Quotes about comfort
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“But grieving people are selfish. They won’t let you comfort them and they say you don’t understand and they make you feel useless when all your life you’ve been functional to them.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: The Piper's Son

Life, People, Feeling, Understanding

“When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.”

Clifton Fadiman (1904–1999) American editor

People, Travel, Country

“The truth is, if we become comfortable with who we are rather than who we think we should be, then we will be less insecure.”

Daniel Gottlieb (1939–2010) French rabbi

Source: Learning from the Heart: Lessons on Living, Loving, and Listening

Truth, Thinking

“My belief is that art should not be comforting; for comfort, we have mass entertainment and one another. Art should provoke, disturb, arouse our emotions, expand our sympathies in directions we may not anticipate and may not even wish.”

Joyce Carol Oates (1938) American author

Art

“music isn't just something that comforts or distracts us, it goes beyond that - it's an ideology. you can judge people by the kind of music they listen to.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: The Witch Of Portobello

People, Music

“There is a comfort in the strength of love; 'Twill make a thing endurable, which else would overset the brain, or break the heart.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Love, Heart

“Memory - that fiend, that cruel enemy of comfort.”

Paullina Simons book Tatiana and Alexander

Source: Tatiana and Alexander

Memory

“I was very fond of Lagneau’s phrase: “I have no comfort but in my absolute despair.”

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist

Source: Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter

Despair

“This word: Thou shalt not be overcome, was said full clearly and full mightily, for assuredness and comfort against all tribulations that may come. He said not: Thou shalt not be tempested, thou shalt not be travailed, thou shalt not be afflicted; but He said: Thou shalt not be overcome. God willeth that we take heed to these words, and that we be ever strong in sure trust, in weal and woe. For He loveth and enjoyeth us, and so willeth He that we love and enjoy Him and mightily trust in Him; and all shall be well.
And soon after, all was close and I saw no more.”

Julian of Norwich book Revelations of Divine Love

The Sixteenth Revelation, Chapter 68
Source: Revelations of Divine Love

Love, God, Strong, Affliction

“He had never felt entirely comfortable around Raphael. Raphael seemed to him like Loki or some other trickster God, sometimes working for good and sometimes for evil, but always in his own interests.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

God, Evil

“In the morning light, I remembered how much I loved the sound of wind through the trees. I laid back and closed my eyes, and I was comforted by the sound of a million tiny leaves dancing on a summer morning.”

Patrick Carman book The Tenth City

Source: The Tenth City

Love, Tree, Light, Dance

“There is real comfort in being quiet.”

Justina Chen (1968) American writer

Source: North of Beautiful

“Once upon a time," he said out loud to the darkness. He said these words because they were the best, the most powerful words that he knew and just the saying of them comforted him.”

Kate DiCamillo book The Tale of Despereaux

Source: The Tale of Despereaux

Time

“But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.”

Aldous Huxley book Brave New World

Variant: I want God, I want poetry, I want danger, I want freedom, I want sin.
Source: Brave New World

God, Freedom

“When in situations of stress we wonder if there is any more in us to give, we can be comforted to know that God, who knows our capacity perfectly, placed us here to succeed”

Neal A. Maxwell (1926–2004) Mormon leader

God

“To be truthful i am not entirely sure what people mean when they talk of happiness. There are moments of joy and laughter, the comfort of friendship, but enduring happiness? If it exists i have not found it”

David Gemmell (1948–2006) British author of heroic fantasy

Friendship, Happiness, People, Truth

“I am very comfortable with conflict, be it of the legal or mortal kind. My father was a mediator, a bridge maker. I am a grave maker.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover at Last

“He had hard, steady eyes, and all the comforting, reassuring charm of a dental drill. - Harry Dresden describing Morgan”

Jim Butcher Turn Coat

Source: Turn Coat

“I am wholly yours - you are everything to me; we will sustain each other in all the ills of life it may please fate to inflict upon us; you will soothe my troubles; I will comfort you in yours.”

Denis Diderot (1713–1784) French Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopædist

Life, Fate

“… the waiters carried themselves with a quiet joy, as if their entire mission in life was to make their customers feel comfortable and well tended.”

Julia Child My Life in France

Source: My Life in France

Life, Feeling, Joy

“It must be, I thought, one of the race's most persistent and comforting hallucinations to trust that "it can't happen here" -- that one's own time and place is beyond cataclysm.”

