than walls, it is the tiny peephole that really makes the prisoner feel locked in.”

Kóbó Abe book The Woman in the Dunes

Part 2, Ch. 21
The Woman in the Dunes (1962)

“Nothing is more important than pastoral care for people in need. […] For me, nothing is less important than theology.”

Helmut Schmidt (1918–2015) Chancellor of West Germany 1974-1982

im Gespräch mit Hans Küng über den Weltethos, 2007, YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3S4KhE6nzzQ#t=5m8s

“Woman, a thing changeable in nature,
more than whistles in the wind and more than the tip
of a supple stalk of wheat.”

Torquato Tasso Aminta

Femina, cosa mobil per natura,
Più che fraschetta al vento, e più che cima
Di pieghevole spica.
Act I, scene ii. Compare: "Varium et mutabile semper femina", Virgil, Aeneid, 4.569.
Aminta (1573)

“Separation isn't time or distance
it's the bridge between us
finer than silk thread sharper than swords”

Nâzım Hikmet (1902–1963) Turkish poet

From Separation (6 June 1960)

“Trying to be better than someone else is a pure waste of time. Strive to be better than you were yesterday.”

Eric Stanley

Eric Stanley on CBS News https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksYrWGivy5A <br class="br">2011

“Soft words soften the hearts that are harder than rock, harsh words harden hearts that are softer than silk.”

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058–1111) Persian Muslim theologian, jurist, philosopher, and mystic

“Now we're busy making all our busy plans
On foundations built to last.
But nothing fades as fast as the future
And nothing clings like the past, until we can see.More than this,
More than this.
So much more than this.
There is something out there
More than this.
It's coming through
And more than this.
I stand alone and so connected
And I'm all there,
Right next to you.”

Peter Gabriel (1950) English singer-songwriter, record producer and humanitarian

More Than This
Song lyrics, Up (2002)

“The mystery story is a kind of writing that need not dwell in the shadow of the past and owes little if any allegiance to the cult of the classics. It is a good deal more than unlikely that any writer now living will produce a better historical novel than Henry Esmond, a better tale of children than The Golden Age, a sharper social vignette than Madame Bovary, a more graceful and elegant evocation than The Spoils of Poynton, a wider and richer canvas than War and Peace or The Brothers Karamazov. But to devise a more plausible mystery than The Hound of the Baskervilles or The Purloined Letter should not be too difficult. Nowadays it would be rather more difficult not to.”

Raymond Chandler book The Simple Art of Murder

Introduction
The Simple Art of Murder (1950)

“She weighed no more than a feather as he lifted her, but he teased her, saying, "You weigh more than you look."
"You are weaker than you look," she immediately whispered.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: If You Dare

“Without ideality, there is no grandeur; without grandeur there is no beauty. Olympus is a mountain. The most effective monument will always be the Pyramids. Exuberance is better than taste; the desert is better than a streetpavement, and a savage is surely better than a hairdresser!”

Gustave Flaubert book Sentimental Education

Source: Sentimental Education (1869), Pt. 1, Ch. 4; the most famous portion of this statement is "Exuberance is better than taste..." [Mieux vaut l'exubérance que le goût.]

“They be crazier than we are.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Blue Moon

Source: Blue Moon

“There is more to living than”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

“Better than a play!”

Charles II of England (1630–1685) King of England, Ireland and Scotland

On the House of Lords' debate on Lord Ross's Divorce Bill (1610), as quoted in King Charles the Second (1931) by Arthur Bryant

“The members of the Japanese enlightenment of the early 1870's, Fukuzawa among them, now reasoned as follows: Japan can keep its independence only if it becomes stronger. It can become stronger only with the help of science. It will use science effectively only if it does not just practice science but also believes in the underlying ideology. To many traditional Japanese this ideology-the scientific worldview- was barbaric. But, so the followers of Fukuzawa argued, it was necessary to adopt barbaric ways, to regard them as advanced, to introduce the whole of Western civilization in order to survive. Having been thus prepared, Japanese scientists soon branched out as their Western colleagues had done before and falsified the uniform ideology that had started the development. The lesson I draw from this sequence of events is that a uniform 'scientific view of the world' may be useful for people doing science… However, it is a disaster for outsiders(philosophers, fly-by-night mystics, prophets of a new age, the (educated public"), who, being undisturbed by the complexities of research, are liable to fall for the most simpleminded and most vapid tale.”

Paul Karl Feyerabend (1924–1994) Austrian-born philosopher of science

pg 160.
Conquest of Abundance (2001 [posthumous])

“O people! Your God is one and your forefather (Adam) is one. An Arab is not better than a non-Arab and a non-Arab is not better than an Arab, and a red (i. e. white tinged with red) person is not better than a black person and a black person is not better than a red person, except in piety.”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Narrated in Mosnad Ahmad, #22978
Sunni Hadith

“I have known the joy and pain of friendship. I have served and been served. I have made some good enemies for which I am not a bit sorry. I have loved unselfishly, and I have fondled hatred with the red-hot tongs of Hell. That's living.”

Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960) American folklorist, novelist, short story writer

“I have a big hole in my heart," I said. "But it'll close over."
I don't want to sound all Dr. Phil," she said. "But don't let the scab seal the pain in, okay?"
That's good advice," I said. "I hope I can manage it.”

Charlaine Harris book Definitely Dead

Source: Definitely Dead

“I wish I could take away your pain. I wish I could go back to when you were born and take you somewhere safe. Far away from all the people who’ve hurt you. (Kiara)
You’re doing that now. (Nykyrian)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Born of the Night

“I learned that just beneath the surface there's another world, and still different worlds as you dig deeper. I knew it as a kid, but I couldn't find the proof. It was just a kind of feeling. There is goodness in blue skies and flowers, but another force--a wild pain and decay--also accompanies everything.”

David Lynch (1946) American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was Dostoevsky and Dickens who taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who ever had been alive.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States

As quoted in "Doom and glory of knowing who you are" by Jane Howard, in LIFE magazine, Vol. 54, No. 21 (24 May 1963), p. 89 https://books.google.com/books?id=mEkEAAAAMBAJ; a part of this statement has often been quoted as it was paraphrased in The New York Times (1 June 1964): <br class="br">Context: You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was Dostoevsky and Dickens who taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who ever had been alive. Only if we face these open wounds in ourselves can we understand them in other people. An artist is a sort of emotional or spiritual historian. His role is to make you realize the doom and glory of knowing who you are and what you are. He has to tell, because nobody else can tell, what it is like to be alive.