Numbers Quotes - Page 18

• There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back...

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Country, Men, Law

  "The Past Through Tomorrow" by Robert A. Heinlein, G. P. Putnam Inc., (p. 25), 1967.

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• The writer's only responsibility is to his art. He will be completely ruthless if he is a good one. He has a dream. It anguishes him so much he must get rid of it. He has no peace until then. Everything goes by the board: honor, pride, decency, security, happiness, all, to get the book written. If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' is worth any number of old ladies.

  William Faulkner

  Mother, Dream, Art

  In Paris Review Spring 1956, p. 30

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• He had relieved whores beyond counting of frocks, stays, chemises, garters, and stockings. He had never before in his life unbuttoned a gently bred maiden's glove. He'd committed salacious acts beyond number. He'd never before felt so depraved as he did now, as the last pearl came free and he drew the soft kid down, baring her wrist, and his dark fingers grazed the delicate skin he'd exposed.

  Loretta Chase

  Kids, Dark, Skins

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• War is life multiplied by some number that no one has ever heard of.

  Sebastian Junger

  Veterans Day, Military, War

  "War". Book by Sebastian Junger, www.hoover.org. 2010.

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• Where you think I’m goan?’ ‘Well,’ Eddie said, ‘what was behind Door Number One wasn’t so hot, and what was behind Door Number Two was even worse, so now, instead of quitting like sane people, we’re going to go right on ahead and check out Door Number Three. The way things have been going, I think it’s likely to be something like Godzilla or Ghidra the Three-Headed Monster, but I’m an optimist. I’m still hoping for the stainless steel cookware.

  Stephen King

  Thinking, Doors, Two

  Stephen King (2016). “The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three”, p.290, Simon and Schuster

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• I walk to Oxford Street and climb on the number 8. It's freezing and it starts to rain and it's the ugliest bus I've ever seen, rattling down the ugliest streets, in the ugliest city, in the ugliest country, in the ugliest of all possible worlds.

  David Thewlis

  Country, Rain, Cities

  David Thewlis (2011). “The Late Hector Kipling”, p.83, Pan Macmillan

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• There were many words that you could not stand to hear and finally only the names of places had dignity. Certain numbers were the same way and certain dates and these with the names of the places were all you could say and have them mean anything. Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments and the dates.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Mean, Names, Rivers

  Ernest Hemingway (2016). “A Farewell to Arms”, p.109, Hamilton Books

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• And Flock Rule Number Two is, Don't argue with Max or you'll live to regret it." I spun and stomped out to the clearing, turning back for one last jab at Dylan. "And by the way, you clearly DON'T know me better than Fang does. Do you see Fang arguing with me? No, you do not." Fang rolled his eyes.

  James Patterson

  Regret, Eye, Two

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• The only number that would ever be enough is 0. Zero pounds, zero life, size zero, double-zero, zero point. Zero in tennis is love. I finally get it.

  Laurie Halse Anderson

  Zero, Tennis, Anorexia

  Laurie Halse Anderson (2014). “Wintergirls”, p.183, Scholastic UK

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• Well, Diotallevi and I are planning a reform in higher education. A School of Comparative Irrelevance, where useless or impossibe courses are given. The school's aim is to turn out scholars capable of endlessly increasing the number of unnecessary subjects.

  Umberto Eco

  School, Irrelevance, Reform

  Umberto Eco (2007). “Foucault's Pendulum”, p.85, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• In the history of the world many souls have been, are, and will be, and with a little reflection this is marvelous and not depressing. Many jerks are made gloomy about it, for they think quantity buries them alive. That's just crazy. Numbers are very dangerous, but the main thing about them is that they humble your pride. And that's good.

  Saul Bellow

  Depressing, Crazy, Humble

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• As long as the centuries continue to unfold, the number of books will grow continually, and one can predict that a time will come when it will be almost as difficult to learn anything from books as from the direct study of the whole universe. It will be almost as convenient to search for some bit of truth concealed in nature as it will be to find it hidden away in an immense multitude of bound volumes.

  Denis Diderot

  Book, Learning, Long

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• We are accustomed to live in hopes of good weather, a good harvest, a nice love-affair, hopes of becoming rich or getting the office of chief of police, but I've never noticed anyone hoping to get wiser. We say to ourselves: it'll be better under a new tsar, and in two hundred years it'll still be better, and nobody tries to make this good time come tomorrow. On the whole, life gets more and more complex every day and moves on its own sweet will, and people get more and more stupid, and get isolated from life in ever-increasing numbers.