John Wyndham book The Day of the Triffids

Source: The Day of the Triffids

Time

“… It's hard to make changes. Things get so comfortable and you don't want to move. Maybe it would do you good to be a little uncomfortable for a while, and do something different…”

Danielle Steel book Legacy

Source: Legacy

Change

“… and the night was comfortably warm as the soft filtered light continued to push the darkness into the shadows as they held each other and kissed and pushed each others darkness into the corner, believing in each others light, each others dream.”

Hubert Selby Jr. Requiem for a Dream

Source: Requiem for a Dream

Dreams, Kiss, Light, Night

“Euthanasia" is an excellent and comforting word! I am grateful to whoever invented it.”

Bram Stoker book Dracula

Source: Dracula

“[T]he Christian is unable to sin and not care… They may sin, but they cannot do so comfortably and continually. They are very much aware of their wrong actions, and they are very miserable.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

Source: Living Beyond Your Feelings: Controlling Emotions So They Don't Control You

“Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can, impatient to restore everybody not greatly in fault themselves to tolerable comfort, and to have done with all the rest.”

Jane Austen book Mansfield Park

Source: Mansfield Park

“But the very fact that this world is so challenging is exactly why you sometimes must reach out of its jurisdiction for help, appealing to a higher authority in order to find your comfort.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

World, Help

“Hassan couldn't read a first-grade textbook but he'd read me plenty. That was a little unsettling but also sort of comfortable to have someone who always knew what you needed.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner

Reading

“a woman's place is in the kitchen… sitting in a comfortable chair, with her feet up, drinking a glass of wine and watching her husband cook dinner.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

Source: Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

Drink, Wine, Cooking

“Our ability to measure and apportion time affords an almost endless source of comfort.”

Richard Yates book Revolutionary Road

Source: Revolutionary Road

Time

“Nothing goes so well with a hot fire and buttered crumpets as a wet day without and a good dose of comfortable horrors within. The heavier the lashing of the rain and the ghastlier the details, the better the flavour seems to be.”

Dorothy L. Sayers book Strong Poison

Source: Strong Poison

“Better to sleep in an uncomfortable bed free, than sleep in a comfortable bed unfree.”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Source: On the Road

Sleep

“Friendship," said Christopher Robin, "is a very comforting thing to have.”

A.A. Milne (1882–1956) British author

Friendship

“Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

“Amazing how he could make her feel. Safe in a vacant lot, warm in the middle of the night. Just being this close to him, being able to touch his thoughts and feel his presence, was comforting-and dizzying.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: Dark Visions

Feeling, Night

“He put his hand on my waist, and my heart began to pound, a rougher rhythm than the music. I held my skirt. Our free hands met. His felt warm and comforting and unsettling and bewildering--all at once.”

Gail Carson Levine Ella Enchanted

Source: Ella Enchanted

Music, Heart

“When any two young people take it into their heads to marry, they are pretty sure by perseverance to carry their point, be they ever so poor, or ever so imprudent, or ever so little likely to be necessary to each other's ultimate comfort.”

Jane Austen book Persuasion

Source: Persuasion

People, Perseverance

“All natural disasters are comforting because they reaffirm our impotence, in which, otherwise, we might stop believing. At times it is strangely sedative to know the extent of your own powerlessness.”

Erica Jong book Fear of Flying

Source: Fear of Flying

Nature, Time

“Was this what it meant to love someone? That any burden was a burden shared, that they could give you comfort with a word or a touch?”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Love

“Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren't always comfortable, but they're never weakness.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

Truth, Feeling, Courage

“Somewhere along the line we seem to have confused comfort with happiness.”

Dean Karnazes (1962) American distance runner

Source: Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner

Happiness

“What I learned

The well-documented difference
Between alone and lonely
The comfort of knowing”

David Levithan The Realm of Possibility

Source: The Realm of Possibility

Learning

“therefore i live for today-
certain of finding at sunrise
guidance and strength for the way.
power for each moment of weakness,
hope for each moment of pain,
comfort for every sorrow,
sunshine and joy after rain!”

Billy Graham (1918–2018) American Christian evangelist

Source: Hope for Each Day: Words of Wisdom and Faith

Pain, Hope, Way, Joy

“Those people cannot enjoy comfortably what God has given them because they see and covet what He has not given them. All of our discontents for what we want appear to me to spring from want of thankfulness for what we have.”

