Quotes about spot
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“Gabe scratched his double chin. "Maybe if you hurry with the seven-layer dip… And maybe if the kid apologizes for interrupting my poker game."
Maybe if I kick you in your soft spot, I thought. And make you sing Soprano for a week.”

Rick Riordan book The Lightning Thief

Source: The Lightning Thief

Game, Singing

“People don't get it. He didn't even have a fuckin' map; what kind of idiot? THAT was the point. There's no blank spots on the map anymore, anywhere on earth. If you want a blank spot on the map, you gotta leave the map behind.”

Jon Krakauer (1954) American outdoors writer and journalist

People

“Everyone has their weak spot. The one thing that, despite your best efforts, will always bring you to your knees, regardless of how strong you are otherwise.”

Sarah Dessen Lock and Key

Source: Lock and Key

Effort, Strong

“There is a dead spot in the night, that coldest, blackest time when the world has forgotten evening and dawn is not yet a promise. A time when it is far too early to arise, but so late that going to bed makes small sense.”

Robin Hobb book Assassin's Quest

Source: Assassin's Quest

World, Sense, Time, Night

“The purpose of dancing isn't to end up at a particular spot on the floor. The purpose of dancing and of life is to enjoy every moment and every step, regardless of where you are when the music ends.”

Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer

Life, Music, Dance

“Some women wait for themselves around the next corner and call the empty spot peace but the opposite of living is only not living and the stars do not care.”

Audre Lorde (1934–1992) writer and activist

Women, Peace, Star, Waiting

“I parked in front of the Field Museum under a NO PARKING sign. There were a couple of actual spots I could have used, but the drive was even closer. Besides, I found it aesthetically satisfying to defy municipal code.”

Jim Butcher Dead Beat

Source: Dead Beat

“I see that there will be no end to imperfection, or to doing things the wrong way. Even if you grow up, no matter how hard you scrub, whatever you do, there will always be some other stain or spot on your face or stupid act, somebody frowning.”

Margaret Atwood book Cat's Eye

Source: Cat's Eye

Stupidity, Way

“There can be no more beautiful spot to die in, no spot more worthy of total despair, than one’s own novel.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

Source: Diaries of Franz Kafka

Beauty, Despair

“I think when you are truly stuck, when you have stood still in the same spot for too long, you throw a grenade in exactly the spot you were standing in, and jump, and pray. It is the momentum of last resort.”

Renata Adler (1938) American author, journalist and film critic

Source: Speedboat

Thinking

“She (Annabeth) put her hand on my spine, and my skin tingled. I (Percy) moved her fingers to the one spot that grounded me to my mortal life. A thousand volts of electricity seemed to arc through my body.”

Rick Riordan book The Last Olympian

Source: The Last Olympian

Life

“The barriers between reality and fiction are softer than we think; a bit like a frozen lake. Hundreds of people can walk across it, but then one evening a thin spot develops and someone falls through; the hole is frozen over by the following morning.”

Jasper Fforde book The Eyre Affair

Source: The Eyre Affair

People, Thinking, Reality

“I have a real soft spot in my heart for librarians and people who care about books.”

Ann Richards (1933–2006) American politician

People, Books, Heart

“When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness' sake. But don't make a production of it. Children are children, but they can spot an evasion quicker than adults, an evasion simply muddles 'em.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Pt. 1, ch. 9
Atticus Finch
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

Children

“Every age has its massive moral blind spots. We might not see them, but our children will. Slavery was one of them and the people who best served that age were the ones who called it as it was — which was ungodly and inhuman. Ben Franklin called it what it was when he became president of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society.”

Bono (1960) Irish rock musician, singer of U2

PENN Address (2004)
Source: U2 By U2

Children, People, Age

“I never saw a moor,
I never saw the sea;
Yet know I how the heather looks,
And what a wave must be.
I never spoke with God,
Nor visited in heaven;
Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the chart were given.”

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet

Time and Eternity, p. 188
Collected Poems (1993)

God, Sea

“I'm delirious," said Howl. "Spots are crawling before my eyes."
"Those are spiders," said Sophie. "Why can't you cure yourself with a spell?"
"Because there is no cure for a cold," Howl said dolefully.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“Wow,” said Adrian. He sat down on the bed and tested its bounciness, giving it a nod of approval. “This is amazing. What do you think, buttercup?”

“I have no words,” I said honestly.

He patted the spot beside him. “Want to try it out?”

Richelle Mead book The Indigo Spell

Source: The Indigo Spell

Thinking

“Don't ask where the rest of this book is!" It is a shrill cry that comes from an undefined spot among the shelves. "All books continue in the beyond…”

Italo Calvino (1923–1985) Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels

Source: If on a Winter's Night a Traveler

Books, Cry

“Maybe,” he said in a slow, rural drawl, “you could explain to me why I found you in the middle of an orgy.”
“Well,” I said, “if you’re going to be in an orgy, the middle is the best spot, isn’t it.”

