"Parents – especially step-parents – are sometimes a bit of a disappointment to their children. They don't fufill the promise of their early years."

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“Self-love seems so often unrequited.”

“People think because a novel's invented, it isn't true. Exactly the reverse is the case. Because a novel's invented, it is true. Biography and memoirs can never be wholly true, since they can't include every conceivable circumstance of what happened. The novel can do that. The novelist himself lays it down. His decision is binding.”

“here is no greater sign of innate misery than a love of teasing.”

“The whole idea of interviews is in itself absurd – one cannot answer deep questions about what one's life was like – one writes novels about it.”

“Growing old's like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven't committed.”

“He fell in love with himself at first sight and it is a passion to which he has always remained faithful.”

Resonant Thoughts

"I don't think a “mad man.” He's an individual who is very committed to his view and ideology. There's almost a sort of apocalyptic mentality that reigns here and he's not alone in it. Unfortunately, t…"

— Reza Pahlavi

Politics1960–1980

#time

"Once he had turned the steak onto the other side, the madness began, as in a soul in love. Everything that followed after that, the salads, garnishes, and other accompaniments to the steak, was turned…"

— Doina Ruști

Literature1957

#love

"For if the people join to their presence in the historical process critical thinking about that process, the threat of their emergence materializes in a revolution. Whether one calls this correct thin…"

— Paulo Freire

Education1921–1997

#mind

"This age, which should adjudge happiness to be as valuable as soap or munitions, would never come so long as the workers accepted the testimony of paid spokesmen... to the effect that they were conten…"

— Sinclair Lewis

Literature1885–1951

#happiness