“Something did happen to me somewhere that robbed me of confidence and courage and left me with a fear of discovery and change and a positive dread of everything unknown that may occur.”
― Joseph Heller, quote from Something Happened
“i know at last what i want to be when i grow up. when i grow up i want to be a little boy.”
― Joseph Heller, quote from Something Happened
“Maybe I am senile already and people are too kind to tell me. People are not kind and would tell me. (Maybe people have told me, and I'm too senile to remember).”
― Joseph Heller, quote from Something Happened
“I get the willies when I see closed doors.”
― Joseph Heller, quote from Something Happened
“I have a feeling that someone nearby is soon going to find out something about me that will mean the end, although I can't imagine what that something is.”
― Joseph Heller, quote from Something Happened
“I frequently feel I'm being taken advantage of merely because I'm asked to do the work I'm paid to do.”
― Joseph Heller, quote from Something Happened
“It's a real problem to decide whether it's more boring to do something boring than to pass along everything boring that comes in to somebody else and then have nothing to do at all.”
― Joseph Heller, quote from Something Happened
“I suppose it is just about impossible for someone like me to rebel anymore and produce any kind of lasting effect. I have lost the power to upset things that I had as a child; I can no longer change my environment or even disturb it seriously.”
― Joseph Heller, quote from Something Happened
“trying to evade the people who frighten us. We come to work, have lunch, and go home. We goose-step in and goose-step out, changing our partner and wander all about, sashay around for a pat on the head, and promenade home till we all drop dead.”
― Joseph Heller, quote from Something Happened
“That's what Paradise is- never knowing the difference.”
― Joseph Heller, quote from Something Happened
“Depreciating motels, junked automobiles, and quick-food joints grow like amber waves of grain.”
― Joseph Heller, quote from Something Happened
“And between us now there is this continual underground struggle over something trivial and nebulous that won't abate and has lasted nearly as long as the two of us have known each other. "I love you.”
― Joseph Heller, quote from Something Happened
“Niet nikoho, kým by som bol radšej než sám sebou - aj keď sa v skutočnosti nemám rád a dokonca som si ani nie istý, kto som.”
― Joseph Heller, quote from Something Happened
Joseph Heller
Born place: in Brooklyn, New York, The United States
Born date May 1, 1923
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“A tired operator and an energized monitor create a problematic imbalance in the mind. As the monitor searches for forbidden content, it continuously brings to mind what it is searching for. Neuroscientists have shown that the brain is constantly processing the forbidden content just outside of conscious awareness. The result: You become primed to think, feel, or do whatever you are trying to avoid.”
― Kelly McGonigal, quote from The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It
“When sleep came, I would dream bad dreams. Not the baby and the big man with a cigarette-lighter dream. Another dream. The castle dream.
A little girl of about six who looks -like me, but isn’t me, is happy as she steps out of the car with her daddy. They enter the castle and go down the steps to the dungeon where people move like shadows in the glow of burning candles. There are carpets and funny pictures on the walls. Some of the people wear hoods and robes. Sometimes they chant in droning voices that make the little girl afraid. There are other children, some of them without any clothes on. There is an altar like the altar in nearby St Mildred’s Church. The children take turns lying on that altar so the people, mostly men, but a few women, can kiss and lick their private parts. The daddy holds the hand of the little girl tightly. She looks up at him and he smiles. The little girl likes going out with her daddy.
I did want to tell Dr Purvis these dreams but I didn’t want her to think I was crazy, and so kept them to myself. The psychiatrist was wiser than I appreciated at the time; sixteen-year-olds imagine they are cleverer than they really are. Dr Purvis knew I had suffered psychological damage as a child, that’s why she kept making a fresh appointment week after week. But I was unable to give her the tools and clues to find out exactly what had happened.”
― quote from Today I'm Alice: Nine Personalities, One Tortured Mind
“It is as absurd to say that a man is a drunkard because he describes an orgy or a debauchee because he recounts a debauch, as to pretend that a man is virtuous because he has written a moral book; every day we see the contrary. It is the character who speaks and not the author; the fact that his hero is an atheist does not make him an atheist; his brigands act and speak like brigands, but he is not therefore a brigand himself. At that rate it would be necessary to guillotine Shakespeare, Corneille, and all the tragic writers; they have committed more murders than Mandrin and Cartouche.”
― Théophile Gautier, quote from Mademoiselle de Maupin
“People have forgotten this truth," the fox said. "But you mustn’t forget it. You become responsible forever for what you’ve tamed. You’re responsible for your rose.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, quote from Der kleine Prinz
“Two of the most important characteristics of good design are discoverability and understanding.”
― Donald A. Norman, quote from Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition (Revised)
Moonblood
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As the Crow Flies
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The DivanBookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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