Jim Butcher (1971) American author

Source: Hex Appeal

“Derek picked the spot? Had he been hoping I'd be blinded by the morning sun and stumble off the edge?”

Kelley Armstrong The Awakening

Source: The Awakening

Hope, Sun

“The truth is we never stop being children, terrible children covered in sores and knotty veins and tumors and age spots, but ultimately children, in other words we never stop clinging to life because we are life.”

Roberto Bolaño book 2666

Source: 2666

Life, Children, Truth, Age

“Heroes like you always have a weak spot. We just have to find it, and then we can kill you. Won't that be lovely? Have a cheese 'n' Wiener!”

Rick Riordan book The Son of Neptune

Source: The Son of Neptune

Love

“Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty, hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to talk French. One of the things which Gertrude Butterwick had impressed on Monty Bodkin when he left for his holiday on the Riviera was that he must be sure to practise his French, and Gertrude’s word was law. So now, though he knew that it was going to make his nose tickle, he said:
‘Er, garçon.’
‘M’sieur?’
‘Er, garçon, esker-vous avez un spot de l’encre et une piece de papier—note papier, vous savez—et une envelope et une plume.’
The strain was too great. Monty relapsed into his native tongue.
‘I want to write a letter,’ he said. And having, like all lovers, rather a tendency to share his romance with the world, he would probably have added ‘to the sweetest girl on earth’, had not the waiter already bounded off like a retriever, to return a few moments later with the fixings.
‘V’la, sir! Zere you are, sir,’ said the waiter. He was engaged to a girl in Paris who had told him that when on the Riviera he must be sure to practise his English. ‘Eenk—pin—pipper—enveloppe—and a liddle bit of bloddin-pipper.’
‘Oh, merci,’ said Monty, well pleased at this efficiency. ‘Thanks. Right-ho.’
‘Right-ho, m’sieur,’ said the waiter.”

P.G. Wodehouse book The Luck of the Bodkins

Source: The Luck of the Bodkins (1935)

World, Law, Girl, Lovers

“Start walking. When you hit a spot where you’re gasping for breath, that should tell us our limitations. (Xypher)
Oh, joy. I can’t wait to be the guppy. (Simone)
Glub, glub, little fishy. Start walking. (Xypher)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Dream Chaser

Waiting, Joy

“Thinking about her was the same as the hole you keep on feeling with your tongue after you lose a tooth. Time after time, my mind kept going to that empty spot, the spot where I felt like she should be.”

Kate DiCamillo book Because of Winn-Dixie

Source: Because of Winn-Dixie

Feeling, Thinking, Time

“Some of the freckles I once loved are now closer to liver spots. But it’s still the eyes we look at, isn’t it? That’s where we found the other person, and find them still.”

Julian Barnes book The Sense of an Ending

Source: The Sense of an Ending

Love, Personality

“On my life, Magnus, I swear this is the truth: your father is a Norse god. Now, hurry. We're in a twenty- minute parking spot.”

Rick Riordan book The Sword of Summer

Source: The Sword of Summer

Life, God, Truth

“She stays in the same spot, anchored by the profound, desperate loneliness of a bad relationship.”

David Levithan book Every Day

Source: Every Day

Loneliness

“Are we going to New Orleans?"

"No", she said, backing out of the spot. "We're going to West Virginia."

"I assume by 'West Virginia,' you actually mean 'Hawaii,'" I said. "Or some place equally exciting.”

Richelle Mead book Last Sacrifice

Source: Last Sacrifice

“Don't let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment, that was known as Camelot.”

Alan Jay Lerner (1918–1986) lyricist and librettist from the United States

Source: Camelot: Vocal Selection

“The wine glasses are empty except for that one undrinkable red spot at the bottom.”

Aimee Bender (1969) Novelist, short story writer

Wine

“That’s the problem with you nearly immortal types,” I said. “You couldn’t spot a pop culture reference if it skittered up and implanted an embryo down your esophagus.”

Jim Butcher book Small Favor

Source: Small Favor

Problem

“I have prayed for years for one good humiliation a day, and then, I must watch my reaction to it. I have no other way of spotting both my denied shadow self and my idealized persona.”

Richard Rohr (1943) American spiritual writer, speaker, teacher, Catholic Franciscan priest

Source: Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

Way

“…she remembered watching a summer sunset from this very spot. Not so long ago; just a lifetime.”

Sharon Kay Penman book When Christ and His Saints Slept

Source: When Christ and His Saints Slept

Summer

“I thought about one of my favorite Sufi poems, which says that God long ago drew a circle in the sand exactly around the spot where you are standing right now. I was never not coming here. This was never not going to happen.”

Elizabeth Gilbert (1969) American writer

God

“There are eyes everywhere. No blind spot left. What shall we dream of when everything becomes visible? We'll dream of being blind.”