Daniel Defoe La vie et les aventures de Robinson Crusoe

Source: Robinson Crusoe (1719), Ch. 9, A Boat.
Context: I learned to look more upon the bright side of my condition, and less upon the dark side, and to consider what I enjoyed rather than what I wanted; and this gave me sometimes such secret comforts, that I cannot express them; and which I take notice of here, to put those discontented people in mind of it, who cannot enjoy comfortably what God has given them, because they see and covet something that He has not given them. All our discontents about what we want appeared to me to spring from the want of thankfulness for what we have.

God, People, Spring, Appearance

“Maybe that was why she couldn't cry, she realized, staring dry-eyed at the ceiling. Because what was the point in crying when there was no one there to comfort you? And what was worse, when you couldn't even comfort yourself?”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

Cry

“And you know, I agree to everything:
I will condemn, I will forget, I will give comfort to the enemy,
Darkness will be light and sin lovely.”

Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966) Russian modernist poet

Source: The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova

Love, Light, Forgetting

“Some days simply lay on you like stones. Some were fickle as cats, sliding away when you needed comfort, then coming back later when you didn’t want them, jostling at you, stealing your breath.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Slow Regard of Silent Things

Source: The Slow Regard of Silent Things

Cats

“Our Ford himself did a great deal to shift the emphasise from truth and beauty to comfort and hapiness. Mass production demanded the shift. Universal happiness keeps the wheels steadily turning; truth and beauty can't.”

Aldous Huxley book Brave New World

Mustapha Mond, in Ch. 16
Source: Brave New World (1932)
Context: I'm interested in truth, I like science. But truth's a menace, science is a public danger. As dangerous as it's been beneficent. … It's curious … to read what people in the time of Our Ford used to write about scientific progress. They seemed to imagine that it could go on indefinitely, regardless of everything else. Knowledge was the highest good, truth the supreme value; all the rest was secondary and subordinate. True, ideas were beginning to change even then. Our Ford himself did a great deal to shift the emphasise from truth and beauty to comfort and hapiness. Mass production demanded the shift. Universal happiness keeps the wheels steadily turning; truth and beauty can't. And, of course, whenever the masses seized political power, then it was happiness rather than truth and beauty that mattered. Still, in spite of everything, unrestricted scientific resarch was still permitted. People still went on talking about truth and beauty as though they were sovereign goods. Right up to the time of the Nine Years' War. That made them change their tune all right. What's the point of truth or beauty or knowledge when the anthrax bombs are popping all around you? That was when science first began to be controlled — after the Nine Years' War. People were ready to have even their appetites controlled then. Anything for a quiet life. We've gone on controlling ever since. It hasn't been very good for truth, of course. But it's been very good for happiness. One can't have something for nothing. Happiness has got to be paid for.

Happiness, Truth, Beauty, Universe

“Peace fell upon her spirit. Strong comfort and assurance bathed her whole being. Life was so solid and splendid, and so good.”

Thomas Wolfe book You Can't Go Home Again

Source: You Can't Go Home Again

Life, Peace, Strong

“I finally understood what my grandmother meant. If I wasn't comfortable with myself, I would never be comfortable.”

Marjane Satrapi (1969) Artist

Source: Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return

“The Heart is a lonely hunter with only one desire! To find some lasting comfort in the arms of anothers fire… driven by a desperate hunger to the arms of a neon light, the heart is a lonely hunter when there's no sign of love in sight!”

Carson McCullers book The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

Source: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Love, Hunger, Light, Heart

“There was something very comforting about him, and I was not sure if it was his easy manner or his complete immunity to my scowling.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bites

“But it was too interesting, too new, too flattering, too deeply comforting to resist, it was a liberation to be in love and say so, and she could only let herself go deeper.”

Ian McEwan book On Chesil Beach

Source: On Chesil Beach

Love

“Because being comfortable meant she might lower her guard, and she could not let that happen.”

Nicholas Sparks book Safe Haven

Source: Safe Haven

“Better the hard truth, I say, than the comforting fantasy.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Truth

“The broom wasn't as comforting as a flamethrower would have been, but it was better than a mop and certainly more threatening than a feather duster.”

Dean Koontz book Forever Odd

Source: Forever Odd

“Forgiveness has its comforts, but it can never give you back what you've lost.”

Jonathan Tropper (1970) American writer

Source: One Last Thing Before I Go

Forgiveness

“Life's greatest comfort is being able to look over your shoulder and see people worse off, waiting in line behind you.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Rant

Source: Rant

Life, People, Waiting

“Because you may think a bed is a peaceful thing, Sir, and to you it may mean rest and comfort and a good night's sleep. But it isn't so for everyone; and there are many dangerous things that may take place in a bed.”

