This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"All these infinitely obscure lives remain to be recorded, I said... and went on in thought through the streets of London feeling in imagination the pressure of dumbness, the accumulation of unrecorded life, whether from the women at the street corners with their arms akimbo ... or from the violet-sellers and the match-sellers and the old crones stationed under doorways; or from drifting girls whose faces, like waves in sun and cloud, signal the coming of men and women ... Above all, you must illumine your own soul with its profundities and its shallows, and its vanities and its generosities, and say what your beauty means to you or your plainness, and what is your relation to the everchanging and turning world of of gloves and shoes and muffs swaying up and down among the faint scents that come through chemists' bottles down arcades of dress material over a floor of pseudo-marble." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
"As for my next book, I am going to hold myself from writing it till I have it impending in me: grown heavy in my mind like a ripe pear, pendant, gravid, asking to be cut or it will fall." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
"As for my next book, I won't write it till it has grown heavy in my mind like a ripe pear; pendant, gravid, asking to be cut or it will fall." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
"But our hatred is almost indistinguishable from our love." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
"But to go deeper, beneath what people said (and these judgements, how superficial, how fragmentary they are!) in her own mind now, what did it mean to her, this thing she called life? Oh, it was very queer. Here was So-and-so in South Kensington; some one up in Bayswater; and somebody else, say, in Mayfair. And she felt quiet continuously a sense of their existence and she felt what a waste; and she felt what a pity; and she felt if only they could be brought together; so she did it. And it was an offering; to combine, to create; but to whom? An offering for the sake of offering, perhaps. Anyhow, it was her gift. Nothing else had she of the slightest importance; could not think, write, even play the piano. She muddled Armenians and Turks; loved success; hated discomfort; must be liked; talked oceans of nonsense: and to this day, ask her what the Equator was, and she did not know. All the same, that one day should follow another; Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday; that one should wake up in the morning; see the sky; walk in the park; meet Hugh Whitbread; then suddenly in came Peter; then these roses; it was enough. After that, how unbelievable death was! — that it must end; and no one in the whole world would know how she had loved it all." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
"I had a weird feeling of being invisible, unnoticed, unknown, no longer being married, not having more children now, just that astonishing and rather solemn march with others by Bond Street, Mrs. Dalloway be this, no more Clarissa : Mrs. Dalloway only." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
"In the Queen's prayerbook, along with the blood-stain, was also a lock of hair and a crumb of pastry; Orlando now added to these keepsakes a flake of tobacco, and so, reading and smoking, was moved by the humane jumble of them all--the hair, the pastry, the blood-stain, the tobacco--to such a mood of contemplation as gave her a reverent air suitable in the circumstances, though she had, it is said, no traffic with the usual God." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
"It is a thousand pities never to say what one feels." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
"It seemed more the memory of the pain that the pain itself." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
"Nothing is stronger than the position of the dead among the living." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
"She looked now at the drawing-room step. She saw, through William’s eyes, the shape of a woman, peaceful and silent, with downcast eyes. She sat musing, pondering (she was in grey that day, Lily thought). Her eyes were bent. She would never lift them. . . . [N]o, she thought, one could say nothing to nobody. The urgency of the moment always missed its mark. Words fluttered sideways and struck the object inches too low. Then one gave it up; then the idea sunk back again; then one became like most middle-aged people, cautious, furtive, with wrinkles between the eyes and a look of perpetual apprehension. For how could one express in words these emotions of the body? Express that emptiness there? (She was looking at the drawing-room steps; they looked extraordinarily empty.) It was one’s body feeling, not one’s mind. The physical sensations that went with the bare look of the steps had become suddenly extremely unpleasant. To want and not to have, sent all up her body a hardness, a hollowness, a strain. And then to want and not to have – to want and want – how that wrung the heart, and wrung again and again! Oh, Mrs. Ramsay! she called out silently, to that essence which sat by the boat, that abstract one made of her, that woman in grey, as if to