Paul Virilio (1932–2018) French philosopher

Dreams

“WE MUST DESTROY ALL PASSÉIST CLOTHES, and everything about them which is tight-fitting, colourless, funereal, decadent, boring and unhygienic. As far as materials are concerned, we must abolish: wishywashy, pretty-pretty, gloomy, and neutral colours, along with patterns composed of lines, checks and spots.”

Giacomo Balla (1871–1958) Italian artist

(Manuscript, 1913); as quoted at dekorera.tumblr: Futurist manifesto of men's clothing http://dekorera.tumblr.com/post/3212646425/futurist-manifesto-of-mens-clothing-by-giacomo Futurist Manifesto of Men's clothing,' 1913/1914

Clothes

“The germs of existence contained in this spot of earth, with ample food, and ample room to expand in, would fill millions of worlds in the course of a few thousand years.”

Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834) British political economist

Essay on the Principle of Population (1798; rev. through 1826)

World, Food

“Precedent is merely the assumption that somebody else, in the past with less information, nevertheless knows better than the man on the spot.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Space Cadet

Source: Space Cadet (1948), Chapter 15 “Pie With a Fork”, p. 180

Past

“Horsed upon hippogriffs, the hags of night
Shall come to visit me; and once an age
Some desperate wight, or wizard, gaunt and grey,
Shall seek this spot by help of hidden lore,
To ask of things forgotten or to come.
But who, beholding me, shall dare defy
The wrath of Jove? Since vain is wisdom's boast,
And impotent the knowledge that o'erleaps
The dusky bourne of time. Twere better far
That gods should quaff their nectar merrily,
And men sing out the day like grasshoppers,
So may they haply lull the watchful thunder.”

Hartley Coleridge (1796–1849) British poet, biographer, essayist, and teacher

Prometheus
Poems (1851), Prometheus

Wisdom, Men, God, Age

“Adam set the bar so high for portraying the role of Batman, He was wonderful, spot on, with a twinkle in his eye. He had it all -- looks, charm, intelligence, I could go on and on. In conversation, he was very animated and once told me that Batman was the father that everyone wanted! I never thought of it that way! He had a great way of playing that 'tongue-in-cheek' nature in so much of the dialogue. I had a long, engaging conversation with him and his wife, Marcelle, about their life in Montana, If I had to describe him in a word or two, they would be 'stellar' and 'exemplar,' qualities that we want to encourage in ourselves and in young people.”

Julie Newmar (1933) American actress

'Batman' Co-Star Julie Newmar Remembers Adam West: 'He Had It All' http://www.etonline.com/news/219389_batman_star_julie_newmar_remembers_adam_west/ (June 10, 2017)

Life, People, Way, Intelligence

“A white spot is on the horizon. There it is. A terrible storm is brewing. But no one sees the write spot or has any inkling of what it might mean. But no (this would not be the most terrible situation either), no, there is one person who sees it and knows what it means-but he is a passenger. He has no authority on the ship, can take no action. … The fact that in Christendom there is visible on the horizon a white speck which means that a storm is threatening-this I knew; but, alas, I was an am only a passenger.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Søren Kierkegaard, Journals and Papers XI3 B 109 p 178ff (quoted in Kierkegaard’s Way to the Truth by Gergor Malantschuk 1963 Augsburg Publishing House
1850s, The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1850s

Personality

“Think'st thou there are no serpents in the world
But those who slide along the grassy sod,
And sting the luckless foot that presses them?
There are who in the path of social life
Do bask their spotted skins in Fortune's sun,
And sting the soul.”

Joanna Baillie (1762–1851) Scottish poet and dramatist

De Montfort (1798), Act I, scene 2; in A Series of Plays.

Life, World, Soul, Sun

“If you're watchin' a parade, make sure you stand in one spot, don't follow it, it never changes. And if the parade is boring, run in the opposite direction, you will fast-forward the parade.”

Mitch Hedberg (1968–2005) American stand-up comedian

Mitch All Together (2003)

Change

“Entering the mainstream market is an act of burglary, of breaking and entering, of deception, often even of stealth. Mapping out a global assault plan, attacking on all fronts at once, may work for massively intimidating market leaders who already have troops in place throughout the world, but it is just plain silly for stripling challengers. Instead, we need to pick our spots carefully, attack fiercely, and then dig in and hold.”

Geoffrey Moore book Crossing the Chasm

Source: Crossing the Chasm, 1991, p. 54

World

“Your true modern is separated from the land by many middlemen, and by innumerable physical gadgets. He has no vital relation to it; to him it is the space between cities on which crops grow. Turn him loose for a day on the land, and if the spot does not happen to be a golf links or a ‘scenic’ area, he is bored stiff. If crops could be raised by hydroponics instead of farming, it would suit him very well. Synthetic substitutes for wood, leather, wool, and other natural land products suit him better than the originals. In short, land is something he has ‘outgrown.”

Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac

Source: A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "The Land Ethic", p. 223-224.

