This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins
Just as a piece of shell can take all the fun out of an egg salad sandwich, just as the advent of an Ice Age can poop a million garden parties, just as a disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business, so can a fit of asthma rather spoil the first date between a young woman and an Indian.
Affliction | Books |
And thorough this distemperature we see the seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose, and on old Hiems' thin and icy crown an odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds is, as in mockery, set. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act ii, Scene 1
As by your high imperial majesty I had in charge at my depart for France, as procurator to your excellence, to marry Princess Margaret for your grace, so, in the famous ancient city Tours, in presence of the Kings of France and Sicil, the Dukes of Orleans, Calabar, Bretagne, and Alencon, seven earls, twelve barons, and twenty reverend bishops, I have performed my mask and was espoused. Henry VI, Act I, Scene 1
Abundance | Books | Ceremony | Fear | Heart | Love | Rage | Recompense | Strength | Learn |
William Howells, fully William Dean Howells, aka The Dean of American Letters
Each one of us must suffer long to himself before he can learn that he is but one in a great community of wretchedness, which has been pitilessly repeating itself from the foundation of the world.
Books |
Appearances deceive and this one maxim is a standing rule: men are not what they seem.
Books | God | Mind | Opportunity | God |
William Howells, fully William Dean Howells, aka The Dean of American Letters
The secret of the man who is universally interesting is that he is universally interested.
Books |
Douglas Adams, fully Douglas Noel Adams
The room was not a room to elevate the soul. Louis XIV, to pick a name at random, would not have liked it, would have found it not sunny enough, and insufficiently full of mirrors. He would have desired someone to pick up the socks, put the records away, and maybe burn the place down. Michelangelo would have been distressed by its proportions, which were neither lofty nor shaped by any noticeable inner harmony or symmetry, other than that all parts of the room were pretty much equally full of old coffee mugs, shoes and brimming ashtrays, most of which were sharing their tasks with each other. The walls were painted in almost precisely that shade of green which Rafaello Sanzio would have bitten off his own right hand at the wrist rather than use, and Hercules, on seeing the room, would probably have returned half an hour later armed with a navigable river.
Books | Evolution | Life | Life | Little | Thought | Thought |
Inclination is another word with which will is frequently confounded. Thus, when the apothecary says, in Romeo and Juliet,— “My poverty, but not my will, consents; Take this and drink it off; the work is done.†the word will is plainly used as synonymous with inclination; not in the strict logical sense, as the immediate antecedent of action. It is with the same latitude that the word is used in common conversation, when we think of doing a thing which duty prescribes, against one’s own will; or when we speak of doing a thing willingly or unwillingly.
Acquaintance | Attainment | Books | Correctness | Grace | Language | Lying | Men | Merit | Purity | Reading | Style | Taste | Writing |
O, let us have him, for his silver hairs will purchase us a good opinion, and buy men's voices to commend our deeds.
Books |
Our love was new, and then but in the spring, when I was wont to greet it with my lays, as Philomel in summer's front doth sing and stops her pipe in growth of riper days; not that the summer is less pleasant now than when her mournful hymns did hush the night, but that wild music burdens every bough, and sweets grown common lose their dear delight.
Ban Zhao, courtesy name Huiban
Now For self-culture nothing equals respect for others. To counteract firmness nothing equals compliance. Consequently it can be said that the Way of respect and acquiescence is woman's most important principle of conduct. So respect may be defined as nothing other than holding on to that which is permanent; and acquiescence nothing other than being liberal and generous. Those who are steadfast in devotion know that they should stay in their proper places; those who are liberal and generous esteem others, and honor and serve chem.
Age | Authority | Books | Boys | Children | Conduct | Education | Men | Present | Relationship | Rites | Rule | Study | Teach | Understand |
Eleanor Brown, fully Nora Eleanor Louisa Hervey Brown
She remembered one of her boyfriends asking, offhandedly, how many books she read in a year. A few hundred, she said. How do you have the time? he asked, gobsmacked. She narrowed her eyes and considered the array of potential answers in front of her. Because I don't spend hours flipping through cable complaining there's nothing on? Because my entire Sunday is not eaten up with pre-game, in-game, and post-game talking heads? Because I do not spend every night drinking overpriced beer and engaging in dick-swinging contests with the other financirati? Because when I am waiting in line, at the gym, on the train, eating lunch, I am not complaining about the wait/staring into space/admiring myself in reflective surfaces? I am reading! I don't know, she said, shrugging.
Books | Personality | Will | Think |