"You keep taking note of whatever confirms your ideas—better to write down what refutes and weakens them!"

Elias Canetti Literature See all quotes by Elias Canetti →

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“Whenever the truth threatens, he hides behind a thought.”

“Nothing was better for you than humiliation, for there was nothing you felt more deeply.”

“His great holy books, which he does not know. They are so holy that he does not dare to open them.”

“If one has lived long enough, there is danger of succumbing to the word “God” merely because it was always there.”

“He sometimes tells himself that there is nothing more to be said, simply because he won’t get around to saying it.—How contemptible!”

“Say the most personal thing, say it, nothing else matters, don’t be ashamed, the generalities can be found in the newspaper.”

Resonant Thoughts

"I am writing for myself and strangers. This is the only way that I can do it. Everybody is a real one to me, everybody is like some one else too to me. No one of them that I know can want to know it a…"

— Gertrude Stein

Literature1874–1946

#writing

"In the United States, by eighth grade, 41 percent of girls are at least “proficient” in writing, while only 20 percent of boys are."

— Warren Farrell

Science1943

#writing

"Senators leap up and bray for the Death Penalty with inflexible authority of virus yen... Death for dope fiends, death for sex queens death for the psychopath who offends the cowed and graceless flesh…"

— William S. Burroughs

Literature1914–1997

#writing

"“DO YOU HEAR ME?” I now screamed to the heavens, driving this information into the deepest crevices of my mind. “I, VICTOR EDMUNDO VILLASEÑOR, TAKE THIS HOLY OATH BEFORE YOU, GOD ALMIGHTY, as your son…"

— Victor Villaseñor

Literature1940

#religion