Nature

“Wouldn't it be wonderful to paint a nude here? [along the river near Aix ] There are innumerable motifs here on the banks of the river; the same spot viewed from a different angle offers a subject of the utmost interest. It is so varied that I think I could keep busy for months without changing my place, simply turning now tot the right and now to the left.”

Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) French painter

Quote in a conversation with Vollard, along the river near Aix, 1896; as quoted in Cezanne, by Ambroise Vollard, Dover publications Inc. New York, 1984, p. 74
Quotes of Paul Cezanne, 1880s - 1890s

Business, Thinking, Change, Painting

“If laying aside all worldly Greatness and Vain-Glory, I should be ask'd where I thought it was most probable that Men might enjoy true Happiness, I would prefer a small peaceable Society, in which Men, neither envy'd nor esteem'd by Neighbours, should be contented to live upon the Natural Product of the Spot they inhabit, to a vast Multitude abounding in Wealth and Power, that should always be conquering others by their Arms Abroad, and debauching themselves by Foreign Luxury at Home.”

Bernard Mandeville book The Fable of the Bees

Preface
The Fable of the Bees (1714)

Men, Home, Nature, Wealth

“Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so.”

Brigham Young (1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader

Journal of Discourses, vol. 10, 1863, p. 110.
1860s

Death, God, Law, Penalty

“But inasmuch as that light is loaned,
insofar as we’ve borrowed bones,
must every debt now be repaid
in star-spotted, sickle-winged night raids”

Joanna Newsom (1982) American musician

Divers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divers_(Joanna_Newsom_album) (2015)

Star, Light, Night

“Marx, although a man of broad knowledge, had one blind spot: he was ignorant of the true character of economics. He did not realize that economics can only be understood in close relationship to the other humanities (and certain sciences), and therefore should not be studied in vacuo. Ironically, this very weakness was largely instrumental in making Marxism successful. Marxist economics—yet another instance of a false but clear idea—can be explained to the merest child in a matter of minutes. (Conversely, to explain the workings of the free market economy to an adult would take weeks of hard work.) Because it was easily grasped, Marxism flooded the world within a few decades, as had other simplistic ideologies and religions, such as Islam and the Enlightenment; this same sort of simplicity gave rise to the French Revolution and national socialism. Christianity, on the other hand, took three centuries to triumph.”

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn (1909–1999) Austrian noble and political theorist

Source: Leftism Revisited (1990), p. 337

World, Religion, Idea, Knowledge

“The nursery of brooding Pelicans,
The dormitory of their dead, had vanish'd,
And all the minor spots of rock and verdure,
The abodes of happy millions, were no more.”

James Montgomery (1771–1854) British editor, hymn writer, and poet

Canto VI, line 74.
The Pelican Island (1827)

Dead, Happiness

“I had to shake the spot cause the game got crowded
I'm devoted and quote it, I'm rowdy and bout it
A No Limit Soldier, and happy to shout it.”

Snoop Dogg (1971) American rapper, singer-songwriter, record producer, and actor

"Get Bout It & Rowdy", Da Game Is To Be Sold, Not To Be Told (1998).

Quotes, Game, Happiness

“I looked down at the poor calf. Its hide was spotted black and white and it had the most delicate ankles. From the slightly open mouth there appeared a pink tongue. I closed my eyes and ran out of Hellfrick's room and threw myself on the floor in my room. I lay there and shuddered, thinking of the old cow alone in the field in the moonlight, old cow mooing for her calf. Murder!”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Source: Ask the Dust (1939), Chapter Thirteen

Thinking, Appearance

“A male student makes vulgar remarks about your breasts? Don't slink off to whimper with the campus shrinking violets. Deal with it. On the spot. Say, "Shut up, you jerk! And crawl back to the barnyard where you belong!" In general, women who project this take-charge attitude towards life get harassed less often. I see too many dopey, immature, self-pitying young women walking around like melting sticks of butter.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sex, Art and American Culture : New Essays (1992), Rape and Modern Sex War, p. 53

Life, Women, Jerk

“Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to Horatio G. Spafford (17 March 1814)
1810s

Strong, Drawing, Country

“Sir, there was once a time when close relations of amity were established between the Governments of England and France. It was in the reign of the later Stuarts; and it marks a dark spot in our annals, because it was an union formed in a spirit of domineering ambition on the one side, and of base and vile subserviency on the other. But that, Sir, was not an union of the nations; it was an union of the Governments. This is not be an union of the Governments; it is to be an union of the nations.”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1860/feb/10/customs-acts-committee-the-financial in the House of Commons (10 February 1860) on the Anglo-French Commercial Treaty 1860s

Time

“I’d done commercials before, you had to smile and be phony, and that’s not my style. The spot was created to be warm and homey, to lend itself to realism. That’s important to me.”

