Great Throughts Treasury

"Eighty percent of success is showing up."

"More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly."

"A Bay Area Bisexual told me I didn't quite coincide with either of her desires."

"A deranged person is supposed to have the strength of ten men."

"A relationship, I think, is like a shark, you know? It has to constantly move forward or it dies. And I think what we got on our hands is a dead shark."

"A fast word about oral contraception. I asked a girl to go to bed with me, she said 'no'."

"A woman's appetite is twice that of a man's; her sexual desire, four times; her intelligence, eight times"

"A lot of things have happened in my private life recently that I thought we could review tonight."

"A ship is safe in the harbor, but that's not ships where belong."

"Abysmal vermin that I am, I couldn't of course tell her that it was her incredible mother that I wanted to see again? I knew only as I drove through the cold, night autumn air that somewhere Freud, Sophocles and Eugene O?Neill were laughing."

"Ads Answered out of desperation in The New York Review of Books proved equally futile as ... The 'Bay Area bisexual' Told Me I did not Quite coincide with either of her Desires."

"AGATHON: But all that talk about death being the same as sleep. SOCRATES: Yes, the difference is that when you're dead and somebody yells, "Everybody up, it's morning," it's very hard to find your slippers."

"All men fear death. It?s a natural fear that consumes us all. We fear death because we feel that we haven?t loved well enough or loved at all, which ultimately are one and the same. However, when you make love with a truly great woman, one that deserves the utmost respect in this world and one that makes you feel truly powerful, that fear of death completely disappears. Because when you are sharing your body and heart with a great woman the world fades away. You two are the only ones in the entire universe. You conquer what most lesser men have never conquered before, you have conquered a great woman?s heart, the most vulnerable thing she can offer to another. Death no longer lingers in the mind. Fear no longer clouds your heart. Only passion for living, and for loving, become your sole reality. This is no easy task for it takes insurmountable courage. But remember this, for that moment when you are making love with a woman of true greatness you will feel immortal. I believe that love that is true and real creates a respite from death. All cowardice comes from not loving or not loving well, which is the same thing. And when the man who is brave and true looks death squarely in the face like some rhino hunters I know or Belmonte, who is truly brave, it is because they love with sufficient passion to push death out of their minds. Until it returns, as it does to all men. And then you must make really good love again. Think about it."

"All men are mortal. Socrates was mortal. Therefore, all men are Socrates."

"ALLEN: That's quite a lovely Jackson Pollock, isn't it? WOMAN: Yes, it is. ALLEN: What does it say to you? WOMAN: It restates the negativeness of the universe. The hideous lonely emptiness of existence. Nothingness. The predicament of man forced to live in a barren, godless eternity like a tiny flame flickering in an immense void with nothing but waste, horror, and degradation, forming a useless, bleak straitjacket in a black, absurd cosmos. ALLEN: What are you doing Saturday night? WOMAN: Committing suicide. ALLEN: What about Friday night?"

"All people know the same truth. Our lives consist of how we choose to distort it."

"And how does gravity work? And if it were to cease suddenly, would certain restaurants still require a jacket?"

"Although it remains arguable that the death penalty serves as a deterrent, studies show that the probability of criminal recidivism is reduced by almost half after the execution."

"Am I my brother's keeper? Yes. Interestingly, in My Case, That I share with Honor The Prospect Park Zoo."

"Arlene and I have to get a divorce. She thinks I'm a pervert because I drank our water bed."

"As a filmmaker, I'm not interested in 9/11... It's too small, history overwhelms it. The history of the world is like: He kills me, I kill him, only with different cosmetics and different castings. So in 2001, some fanatics killed some Americans, and now some Americans are killing some Iraqis. And in my childhood, some Nazis killed Jews. And now, some Jewish people and some Palestinians are killing each other. Political questions, if you go back thousands of years, are ephemeral, not important. History is the same thing over and over again."

"As the poet said, "Only God can make a tree"? probably because it's so hard to figure out how to get the bark on."

"As we know, for centuries Rome regarded the Open Hot Turkey Sandwich as the height of licentiousness."

"Basically my wife was immature. I'd be at home in my bath and she'd come in and sink my boats."

"Beautiful, funny, smart, sexual, and also neurotic? Like it's Filling an Inside Straight."

"And my parents finally realize I'm kidnapped and they snap into action immediately: They rent out my room."

"ANNA: It's just a dream. It is clear as day that a murderer can break your neck ... to cut your throat ... and not when you get to ninety, and right now."

"Anything worth knowing cannot be understood by the human mind."