Margaret Atwood book Alias Grace

Source: Alias Grace

Peace, Thinking, Sleep, Night

“You have no idea how to comfort anyone, do you? (Astrid)
In case you haven’t noticed, princess, social skills aren’t my forte. Hell, you’re lucky I’m housebroke. (Zarek)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon book Dance with the Devil

Source: Dance with the Devil

Idea, Hell, Princess

“Peace is the fruit of love, a love that is also justice. But to grow in love requires work -- hard work. And it can bring pain because it implies loss -- loss of the certitudes, comforts, and hurts that shelter and define us.”

Jean Vanier (1928–2019) Canadian humanitarian

Source: Finding Peace

Love, Pain, Peace, Justice

“Being alone makes us stronger. That’s the honest truth. But it’s cold comfort, since even if I wanted company no one will come near me anymore.”

Roberto Bolaño book The Savage Detectives

Source: The Savage Detectives

Truth

“Homework is not an option. My bed is sending out serious nap rays. I can't help myself. The fluffy pillows and warm comforter are more powerful than I am. I have no choice but to snuggle under the covers.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Speak

Source: Speak

Help

“But we comforted ourselves with what we really meant to say, which was: "I don't normally feel this good about what I'm doing."
Measure the hope of that moment, that feeling.
Everything else will be measured against it.”

David Levithan The Lover's Dictionary

Source: The Lover's Dictionary

Hope, Feeling

“I had this wild thought that he was the only one in all this chaos who was just like me, and that was comforting and profound all at once.”

Sarah Dessen book Dreamland

Source: Dreamland (2000)

“It's good to be out of your comfort zone. Just don't step out of your gift zone.”

John C. Maxwell (1947) American author, speaker and pastor

“If we have not quiet in our minds, outward comfort will do no more for us…”

John Bunyan (1628–1688) English Christian writer and preacher

“Cats are connoisseurs of comfort.”

James Herriot (1916–1995) veterinary surgeon and writer

Source: [Herriot, James, James Herriot's Cat Stories, 1994, 0-7181-3852-X] (in the introduction and in "Moses Found Among the Rushes")

Cats

“I feel in colour, strong tones that I hue down for the comfort of the pastelly inclined. Beige and magnolia and a hint of pink are what the well-decorated heart is wearing; who wants my blood red and vein-blue?”

Jeanette Winterson book Gut Symmetries

Source: Gut Symmetries

Feeling, Strong, Heart

“There are lots of ways of being miserable, but there’s only one way of being comfortable, and that is to stop running round after happiness. If you make up your mind not to be happy there’s no reason why you shouldn’t have a fairly good time.”

Edith Wharton (1862–1937) American novelist, short story writer, designer

Source: Ethan Frome and Other Short Fiction

Happiness, Way, Time

“I always feel sad for the girl that I was, because it never occurred to me that my mother might comfort me. She has never told me she loved me, and I never assumed she did. She tended to me. She administrated me.”

Gillian Flynn book Sharp Objects

Source: Sharp Objects

Love, Sadness, Feeling, Girl

“These Songs are not meant to be understood, you understand.
They are only meant to terrify & comfort.”

John Berryman book The Dream Songs

Source: The Dream Songs

Understanding

“The self-delusion that mysterious forces and persons unknown are conspiring against us is, surprisingly, a comforting belief, because it means we’re significant enough in this anarchic world to warrant someone’s enmity. That delusion saves us from the far more difficult to accept reality: that we’re not that important to anyone. That the universe just isn’t “into” us.
Paranoia is the emotive-psychestructure’s response to feeling ignored, unloved, or forgotten in an existence filled with random acts of destructive indifference emphasizing the inherent futility of life and struggle. If you’re ever to achieve serenity, ultimately you must accept that in such a vast cosmos, you simply don’t matter very much.”

Malcolm Azania book From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain

Source: From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain (2007), Chapter 6 “Up is Down: The Path Inside is Outside” (p. 185)

Life, World, Feeling, Reality

“Behind the steps that Misery treads
Approaching Comfort view:
The hues of bliss more brightly glow
Chastised by sabler tints of woe,
And blended form, with artful strife,
The strength and harmony of life.”