Virginia Christine (1920–1996) actress

A Character Star Gets Her Perks Playing Coffee's Mrs. Olson (April 30, 1979)

Smile

“Why is it, one is apt to ask on an occasion like this, that people come forward to make these gifts, and why should it be necessary to preserve spots like this? I think it answers to a very deep and profound instinct of the English people. We have become largely an urban folk, but there lies, deep down in the hearts of even of those who have toiled in our cities for two or three generations, an ineradicable love of country things and country beauty, as it may exist in them traditionally and subconsciously; and to them, as much as and even more than to ourselves, the country represents the eternal values and the eternal traditions from which we must never allow ourselves to be separated.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech at the handing over ceremony of Haresfield Beacon to the National Trust (10 January 1931), published in This Torch of Freedom (1935), p. 120.
1931

Love, People, Beauty, Thinking

“Say that again after you’ve been in the same spot and acted differently, old buddy. Maybe then I’ll be ashamed.”

Tim Powers book The Anubis Gates

Source: The Anubis Gates (1983), Chapter 7 (pp. 169-170)

“I hadn’t gone into the subject of dorm living too deeply with him, not because I hesitated to probe his tender spots but because I would have been probing my own. This is called tact, and is reputed to be a virtue.”

Alexei Panshin book Rite of Passage

Source: Rite of Passage (1968), Chapter 7 (p. 97).

“Most of us agree that the United Nations is the vanguard of a foreign invasion and must be driven from our shores. Liberalism — Progressivism — all forms of left wing collectivism, are equally alien to the Founders' America and must be extirpated, root and branch, laughter and derision being the most effective weapons. Look at the way they have reduced Hillary Clinton to an insignificant greasy spot on the pages of history, turned Albert Gore into an object of merriment, and are accomplishing the same for Barry and Micky Obama.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"Revenge of the Cookie Monster".

Way, History, Laughter

“The picture story fantasy cuts loose the hampering debris of art and artifice and touches the tender spots of universal human desires and aspirations. Comics speak, without qualm or sophistication to the innermost ears of the wishful self.”

William Moulton Marston (1893–1947) American psychologist, lawyer, inventor and comic book writer

"Why 100,000,000 Americans Read Comics", The American Scholar, 13.1 (1943): pp 35-44. as quoted in The Ages of Wonder Woman: Essays on the Amazon Princess in Changing Times, edited by Joeph J Darowski, p.9; in the essay "William Marston's Feminist Agenda" by Michelle R. Finn,

Art, Universe

“It is said that in ancient days Trichila, an execrable monster with three heads, who was a brother of Rawan, with ten heads, had the sway over this country. No human being could oppose him. But as per the saying of the Prophet, ‘Islam will be elevated and cannot be subdued’, the Faith took root by the efforts of Hazarat Natthar Wali. The monster was slain and sent to the house of perdition. His image namely but-ling worshipped by the unbelievers was cut and the head was separated from the body. A portion of the body went into the ground. Over that spot is the tomb of the Wali, shedding rediance till this day.”

Nathar Shah (969–1039) Muslim missionary

About the legend surrounding the tomb of Nathar Shah at Tiruchirapalli (Tamil Nadu). Bahãr-i-Ãzam, translated in English, Madras, 1960. p. 51.

Faith, Effort, Housing, Country

“One does not leave gold untouched, when one discovers the yellow metal in filth. One is ver ready to pick it up. What is intrinsically good will never change no matter where it is found. A diamond is often spotted amidst black blocks of coal. Lotus blossoms in a swamp and the beautiful rose blooms among thorns. In fact the presence of such invaluable wonders enhances the importance of a place no matter how sullied it is!”

Amitabh Bachchan (1942) Indian actor

Source: Soul Curry for You and Me: An Empowering Philosophy that Can Enrich Your Life, P. 21-22.

Beauty, Change

“The two divinest things this world has got,
A lovely woman in a rural spot!”

Leigh Hunt (1784–1859) English critic, essayist, poet and writer

Poem The Story of Rimini, iii, 257

Love, World

“In the depths of our crater lake, everything is silent. The volcano's been extinct for ages. Layer upon layer of solitude, like folds of soft mud. The little bit of light that manages to penetrate to the depths lights up the surroundings like the remains of some faint, distant memory. At these depths there's no sign of life. I don't know how long she looks at me -not at me, maybe, but at the spot where I am. Time's rules don't apply here. Time expands, then contracts, all in tune with the stirrings of the heart.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore (2002), Chapter 23, Kafka Temura

Life, Age, Solitude, Light

“Fabricius finds certain spots and clouds in the sun.”