  Anton Chekhov

  Sweet, Stupid, Nice

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• Your number was up the first time I met you.

  Stephenie Meyer

  Twilight, Firsts, Mets

  Stephenie Meyer (2009). “Twilight: Twilight”, p.116, Hachette UK

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• So I went to New York City to be born again. It was and remains easy for most Americans to go somewhere else and start anew. I wasn't like my parents. I didn't have any supposedly sacred piece of land or shoals of friends to leave behind. Nowhere has the number zero been of more philisophical value than in the United States.... and when the [train] plunged into a tunnel under New York City, with it's lining of pipes and wires, I was out of the womb and into the birth canal.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Zero, New York, Cities

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• Only if the third necessary thing could be given us. Number one, as I said: quality of information. Number two: leisure to digest it. And number three: the right to carry out actions based on what we learn from the interaction of the first two.

  Ray Bradbury

  Two, Quality, Information

  Ray Bradbury (1951). “Fahrenheit 451: A Novel”, Simon and Schuster

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• The only difference between Obama and Bush is that Obama is killing more people. He’s about double the numbers now. Can you imagine if McCain had won and did precisely what Obama has done, with every speech and every political maneuver overseas? There’d be riots in the streets about the people we’re killing. And yet because it’s Obama, and he’s better looking and better at reading the teleprompter, we let him get away with it.

  Penn Jillette

  Reading, Differences, People

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• My high school guidance counselor, Mrs. Inverholl, once had me take an aptitude test to figure out my future. The number one job recommendation for my set of skills was an air traffic accident investigator, of which there are fewer than fifty in the world. The number two job was a museum curator for Chinese-American studies. The number three job was a circus clown.

  Jodi Picoult

  Jobs, School, Skills

  Jodi Picoult (2012). “The Jodi Picoult Collection #4: Change of Heart, Handle with Care, and House Rules”, p.1437, Simon and Schuster

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• There are those who say that life is like a book, with chapters for each event in your life and a limited number of pages on which you can spend your time. But I prefer to think that a book is like a life, particularly a good one, which is well to worth staying up all night to finish.

  Daniel Handler

  Book, Night, Thinking

  "The greatest Lemony Snicket quotes ever" by Heather Sandlin, www.theguardian.com. December 30, 2015.

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• When you love a city and have explored it frequently on foot, your body, not to mention your soul, gets to know the streets so well after a number of years that in a fit of melancholy, perhaps stirred by a light snow falling ever so sorrowfully, you'll discover your legs carrying you of their own accord toward one of your favourite promontories

  Orhan Pamuk

  Fall, Light, Years

  Orhan Pamuk (2011). “My Name Is Red”, p.11, Faber & Faber

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• Carnal embrace is sexual congress, which is the insertion of the male genital organ into the female genital organ for purposes of procreation and pleasure. Fermat’s last theorem, by contrast, asserts that when x, y and z are whole numbers each raised to power of n, the sum of the first two can never equal the third when n is greater than 2.

  Tom Stoppard

  Sex, Two, Males

  Tom Stoppard (2013). “Arcadia”, p.11, Faber & Faber

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• Books are infinite in number and time is short. The secret of knowledge is to take what is essential. Take that and try to live up to it.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Book, Secret, Trying

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “Raja Yoga: Art of Living”, p.142, editionNEXT.com

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• Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.

  J. K. Rowling

  Perfectly Normal, Four, Proud

  J.K. Rowling (2015). “Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone”, p.9, Pottermore

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• No Geologist worth anything is permanently bound to a desk or laboratory, but the charming notion that true science can only be based on unbiased observation of nature in the raw is mythology. Creative work, in geology and anywhere else, is interaction and synthesis: half-baked ideas from a bar room, rocks in the field, chains of thought from lonely walks, numbers squeezed from rocks in a laboratory, numbers from a calculator riveted to a desk, fancy equipment usually malfunctioning on expensive ships, cheap equipment in the human cranium, arguments before a road cut.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Lonely, Creativity, Science

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• Mrs. Charlotte Phelan's Guide to Husband-Hunting, Rule Number One: a pretty, petite girl should accentuate with makeup and good posture. A tall plain one, with a trust fund.

  Kathryn Stockett

  Girl, Husband, Makeup

  Kathryn Stockett (2009). “The Help”, p.68, Penguin

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