abuse her for having gone, and then having gone, come back again. It had seemed so safe, thinking of her. Ghost, air, nothingness, a thing you could play with easily and safely at any time of day or night, she had been that, and then suddenly she put her hand out and wrung the heart thus. Suddenly, the empty drawing-room steps, the frill of the chair inside, the puppy tumbling on the terrace, the whole wave and whisper of the garden became like curves and arabesques flourishing round a centre of complete emptiness. . . . A curious notion came to her that he did after all hear the things she could not say. . . . She looked at her picture. That would have been his answer, presumably – how you and I and she pass and vanish; nothing stays; all changes; but not words, not paint. Yet it would be hung in the attics, she thought; it would be rolled up and flung under a sofa; yet even so, even of a picture like that, it was true. One might say, even of this scrawl, not of that actual picture, perhaps, but of what it attempted, that it remained for ever, she was going to say, or, for the words spoken sounded even to herself, too boastful, to hint, wordlessly; when, looking at the picture, she was surprised to find that she could not see it. Her eyes were full of a hot liquid (she did not think of tears at first) which, without disturbing the firmness of her lips, made the air thick, rolled down her cheeks. She had perfect control of herself – Oh, yes! – in every other way. Was she crying then for Mrs. Ramsay, without being aware of any unhappiness? She addressed old Mr. Carmichael again. What was it then? What did it mean? Could things thrust their hands up and grip one; could the blade cut; the fist grasp? Was there no safety? No learning by heart of the ways of the world? No guide, no shelter, but all was miracle, and leaping from the pinnacle of a tower into the air? Could it be, even for elderly people, that this was life? – startling, unexpected, unknown? For one moment she felt that if they both got up, here, now on the lawn, and demanded an explanation, why was it so short, why was it so inexplicable, said it with violence, as two fully equipped human beings from whom nothing should be hid might speak, then, beauty would roll itself up; the space would fill; those empty flourishes would form into shape; if they shouted loud enough Mrs. Ramsay would return. Mrs. Ramsay! she said aloud, Mrs. Ramsay! The tears ran down her face." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
"She would not say of anyone in the world that they were this or were that. She felt very young; at the same time unspeakably aged. She sliced like a knife through everything; at the same time was outside, looking on. She had a perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, far out to the sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day. Not that she thought herself clever, or much out of the ordinary. How she had got through life on the few twigs of knowledge Fraulein Daniels gave them she could not think. She knew nothing; no language, no history; she scarcely read a book now, except memoirs in bed; and yet to her it was absolutely absorbing; all this; the cabs passing; and she would not say of Peter, she would not say of herself, I am this, I am that." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
"So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say. But to sacrifice a hair of the head of your vision, a shade of its color, in deference to some Headmaster with a silver pot in his hand or to some professor with a measuring-rod up his sleeve, is the most abject treachery, and the sacrifice of wealth and chastity which used to be said to be the greatest of human disasters, a mere flea-bite in comparison." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
"Sometimes this constraint would be felt by the whole tribe, numbering some dozens of grown men and women. It sprang from the sense they had (and their senses are very sharp and much in advance of their vocabulary) that whatever they were doing crumbled like ashes in their hands. An old woman making a basket, a boy skinning a sheep, would be singing or crooning contentedly at their work, when Orlando would come into the camp, fling herself down by the fire and gaze into the flames. She need not even look at them, and yet they felt, here is someone who doubts; (we make a rough-and-ready translation from the gipsy language) here is someone who does not do the thing for the sake of doing; nor looks for looking’s sake; here is someone who believes neither in sheep-skin nor basket; but sees (here they looked apprehensively about the tent) something else. Then a vague but most unpleasant feeling would begin to work in the boy and in the old woman. They broke their withys; they cut their fingers. A great rage filled them. They wished Orlando would leave the tent and never come near them again." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