Robert Burton book The Anatomy of Melancholy

Section 2, member 3.
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Part II

Sun

“But I have seen the unknown dead, those little men of the Republic. It was they who woke me up. If a stranger, an enemy, becomes a thing like that when he dies, if one stops short and is afraid to walk over him, it means that even beaten our enemy is someone, that after having shed his blood, one must placate it, give this blood a voice, justify the man who shed it. Looking at certain dead is humiliating. One has the impression that the same fate that threw these bodies to the ground holds us nailed to the spot to see them, to fill our eyes with the sight. It's not fear, not our usual cowardice. One feels humiliated because one understands–touching it with one's eyes–that we might be in their place ourselves: there would be no difference, and if we live we owe it to this dirtied corpse. That is why every war is a civil war; every fallen man resembles one who remains and calls him to account.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

Source: The house on the hill (1949), Chapter 23, p. 176

Men, Fate, War, Fear

“The best aphorisms are pointed expressions of the results of observation, experience, and reflection. They are portable wisdom, the quintessential extracts of thought and feeling. They furnish the largest amount of intellectual stimulus and nutriment in the smallest compass. About every weak point in human nature, or vicious spot in human life, there is deposited a crystallization of warning and protective proverbs.”

William R. Alger (1822–1905) American clergyman and poet

Source: "The Utility and Futility of Aphorisms," 1863, p. 178.

Life, Wisdom, Feeling, Nature

“.. at least fifty [gouaches painted in complete dark], one after another. Then I made a light, a candle, and I picked them up and turned them around, as I couldn't see a top or a bottom. I finished them off as I felt fit, a bit more white or a red spot [in his studio in Amsterdam, in 1947”

Karel Appel (1921–2006) Dutch painter, sculptor, and poet

Quote from a talk in 1990 with Rudi Fuchs; in 'Appel, about growing older'; as quoted by Frank van der Ploeg, in 'The Low Countries'. Jaargang 12(2004) http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/_low001200401_01/_low001200401_01_0027.php

Light, Painting

“And he gave it for his opinion, that whosoever could make two ears of corn or two blades of grass to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.”

Jonathan Swift book Les Voyages de Gulliver

Voyage to Brobdingnag, Ch. 7 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Gulliver%27s_Travels/Part_II/Chapter_VII Gulliver's Travels (1726)

Grass, Country

“Should we worry about social media sites sharing everything they know about us with third-party commercial interests? Of course, no one wants to be pestered by targeted advertising. More sinister, however, is the prospect of health insurance companies learning whether you had been Googling research on specific illnesses or prospective employers prying into your personal social history by analyzing your data trail on the Web to spot potential quirks, idiosyncrasies, or even possible antisocial behavior.”

Jeremy Rifkin (1945) American economist

The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism (2014)

Health, Behavior, History, Learning

“There’s one bright spot in the generally gloomy picture know as the Pacific Conflict Zone. According to my calculations, by the year 2500 or so we should have killed off every last member of our species who is stupid enough to take part in so futile a pastime as this war between “ideals,” and with luck they won’t have left their genes behind because they’ll typically have been killed at an age when society thinks they’re too young to assume the responsibility of childbearing. After that we may get some peace and quiet for a change.”

John Brunner book Stand on Zanzibar

context (8) “Isolation”
Stand on Zanzibar (1968)

War, Age, Stupidity, Peace

“As a young man, Valmiki searched through the world seeking open friendship and happiness and hope and finding none of these he went alone into the empty forest where no man lived, to as spot where the Tamasa River flows into Ganga. There he sat for years without moving, so still that white ants built an anthill over him. There Valmiki sat inside that anthill for thousands of years with only his eyes showing out, trying to find the True, his hands folded and his mind lost in contemplation.”

Vālmīki Ramayana

In p. 5.
Ramayana

Friendship, World, Hope, Search

“Soldiers defending a country at war are not subject to the rules of procedure designed for court trials. For example, if a soldier encounters an enemy, under internationally agreed upon rules of war, that soldier can take whatever action is necessary to protect himself and neutralize his enemy, whether it involves capturing and detaining the enemy or killing him on the spot.”

John Ashcroft (1942) American politician

Source: Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice (2006), p. 181

War, Country

“The juvenile sea squirt wanders through the sea searching for a suitable rock or hunk of coral to cling to and make its home for life. For this task, it has a rudimentary nervous system. When it finds its spot and takes root, it doesn't need its brain anymore, so it eats it! (It's rather like getting tenure.)*

* The analogy between the sea squirt and the associate professor was first pointed out, I think, by the neuroscientist Rodolfo Llinas.”

Daniel Dennett book Consciousness Explained

Source: Consciousness Explained (1991), p. 177

Life, Home, Search, Thinking

“The center will not hold if it has been spot-welded by an operator whose deepest concern is not with the weld but with his lottery ticket.”

Donald Barthelme book Sixty Stories

"At The End Of The Mechanical Age".
Sixty Stories (1981)

“Willow: Don't worry, we're sure to spot Faith first. She's like this cleavagey slutbomb walking around going, "Ooh, check me out, I'm wicked cool, I'm five by five."
Tara: "Five by five?" Five what by five what?
Willow: See, that's the thing. No one knows.”

Amber Benson (1977) actress from the United States

Checkpoint [5.12]
Willow & Tara (2000-2002)

Faith

“There are people who exist in this world not like entities but like the speckles or spots on something.”