Thomas Gray (1716–1771) English poet, historian

Source: Ode on the Pleasure Arising from Vicissitude http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=oopv (1754), Line 35

Life, Art

“there is always
a comforting thought
in time of trouble when
it is not our trouble”

Don Marquis (1878–1937) American writer

comforting thoughts
archy does his part (1935)

Time

“It is very sobering to realize just what the future holds for a boy of my age. On the other hand it is a practical challenge to a man’s courage and personal integrity. A man who talks but is afraid to act, who sacrifices principle to expediency whenever real danger threatens is not worthy to keep and enjoy what he has. He is not worthy of his background and heritage who kowtows to tyranny in order to cling to his temporary safety and comfort…I trust I will have the courage to act as I speak come what may. I will not be easy – but should, therefore, can be done.”

Nile Kinnick (1918–1943) College football player

Letter to his grandmother (April 29, 1941)

Age, Boy, Courage, Future

“Whin annything was wrote about a man 'twas put this way: "We undhershtand on good authority that M-l-chi H---y, Esquire, is on thrile before Judge G---n on an accusation iv l--c-ny. But we don't think it's true." Nowadays th' larceny is discovered be a newspa-aper. Th' lead pipe is dug up in ye'er back yard be a rayporther who knew it was there because he helped ye bury it. … Th' newspaper does ivrything f'r us. It runs th' polis foorce an' th' banks, commands th' milishy, controls th' ligislachure, baptizes th' young, marries th' foolish, comforts th' afflicted, afflicts th' comfortable, buries th' dead an' roasts thim aftherward. They ain't annything it don't turn its hand to fr'm explainin' th' docthrine iv thransubstantiation to composin' saleratus biskit.”

Finley Peter Dunne (1867–1936) author

"Newspaper Publicity" in Observations by Mr. Dooley (1902) https://books.google.com/books?id=97c_AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA240&dq=%22newspaper+does+ivrything%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwioqKzz5MvPAhUJrD4KHROmCdsQ6AEIIDAA#v=onepage&q=%22newspaper%20does%20ivrything%22&f=false; part of this has sometimes been paraphrased (ignoring its original satiric meaning): The job of the newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

Way, Thinking, Affliction, Help

“Like Christianity, Buddhism explained suffering. In forms that established themselves in China, Buddhism offered the same sort of comfort to bereaved survivors and victims of violence or of disease as Christian faith did in the Roman world. Buddhism of course originated in India, where disease incidence was probably always very high as compared with civilizations based in cooler climates; Christianity, too, took shape in the urban environments of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria where the incidence of infectious disease was certainly very high as compared to conditions in cooler and less crowded places. From their inception, therefore, both faiths had to deal with sudden death by disease as one of the conspicuous facts of human life. Consequently, it is not altogether surprising that both religions taught that death was a release from pain, and a blessed avenue of entry upon a delightful afterlife where loved ones would be reunited, and earthly injustices and pains amply compensated for.”

William H. McNeill (1917–2016) Canadian historian

Source: Plagues and Peoples (1976), Ch.3.

Love, Life, Death, Pain

“If I am peaceful, I shall see
Beauty's face continually;
Feeding on her wine and bread
I shall be wholly comforted,
For she can make one day for me
Rich as my lost eternity.”

Sara Teasdale (1884–1933) American writer and poet

"The Wind in the Hemlock"
Flame and Shadow (1920)

Peace, Beauty, Wine

“Turning finally to the question raised, to be precise, it appears that [Hillary] Clinton received a slight majority of the vote. The apparent decisive victory [of Donald Trump] has to do with curious features of American politics: among other factors, the Electoral College residue of the founding of the country as an alliance of separate states; the winner-take-all system in each state; the arrangement of congressional districts (sometimes by gerrymandering) to provide greater weight to rural votes (in past elections, and probably this one too, Democrats have had a comfortable margin of victory in the popular vote for the House, but hold a minority of seats); the very high rate of abstention (usually close to half in presidential elections, this one included). Of some significance for the future is the fact that in the age 18-25 range, Clinton won handily, and Sanders had an even higher level of support. How much this matters depends on what kind of future humanity will face.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

First published in Truthout http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/38360-trump-in-the-white-house-an-interview-with-noam-chomsky on 14 November 2016. Then published in the book Optimism over Despair in 2017, pages 121-122 (ISBN 9780241981979). Quotes 2010s, 2016

Age, Question, Support, Decision

“What eie doth not pitty to see the great weaknes and decay of our ancient and common mother the earth, which now is grown so aged and stricken in yeares, and so wounded at the hart with the ploughman's goad, that she beginneth to faint under the husbandman's hand, and groaneth for the decay of her natural balsam. For whose good health and recovery, and for the better comfort of sundry simple and needy farmers of this land, I have partly undertaken these strange labours, altogether abhorring from my profession, that they might both know and practise some farther secrets in their husbandry, for the better manuring of their leane and barren groundes with some new sorts of marie not yet knowne, or not sufficiently regarded by the best experienced men of our daies.”

