Great Throughts Treasury

"It's About Russia."

"It's funny. Maria Elena and I, We Are meant for Each Other and not meant for Each Other, it's a contradiction."

"It's very hard to keep your spirits up. You've got to keep selling yourself a bill of goods, and some people are better at lying to themselves than others. If you face reality too much, it kills you.... you've got to find an answer to the question: Why go on?"

"I've always liked, someday the lamb will lay by the lion.... but it won't get much sleep."

"I've never been an intellectual but I have this look."

"It's not that I'm afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens."

"I've come to the conclusion that the artist cannot justify life or come up with a cogent reason as to why life is meaningful, but the artist can provide you with a cold glass of water on a hot day."

"I've done a course in speed reading and I read War and Peace in twenty minutes. Russian speaking."

"I've often said, the only thing standing between me and greatness is me"

"KLEYNMAN: Is it possible at all to get to know the man? I mean, to find out what ... not all of it, but to know him ... really know him ... how I know ... speak to explore one person ... you know what I mean in knowledge? To know him. Really know him. You know it. You know. You know it."

"Just don't take any class where you have to read BEOWULF."

"KLEYNMAN: What's that noise? The wind and the wind ... I do not like. You can blow out a poster on me. You have to keep his cool ... People depend on me ... I'll keep my eyes open at four and if I see anything suspicious, I'll tell the others ... But no such ... at the earliest opportunity to make friends with more people ..."

"Kugelmass, unaware of this catastrophe, had his own problems. He had not been thrust into Portnoy's Complaint, or into any other novel, for that matter. He had been projected into an old textbook, Remedial Spanish, and was running for his life over a barren, rocky terrain as the word tener (to have) - a large and hairy irregular verb - raced after him on its spindly legs."

"KLEYNMAN: It is very comforting person to talk with you on these issues, Anna."

"Life doesn't imitate art, it imitates bad television."

"Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering ? and it?s all over much too soon."

"Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable."

"Living is messy."

"Life is short. Short, and not about anything except what you can touch and what touches you."

"Love is the answer, but while you are waiting for the answer sex raises some pretty good questions"

"Love is too weak a word for what I feel - I luuurve you, you know, I loave you, I luff you, two F's, yes."

"Man consists of two parts, his mind and his body, only the body has more fun."

"Man must not be the promoter of his own unhappiness; in reality, suffering is the result of God's will, but never reach to understand why he enjoys so much with it."

"Mankind is facing a crossroad - one road leads to despair and utter hopelessness and the other to total extinction - I sincerely hope you graduates choose the right road."

"Marshall McLuhan predicted books would become art objects at some point. He WAS right."

"Marriage? That's for life! It's like cement!"

"Marriage is the death of hope."

"Maugham then offers the greatest advice anyone could give to a young author: At the end of an interrogation sentence, place a question mark. You'd be surprised how effective it can be."

"Maybe the poets are right. Maybe love is the only answer."

"Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons."

"Men learn to love the woman they are attracted to. Women learn to become attracted to the man they fall in love with."

"Millions of books written on every conceivable subject by all these great minds and in the end, none of them knows anything more about the big questions of life than I do ? I read Socrates. This guy knocked off little Greek boys. What the Hell?s he got to teach me? And Nietzsche, with his theory of eternal recurrence. He said that the life we lived we?re gonna live over again the exact same way for eternity. Great. That means I?ll have to sit through the Ice Capades again. It?s not worth it. And Freud, another great pessimist. I was in analysis for years and nothing happened. My poor analyst got so frustrated, the guy finally put in a salad bar. Maybe the poets are right. Maybe love is the only answer."

"Morale Seems still reasonably high and, while the desertion rate has risen, it is still limited to Those Who can walk."

"Mrs. Sol Schwimmer is suing me because I made ??her bridge as I felt it and not to fit her ridiculous mouth! That's right! I cannot work to order like a common tradesman! I decided her bridge should be enormous and billowing, with wild, explosive teeth flaring up in every direction like fire! Now she is upset because it will not fit in her mouth! She is so bourgeois and stupid. I want to smash her! I tried forcing the false plate in but it sticks out like a star burst chandelier. Still, I find it beautiful."

"My brain: it's my second favorite organ."

"Most of the time I don't have much fun. The rest of the time I don't have any fun at all."

"My apology In the end, the courageous death of Socrates gave his life authentic meaning, something my existence lacks totally."

"My good friend Jacques Mundo spoke frequently of the randomness of the universe. He believed that everything in the world of pure chance, there was a servant to make his breakfast but it had been true."

"My luck is getting worse and worse. Last night, for instance, I was mugged by a Quaker."

"My one regret in life is that I am not someone else."

"My education was dismal. I went to a series of schools for mentally disturbed teachers."

"My films are therapy for my debilitating depression. In institutions people weave baskets. I make films."

"Never shoot up in the air when you're standing under it."

"Ninety percent of success is showing up."

"My relationship with death remains the same - I'm strongly against it. All I can do is wait for it."

"No, I don't think you're paranoid. I think you're the opposite of paranoid. I think you walk around with the insane delusion that people like you."

"No work of art can compare to a city."

"No, No, because She's a mental Adolescent, and Being romantic. She has a death wish. So, for a Brief Moment of Passion, She Completely abandons ALL responsibilities."

"No, thanks. I Already Own a penguin."

"Not only is there no God, but try finding a plumber on Sunday."