"Anyway, people dedicated to religion not want to acknowledge the reality that contradicts your fairy tale. If we really live in a universe without God, they lose their jobs. Cash flow stagnates. On the other hand, there are people who choose to live your life in a completely self-centered and murderer. They feel that if nothing matters and they can do what they want without suffering consequences will do it. But we can also see it another way: are we and all others, and living in a lifeboat, and we have to do things in the most decent way for us and for them. To me it seems to me that this would be a way of living much more morale Christian: recognize the terrible truth of human existence and, before it, still choose to be decent human instead of deceiving us about the existence of any reward or paradise any one infernal punishment. It seemed to me a much more noble attitude. If there is reward, punishment or any type of payment and act well, then we are not doing a very noble reasons - the so-called Christian principles. It's like the suicide bombers who allegedly act on quite noble religious and national principles when, in fact, their families receive a cash reward and welcome with a heroic legacy - not to mention the promise of virgins for perpetrators although pass me through to the next how anyone prefers a group of virgins to a highly experienced woman."

"Because it's much more pleasant to be obsessed over how the hero gets out of his predicament than it is over how I get out of mine."

"Between the Pope and air conditioning, I'd choose air conditioning."

"Bidnick gorges himself on Viagra, but the dosage makes him hallucinate and causes him to imagine he is Pliny the Elder."

"Bisexuality immediately doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night."

"Burt: Do you care even about the Holocaust or do you think it never happened? Harry: Not only do I know that we lost six million, but the scary thing is that records are made to be broken."

"BUT it WAS I, yes I, WHO discovered The Link Between Excessive masturbation and entry Into Politics!"

"Can we actually "know" the universe? My God, it's hard enough finding your way around in Chinatown."

"By now they had mastered my own language, but they still made simple mistakes, like using 'hermeneutics,' when they meant 'heuristic'."

"But the fundamental problem is this: Is there something out there? And why? And does it have so noise?"

"Capital punishment would be more effective as a preventive measure if it were administered prior to the crime."

"Change is death."

"Confidence is what you have before you understand the problem."

"Chapter 1. He adored New York City. He idolized it all out of proportion...no, make that: he - he romanticized it all out of proportion. Yeah. To him, no matter what the season was, this was still a town that existed in black and white and pulsated to the great tunes of George Gershwin.' Uh, no let me start this over. 'Chapter 1. He was too romantic about Manhattan, as he was about everything else. He thrived on the hustle bustle of the crowds and the traffic. To him, New York meant beautiful women and street-smart guys who seemed to know all the angles...' Ah, corny, too corny for my taste. Can we ... can we try and make it more profound? 'Chapter 1. He adored New York City. For him, it was a metaphor for the decay of contemporary culture. The same lack of individual integrity that caused so many people to take the easy way out was rapidly turning the town of his dreams in...' No, that's going to be too preachy. I mean, you know, let's face it, I want to sell some books here. 'Chapter 1. He adored New York City, although to him it was a metaphor for the decay of contemporary culture. How hard it was to exist in a society desensitized by drugs, loud music, television, crime, garbage...' Too angry, I don't want to be angry. 'Chapter 1. He was as tough and romantic as the city he loved. Behind his black-rimmed glasses was the coiled sexual power of a jungle cat.' I love this. 'New York was his town, and it always would be."

"Comedy just pokes at problems, rarely confronts them squarely. Drama is like a plate of meat and potatoes, comedy is rather the dessert, a bit like meringue."

"Correspondence is fascinating to see how far you can fall apart right when he faces a sinister occasional truth and flees in disorderly retreat to better realize a mirage and build precarious defenses against the assault of a reality too terrible!"

"Correspondence I screwed. Excuse me. The fact that you would not notice it was missing a letter also indicates some oversight on their part, I, for mine, I attribute to his impatience, but God knows we all make mistakes. That's life. And chess"

"COOKIE: What are you sad about? Harry: I'm spiritually bankrupt. I'm empty. Cookie: What do you mean? HARRY: I'm frightened. I got no soul, you know what I mean? Let me put it this way: when I was younger it was less scary waiting for Lefty than it is waiting for Godot. COOKIE: You lost me!"

"DAVID: And you think it can just evaporate? Even if at one Time THEY loved one Another? MARX: That's one of The sad truths of Existence. Nothing in this world is permanent. Even The characters created by The Great Will Shakespeare, in Millions of Years, Cease to Exist-When The Universe runs ITS Course and The Go lights out."

"Curiosity, that?s what kills us. Not muggers or all that bullshit about the ozone layer. It?s our own hearts and minds."

"Creativity and the power of my imagination far exceed the capabilities of an ordinary enthusiast LSD."

"Count Dracula So goes the tempo until the mayor, who can no longer bear the situation, throws open the closet door and shout: 'Come on, Dracula! I always thought you were a sensible person. Let yourself crazy!"