Hugh Plat (1552–1608) writer

Cited in: Robert Kemp Philp. The History of Progress in Great Britain http://books.google.com/books?id=s1oBAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA72, Vol. 1 (1859). p. 72 Text is about the "motive of the author for thus undertaking books of instruction upon husbandry." The Jewell House of Art and Nature, 1594

Men, Health, Secret, Age

“People get real comfortable with their features. Nobody gets comfortable with their hair. Hair trauma. It's the universal thing.”

Jamie Lee Curtis (1958) actress, author

Quoted in Funny Ladies: The Best Humor from America's Funniest Women by Bill Adler p. 36

People, Universe

“Yes, [science is my God] in a sense. I'm comfortable with the unknown, that's the point of science. There are places out there, billions of places out there that we know nothing about. And the fact that we know nothing about them excites me, and I want to go out and find out about them. And that's what science is. So I think if you're not comfortable with the unknown, then it's difficult to be a scientist. So I don't need an answer; I don't need answers to everything. I want to have answers to find.”

Brian Cox (physicist) (1968) English physicist and former musician

Johnathan Ross Show 26 March 2010 BBC One

God, Thinking, Sense, Science

“We're more comfortable in that kind of business. It means we miss a lot of very big winners. But we wouldn't know how to pick them out anyway. It also means we have very few big losers - and that's quite helpful over time. We're perfectly willing to trade away a big payoff for a certain payoff.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

1999 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting, as quoted in "Why Won't Buffett Invest in Tech Stocks?" at Motley Fool (6 March 2000) http://www.fool.com/boringport/2000/boringport000306.htm

Business, Time, Help

“The man, who was probably an itinerant traditional circumciser from the blacksmith clan, picked up a pair of scissors. With the other hand, he caught hold of the place between my legs and started tweaking it, like Grandma milking a goat. "There it is, the kintir," one of the women said. Then the scissors went down between my legs and the man cut off my inner labia and clitoris. I heard it, like a butcher snipping the fat off a piece of meat. A piercing pain shot up between my legs, indescribable, and I howled. Then came the sewing: the long, blunt needle clumsily pushed into my bleeding outer labia, my loud and anguished protests, Grandma's words of comfort and encouragement. "It's just this once in your life, Ayaan. Be brave, it's almost finished."”

Ayaan Hirsi Ali book Infidel

When the sewing was finished, he cut the thread off with his teeth.
Source: Infidel (2007), Chapter 2: Under the Talal Tree

Life, Women, Pain, Grandma

“India is yet another major victim of Islam. The day Muhammad bin Qasim, entered Sindh as a conqueror, must rank as the most ominous, odious and outrageous moment in the history of India, whose proud, pious and powerful traditions have been the torch-bearer of world civilisation. The Indians, used to enjoying the warmth of ahinsa, were stunned by the violence that the Arab raiders displayed in robbing the rich and seducing the indigenous damsels. Yet the irony was that they did all this in the name of the Most Compassionate and Just Allah, who counts these felonies as acts of fairness when they are committed to torture the unbelievers. Then, this land that had become indifferent to the vicissitudes of history owing to a very long period of prosperity and plentitude, was attracted by more Islamic predators, who rushed in through the Khaiber Pass to loot her wealth, dishonour her daughters and crush her ethos that had stood the test of time despite its proneness to physical comforts and spiritual mirages such as ahinsa.”

Anwar Shaikh (1928–2006) British Pakistani writer

Anwar Shaikh (1998). Anwar Shaikh's Islam, the Arab imperialism. Cardiff: Principality Publishers.

World, History, Time, Daughters

“Worn with tights it is not an issue, although there is something deeply unfeminist about not being able to sit down in one comfortably.”

Sienna Guillory (1975) British actress

Something deeply unfeminist about a miniskirt Article http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/fashion/article432962.ece. Cinemania. May 27, 2004. Guillory speaks in response to the question, How old is too old for a micro-mini?

“92. A Father is a Treasure, a Brother a Comfort; but a Friend is both.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Compare Poor Richard's Almanack (1747) : A Father's a Treasure; a Brother's a Comfort; a Friend is both.
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)