Nikolai Gogol book Dead Souls

Vol. I, ch. 5
Dead Souls (1842)

People, World

“Arms trade. If there was a legitimate trade, they'd sell those things - guns and bombs - in a supermarket. It would be like a cosmetics demonstration, and you'd have a little bit of shopping music in the background. And so, here's our arms trade demonstrator. 'Hello, and welcome to our new "Twilight of the World" range - our stunning new collection for nuclear winter. Now, for those persistent racial problems, why not try our new ethnic cleanser, "Pogrom"? Apply vigorously to the affected area, and then wipe off the face of the earth. For persistent outbreaks, to eliminate those last spots of resistance, why not try our new "I Can't Believe It's Not a Kalashnikov"? Go on, leaders, treat yourself. Tell yourself "I want it, I need it, I'll have it". Now, for those particularly sensitive areas, why not try our new range, "U. N."? It's entirely cosmetic; it does nothing. Apply half-heartedly with our new hand-wringing cream. Now, people often come up to me and say "Can you save my face?" Well, I can. So for those secret little deals - those secret little Iraqi liaisons - why not try "Embargo", the mark of the middleman? Now, for a touch of mystery, why not visit the "Missing Body Shop"? Collect your free nail remover and watch your problems disappear. Now, you're probably sitting there thinking "Oh, I'm such a hideous old blood-soaked dictator of a thing; nobody will deal with me". How wrong you are! We are sole suppliers to the US government of "Turn-a-Blind-Eye Liner" - use always in conjunction with "Oil of Kuwaiti", a touch of "Massacre" and blusher. Oh, you won't need that. I'm Marlene from the House of Charnel. Thank you for your time and patience. And for that finishing touch - for those romantic evenings when you really want to take the enemy out - why not try our stunning new nerve gas, "Paralyse" by Calvin Klein.' (Linda Live 1993)”

Linda Smith (1958–2006) comedian

Stand-up

People, Secret, World, Music

“Reporter: This might sound like a daft question, but you'll be happy to get your first win under your belt, won't you?
Strachan: You're right. It is a daft question. I'm not even going to bother answering that one. It is a daft question, you're spot on there.”

Gordon Strachan (1957) Scottish footballer and manager

Metro Article http://www.metro.co.uk/sport/football/756336-gordon-strachans-greatest-quotes 22nd October, 2009

Question, Happiness

“Bewdley, as most of you know was in distant times a sanctuary town to which a man, whatever his sins, might flee and be safe from justice. So, whatever the rude waves of the outside world buffet me with more than usual vigour, I have only to remember that in Bewdley, there is sanctuary even for a Prime Minister…I have never failed to find in my own country understanding, sympathy and support, and even when life seems to most difficult and the fences in front unclimbable, I can turn back in memory and recollection to this peaceful spot by the side of the river where I first drew breath and in the memory of which I am able to draw strength. There could have been no more typical English surroundings in which to cherish the earliest memories. I remember as a child, looking up the river from the bridge into that mysterious and romantic land of Shropshire, so close to us, from which my people came only three generations before and watching the smoke of the train running along the little railway through places bearing names like Wyre Forest, Cleobury Mortimer, Neen Sollars and Tenbury - names steeped in romance and redolent of the springtime of an England long ago passed but whose heritage is ours.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Bewdley (8 August 1925), quoted in On England, and Other Addresses (1926), pp. 10-11.
1925

Life, People, World, Peace

“All gone. Zelazny was one of the first times I looked at something I had had familiarity with to find the spot where the memory should have been empty, replaced by a scrawled "Moved South for the Fishing" sign. Calculus was another loss. It was quite upsetting to reach for a skill and find nothing.”

James Nicoll (1961) Canadian fiction reviewer

[c2nsoc$aqk$1@panix3.panix.com, 2004]
2000s

Fish, Memory, Loss, Time

“Sleep sweetly in your humble graves,
Sleep, martyrs of a fallen cause;
Though yet no marble column craves
The pilgrim here to pause. Stoop, angels, hither from the skies!
There is no holier spot of ground
Than where defeated valor lies,
By mourning beauty crowned!”

Henry Timrod (1828–1867) Poet from the American South

"Ode: Sung on the Occasion of Decorating the Graves of the Confederate Dead at Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston, S.C., 1867", st. 1 & 5

Beauty, Angels, Sleep

“Things as they are have been destroyed.
Have I? Am I a man that is dead
At a table on which the food is cold?
Is my thought a memory, not alive?
Is the spot on the floor, there, wine or blood
And whichever it may be, is it mine?”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

The Man With the Blue Guitar (1937)

Food, Memory, Wine, Dead

“tt>/* now make a new head in the exact same spot */

Larry Wall (1954) American computer programmer and author, creator of Perl

Source code, <code>cons.c</code>

“Every intellectual effort sets us apart from the commonplace, and leads us by hidden and difficult paths to secluded spots where we find ourselves amid unaccustomed thoughts.”