"That she held herself well was true; and had nice hands and feet; and dressed well, considering that she spent little. But often now this body she wore (she stopped to look at a Dutch picture), this body, with all its capacities, seemed nothing - nothing at all. She had the oddest sense of being herself invisible; unseen; unknown; there being no more marrying, no more having of children now, but only this astonishing and rather solemn progress with the rest of them, up Bond Street, this being Mrs. Dalloway, not even Clarissa anymore; this being Mrs. Richard Dalloway." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
"The hatchet must fall on the block; the oak must be cleft to the centre. The weight of the world is on my shoulders. Here is the pen and the paper; on the letters in the wire basket I sign my name, I, I, and again I." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
"The most important thing is not to think very much about oneself. To investigate candidly the charge; but not fussily, not very anxiously. On no account to retaliate by going to the other extreme -- thinking too much." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
"The weight of the world is on our shoulders, its vision is through our eyes; if we blink or look aside, or turn back to finger what Plato said or remember Napoleon and his conquests, we inflict on the world the injury of some obliquity. This is life." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
"Was there no safety? No learning by heart of the ways of the world? No guide, no shelter, but all was miracle, and leaping from the pinnacle of a tower into the air? Could it be, even for elderly people, that this was life?--startling, unexpected, unknown?" - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
"What I like, or one of the things I like, about motoring is the sense it gives one of lighting accidentally, like a voyager who touches another planet with the tip of his toe, upon scenes which would have gone on, have always gone on, will go on, unrecorded, save for this chance glimpse. Then it seems to me I am allowed to see the heart of the world uncovered for a moment." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
"An original writer is not one who imitates nobody, but one whom nobody can imitate." - François-René de Chateaubriand, fully François-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand
"The Grecian history is a poem, Latin history a picture, modern history a chronicle." - François-René de Chateaubriand, fully François-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand
"Destiny never opens one door without shutting another." - Victor Hugo
"I had a dream my life would be different from this hell I am living, so different from what it seemed. Now life has killed the dream I dreamed." - Victor Hugo
"I made a quick last round of my patients [just before I intended to escape], who were lying huddled on the rotten planks of wood on either side of the huts. I came to my only countryman, who was almost dying, and whose life it had been my ambition to save in spite of his condition. I had to keep my intention to escape to myself, but my comrade seemed to guess that something was wrong (perhaps I showed a little nervousness). In a tired voice he asked me, 'You, too, are getting out?' I denied it, but I found it difficult to avoid his sad look. After my round I returned to him. Again a hopeless look greeted me and somehow I felt it to be an accusation. The unpleasant feeling that had gripped me as soon as I had told my friend I would escape with him became more intense. Suddenly I decided to take fate into my own hands for once. I ran out of the hut and told my friend that I could not go with him. As soon as I had told him with finality that I had made up my mind to stay with my patients, the unhappy feeling left me. I did not know what the following days would bring, but I had gained an inward peace that I had never experienced before. I returned to the hut, sat down on the boards at my countryman's feet and tried to comfort him; then I chatted with the others, trying to quiet them in their delirium." - Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
"Fire and fear, good servants, bad lords." - Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
"I don't write tracts, I write novels. I'm not a preacher, I'm a fiction writer." - Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
"I'll make my report as if I told a story, for I was taught as a child on my homeworld that Truth is a matter of the imagination." - Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
"True myth may serve for thousands of years as an inexhaustible source of intellectual speculation, religious joy, ethical inquiry, and artistic renewal. The real mystery is not destroyed by reason. The fake one is. You look at it and it vanishes. You look at the Blond Hero — really look — and he turns into a gerbil. But you look at Apollo, and he looks back at you. The poet Rilke looked at a statue of Apollo about fifty years ago, and Apollo spoke to him. You must change your life, he said. When true myth rises into consciousness, that is always its message. You must change your life." - Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
"Science can be effective in the national welfare only as a member of a team, whether the conditions be peace or war. But without scientific progress no amount of achievement in other directions can insure our health, prosperity, and security as a nation in the modern world." - Vannevar Bush
