#wit

Rebecca was an academic star. Her new book was on the phenomenon of word casings, a term she'd invented for words that no longer had meaning outside quotation marks. English was full of these empty words--"friend" and "real" and "story" and "change"--words that had been shucked of their meanings and reduced to husks. Some, like "identity" and "search" and "cloud," had clearly been drained of life by their Web usage. With others, the reasons were more complex; how had "American" become an ironic term? How had "democracy" come to be used in an arch, mocking way? ↗

— Jennifer Egan

#democracy #disgust #language #web #wit

People," Geralt turned his head, "like to invent monsters and monstrosities. Then they seem less monstrous themselves. When they get blind-drunk, cheat, steal, beat their wives, starve an old woman, when they kill a trapped fox with an axe or riddle the last existing unicorn with arrows, they like to think that the Bane entering cottages at daybreak is more monstrous than they are. They feel better then. They find it easier to live. ↗

— Andrzej Sapkowski

#monster #the-last-wish #witcher #life

Change your life today. Don't gamble on the future, act now, without delay. ↗

— Simone de Beauvoir

#act #change #delay #future #gamble

No great idea in its beginning can ever be within the law. How can it be within the law? The law is stationary. The law is fixed. The law is a chariot wheel which binds us all regardless of conditions or place or time. ↗

— Emma Goldman

#binds #chariot #conditions #ever #fixed

We are a company that promotes 100% within the company. ↗

— James Sinegal

#promotes #within

when you are surrounded by sheep then it is easy to become one yourself. ↗

— Stephen Richards

#individualism #individuality #change

I smiled at him as best I could and pushed the paper across the table before he could change his mind. Because Henry DeVille was correct - there was an ingredient in my baking more concenctrated than any extract, more pungent than any spice; an ingredient that everyone would recognize and no one was able to name: it was regret, and it rose when one least expected. ↗

— Jodi Picoult

#jodi-picoult #pg- #change

Sometimes in life there's no problem and sometimes in there is no solution. In this space - between these apparent poles - life flows. ↗

— Rasheed Ogunlaru

#accepting-life #challenges #conflict #contentment #facing-challenges

The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don't play together, the club won't be worth a dime ↗

— Babe Ruth

#change

No one was ever good enough for anybody's precious sons. No one ever called daughters precious, and why was that? Things had not changed very much. In the end women like Emily and Ingrid and Freya and Joanna only had one another to lean on. The men were wonderful when they were around, but their fires burned too bright, they lived too close to the sun - look what happened to her boy, and to her man. Gone. Women only had one another in the end. ↗

— Melissa de la Cruz

#melissa-de-la-cruz #witches-of-east-end #change