José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955) Spanish liberal philosopher and essayist

Source: What is Philosophy? (1964), p. 15

Effort

“One theory is that the antichrist will be a major political leader in the United Nations and the “many” referred to is the UN. Another theory is that the “many” refers to the Arab League of Nations since their mosques are now on the temple mount where the temple needs to go. Many believe there is room to put the temple on a ten-acre plot north of the two mosques. The temple mount is about 37 acres. Keep an eye out for a treaty that allows Israel to rebuild the temple! If one is made, start the clock ticking again for that final week! It may be the Muslims will offer to trade the Jews ten acres on the temple mount to build their temple, for the entire West Bank? Plus five gazillion dollars! Israel wants that spot bad enough to pay any price. We’ll see.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Source: What On Earth Is About To Happen… For Heaven’s Sake? (2013), p. 101

“This afternoon I had put myself down on this sweet spot, very tired of painting [with a view of the old castle of Vorden].... I was completely immersed in thinking of You... I would rather like to.... thank you, dear and beloved Lady, for the right judgments and remarks which You gave me in this [your? ] sweet letter. I solemnly promise you that I will use them for my benefit, and will spent all my powers as an artist, to make your attentions more worthy to me.”

Johannes Warnardus Bilders (1811–1890) painter from the Northern Netherlands

translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek version in original Dutch (citaat van Johannes Warnardus Bilders' brief, in het Nederlands:) Toen ik heden middag mij zeer vermoeid van 't schilderen op dit lieve plekje had neder gezet [met zicht op het oude kasteel van Vorden].. ..ik was namelijk geheel verdiept in de gedachte aan UE.. .Ik wil liever.. ..bedenken, hoe ik U veel beminde juffrouw, dank zou zeggen, voor de juiste oordeelvellingen en bemerkingen, welke UE mij in dit [uw[?] lieve schrijven gemaakt heb, Ik beloof u plechtig dat ik ze mij ten nutte zal maken, en al mijn krachten als kunstenaar zal in spannen, om uwe atenties mij meer waardig te maken. J.W. Bilders, in his letter [including a sketch by pen of the landscape with the castle, seen from the garden of the hotel where he stayed] to Georgina van Dijk van 't Velde, from Vorden, 1 Sept. 1868; from an excerpt of the letter https://rkd.nl/nl/explore/excerpts/751236 in the RKD-Archive, The Hague 1860's + 1870's

Thinking, Painting

“Paul Krugman is a very smart and very annoying person. Over the past few years he's been hammering away at political and economic advocates for austerity policies with unmitigated glee and derision. He does so with a brio and condescension that some people can find off-putting -- but that doesn't mean that he's wrong. … Look, I think Paul Krugman has a few policy blind spots. His method of argumentation alienates as many people as it attracts. But he's not wrong when he's talking about austerity. In his response, Michael Kinsley has managed to embody the conventional wisdom in Washington -- and in doing so, embody every policy caricature of Paul Krugman's worldview.”

Daniel Drezner (1968) American journalist

The worst piece of conventional wisdom you will read this year http://www.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/05/16/the_worst_piece_of_conventional_wisdom_you_will_read_this_year (MAY 16, 2013)

Wisdom, People, Thinking, Past

“It's shameful to spot a lie and not to name it,
shameful to name it and then to shut your eyes,
shameful to call a funeral a wedding
and play the fool at funerals besides.”

Andrey Voznesensky (1933–2010) Soviet poet

Stanley Kunitz (trans.) Story Under Full Sail (New York: Doubleday, 1974) p. 20.

Lie, Fools, Wedding

“We lunched in Fregene: grilled sardines sprinkled with parsley and lemon. Federico ate daintily, like someone with no appetite. The beach was deserted, the wind brisk. In the distance stood the abandoned lighthouse he filmed for 8 1/2. Like someone about to propose a toast, he stood up and "recited" from King Lear :
Hark! Have you heard the news? The king fell off a cliff.
O horrible! Were you very close to him?
Indeed, sir. Close enough to push.
We laughed until he brusquely sat down again, scraping the fish scales off his fingers, staring at the age spots that covered his hands. The beautiful adolescent waitress asked for his autograph. He drew himself as a man-lion in a hat and scarf with huge paws chasing her, and signed it "Féfé." We spent the afternoon visiting Ostia and returned to Rome in a sweltering twilight. He asked to be driven home for a change of clothes. We invited Giulietta, who wore a green velvet turban, to join us for dinner. (Had she already lost her hair from chemotherapy?) Graciously, she declined while smoking cigarette after cigarette. At Cesarina's, Federico drew hilarious, pornographic sketches on the table napkin saying, "If you have not made love today then you have lost a day!"”

Damian Pettigrew Canadian filmmaker

The entire restaurant was at his feet. He was twenty years old now and as thin as Kafka. He was Rome. He had adopted us the way Rome adopts everyone, and we loved him.
On Fellini's final years
Federico Fellini: Sou um Grande Mentiroso (2008)

Love, Age, Beauty, Way