"To pursue science is not to disparage the things of the spirit. In fact, to pursue science rightly is to furnish the framework on which the spirit may rise." - Vannevar Bush
"I do have a cause though. It's obscenity. I'm for it." - Tom Lehrer, fully Thomas Andrew Lehrer
"I find enough mystery in mathematics to satisfy my spiritual needs. I think, for example, that pi is mysterious enough (don't get me started!) without having to worry about God. Or if pi isn't enough, how about fractals? or quantum mechanics?" - Tom Lehrer, fully Thomas Andrew Lehrer
"I have read some of the speculations on the perfectibility of man and of society with great pleasure." - Thomas Malthus, fully Thomas Robert Malthus
"Now the only sure basis of an alliance is for each party to be equally afraid of the other." - Thucydides NULL
"I believe in everything; nothing is sacred, I believe in nothing; everything is sacred, …Ha Ha Ho Ho Hee Hee." - Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins
"I’m acquainted with a, uh, gentleman who claims that the extent to which a society focuses on the needs of its lowest common denominator is the extent to which that society’ll be mired in mediocrity. Whereas, if we would aim the bulk of our support at the brightest, most talented, most virtuous instead, then they would have the wherewithal to solve a lot of our problems, to uplift the whole culture, enlighten it or something, so that eventually there wouldn’t be so many losers and weaklings impeding evolution and dragging the whole species down. He claims that martyrs like you just perpetuate human misery by catering to it. He believes individuals have to take responsibility for their own lives and accept the consequences of their choices." - Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins
"In a universe that was perceived as inherently divine, where sacred animals munched sacred plants in groves of sacred trees, where holy rivers spilled from the laps of mountains that were Gods, to nurture a life was a lovely and important thing." - Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins
"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." - Dugald Stewart
"On the basis of biological, sociological, and historical knowledge, we should recognize that the individual self is subject to death or decay, but the sum total of individual achievement, for better or worse, lives on in the immortality of The Larger." - Hu Shih, or Hú Shì
"The white youth of today have begun to react to the fact that the American Way of Life is a fossil of history. What do they care if their old baldheaded and crew-cut elders don't dig their caveman mops? They couldn't care less about the old, stiff-assed honkies who don't like their new dances: Frog, Monkey, Jerk, Swim, Watusi. All they know is that it feels good to swing to way-out body-rhythms instead of dragging across the dance floor like zombies to the dead beat of mind-smothered Mickey Mouse music." - Eldridge Cleaver, fully Leroy Eldridge Cleaver
"The profoundest thoughts of the philosophers have something trickle about them. A lot disappears in order for something to suddenly appear in the palm of the hand." - Elias Canetti
"I see what you mean. It must be a huge relief, and an easy way out, to think the devil is always outside of us… we would stop looking for Sheitan outside and instead focus on ourselves. What we need is sincere self-examination. Not being on the watch for the faults of others." - Elif Safak
"Why, what's wrong! Religions are like rivers: all flow into a sea. Mother Mary embodies compassion, mercy, love and unconditional love. It is personal, but belongs to everyone. Never mind that you're a Muslim, you can still love her and even called his daughter Maria." - Elif Safak
"The inspired scribbler always has the gift for gossip in our common usage he or she can always inspire the commonplace with an uncommon flavor, and transform trivialities by some original grace or sympathy or humor or affection." - Elizabeth Drew, aka Elizabeth Brenner
"As smoking is to the lungs, so is resentment to the soul; even one puff is bad for you." - Elizabeth Gilbert
"Kalos Kai Agathos, the singular balance of the good and the beautiful." - Elizabeth Gilbert
"My friend Kate once went to a concert of Mongolian throat singers who were traveling through New York City on a rare world tour. Although she couldn't understand the words to their songs, she found the music almost unbearably sad. After the concert, Kate approached the lead Mongolian singer and asked, What are your songs about? He replied, Our songs are about the same things that everyone else's songs are about: lost love, and somebody stole your fastest horse." - Elizabeth Gilbert
"So when modern-day religious conservatives wax nostalgic about how marriage is a sacred tradition that reaches back into history for thousands of uninterrupted years, they are correct, but in only one respect - only if they happen to be talking about Judaism. Christianity simply does not share that deep and consistent historical reverence toward matrimony. Lately it has, yes- but not originally. For the first thousand or so years of Christian history, the church regarded monogamous marriage as marginally less wicked that flat-out whoring but only very marginally." - Elizabeth Gilbert