#exceptional

Cultivating literature as I do upon a little oatmeal, and driving, when in a position to be driven at all, in that humble vehicle, the 'bus, I have had, perhaps, exceptional opportunities for observing their mutual position and behaviour; and it is very peculiar. ↗

— James Payn

#bus #cultivating #driven #driving #exceptional

With me it is exceptionally true that the Presidency is no bed of roses. ↗

— James K. Polk

#exceptionally #me #presidency #roses #true

You need a very, exceptionally clear vision. And to me, a vision is something that you can say in one sentence. The fewer the words the better. ↗

— Ron Johnson

#clear #clear vision #exceptionally #fewer #me

We live, I suppose, in the unconfessed hope that the rules will at some point be broken, along with the normal course of things and custom and history, and that this will happen to us, that we will experience it, that we — that is, I alone — will be the ones to see it. We always aspire, I suppose, to being the chosen ones, and it is unlikely otherwise that we would be prepared to live out the entire course of an entire life, which, however short or long, gradually gets the better of us. ↗

— Javier Marías

#exceptionalism #optimism #experience

The weirder you're going to behave, the more normal you should look. It works in reverse, too. When I see a kid with three or four rings in his nose, I know there is absolutely nothing extraordinary about that person. ↗

— P.J. O'Rourke

#behavior #being-exceptional #humor #humor

Exceptional men do not hold their experiences to be out of the ordinary or of interest to anyone else. Unlike the trodden fungus-men, they are not so ignorantly and presumptuously self-absorbed. They are nobody and they know it. They shun notice. They are exceedingly rare. ↗

— Nick Tosches

#humility #men #experience

The Open Road goes to the used-car lot. ↗

— Louis Simpson

#capitalism #freedom #frontier #individualism #liberalism

So much American science fiction is parochial -- not as true now as it was years ago, but the assumption is one culture in the future, more or less like ours, and with the same ideals, the same notions of how to do things, just bigger and flashier technology. Well, you know darn well it doesn't work that way... ↗

— Poul Anderson

#future #science-fiction #science

In all nations an exceptional man exists that compensates the deficiencies of the remainder. In those moments, when humanity is found collectively in a state of decadence, there always remain those exceptional beings as point of reference. ↗

— Augusto Roa Bastos

#always #beings #collectively #compensates #decadence

I have learned to keep to myself how exceptional I am. ↗

— Mason Cooley

#exceptional #how #i #i am #i have learned