Like the Arthurian years at Camelot, the Sixties constituted a breakthrough, a fleeting moment of glory, a time when a significant little chunk of humanity briefly realised its moral potential and flirted with its neurological destiny, a collective spiritual awakening that flared brilliantly until the barbaric and mediocre impulses of the species drew tight once more the curtains of darkness. (Tom Robbins, "Jitterbug Perfume") >> More Tom Robbins Quotations...
I believe all sin, love, glory are this: when you slide down the knotted sheets, escaping from Gestapo headquarters, and she hugs you, there, suspended, and she whispers that she's always dreamed of you. The rest is just sex, copulation, the perpetuation of the vile species. (Umberto Eco, "Foucault's Pendulum") >> More Umberto Eco Quotations...
A monk should surely love his books with humility, wishing their good and not the glory of his own curiosity; but what the temptation of adultery is for laymen and the yearning for riches is for secular ecclesiastics, the seduction of knowledge is for monks. (Umberto Eco, "The Name of the Rose") >> More Umberto Eco Quotations...
He endeavored to collect his thoughts, but did not succeed. At those hours especially when we have sorest need of grasping the sharp realities of life do the threads of though snap off in the brain. (Victor Hugo, "Les Misérables") >> More Victor Hugo Quotations...
Success is an ugly thing. Men are deceived by its false resemblances to merit.... They confound the brilliance of the firmament with the star-shaped footprints of a duck in the mud. (Victor Hugo, "Les Misérables") >> More Victor Hugo Quotations...
Plans are one thing and fate another. When they coincide, success results. Yet success mustn't be considered the absolute. It is questionable, for that matter, whether success is an adequate resposne to life. Success can eliminate as many options as failure. (Tom Robbins, "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues") >> More Tom Robbins Quotations...