Quotes

Chuck Palahniuk photo
Javier Cercas photo

“fiction always surpasses reality but reality is always richer than fiction.”

Javier Cercas (1962) Spanish writer, journalist and professor of Spanish literature

Source: Outlaws

René Descartes photo

“In order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn than to contemplate.”

René Descartes (1596–1650) French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist
Bryce Courtenay photo
Bob Dylan photo

“Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964), My Back Pages
Variant: I was so much older then; I'm younger than that now.

From the back pages

Plutarch photo

“Do not speak of your happiness to one less fortunate than yourself.”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

Source: The Fall of the Roman Republic: Six Lives

Mario Puzo photo

“The lawyer with the briefcase can steal more money than the man with the gun.”

Variant: Lawyers can steal more money with a briefcase than a thousand men with guns and masks."

-Don Vito Corleone
Source: The Godfather

Joan Aiken photo

“Words are like spices. Too many is worse than too few.”

Joan Aiken (1924–2004) English fiction writer

Source: The Last Slice of Rainbow and Other Stories

Nicholas Sparks photo

“Traveling has less to do with seeing things than experiencing them….”

Travis Parker, Chapter 8, p. 101
Source: 2000s, The Choice (2007)

Oscar Wilde photo

“Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.”

The Decay of Lying (1889)

Alfred Adler photo

“It is always easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.”

Alfred Adler (1870–1937) Medical Doctor, Psychologist, Psychiatrist, Psychotherapist, Personality Theorist

Quoted in: Phyllis Bottome, Alfred Adler: Apostle of Freedom (1939), ch. 5
Problems of Neurosis: A Book of Case Histories (1929)

“There were more ways to live than the ones given by one's superiors”

Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Victor Hugo photo

“God knows better than we do what we need.”

Source: Les Misérables