What single most profound paragraph or sentence or anecdote have you read to date, and how has it impacted you as a human being and a writer?
Definitely the Red Wedding in ASoIaF, Miranda's chapters in Station Eleven, and there's an online series called Adrian's Undead Diary, while it's definitely not up to par for the 2 I listed, it has great characters that are very human, and the entire plot line for the final few books were great.
Where Jesus said, "Life is more than money." Of course I've always known that. But recently it kept coming back to me as I become more and more convinced that I'd rather lower my living standards a little and be with my family.
"At least I had a nice frock, even it was a wee bit dressy for six o'clock in the morning! Gold lace, with a gold satin ribbon at the waist, I'd bought it for my nephew's wedding the previous year. I'd found it in a shop in the nearby town of Livingston and it had cost a tidy penny, but it was a special occasion and I thought I looked good in it. At the reception, I'd worn the dress with a white jacket, white shoes and natural coloured tights, but the morning of the audition - I don't know what possessed me - I decided to pull on black tights. Black tights and a gold dress with white shoes, for God's sake, Susan, do not match! But I didn't know that then." Susan Boyle's autobiography.
"Man is not made for defeat; he can be destroyed, but never defeated." Santiago in "The Old Man and the Sea" (Ernest Hemingway) "An idea is a greater monument than a cathedral." - Henry Drummond in "Inherit the Wind" (Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee) "Who is de Gaulle? He looks puffed up to me. I don't like him. Ah, but what de Gaulle stands for! What decent man could do otherwise?" - Emile de Becque, "Tales of the South Pacific" (Michener) "You never really know a person until you consider things from his point of view; to stand in his shoes and walk around in them for a while." - Atticus Finch in "To Kill A Mockingbird" (Harper Lee) "Either war is finished, or we are." - Pug Henry, "War and Remembrance" (Herman Wouk) "I'm being sunk by a society that demands success when all I can offer is failure. At a stage where other men sail through life, Bialystock has struck a reef!" - Max Bialystock in "The Producers" (Mel Brooks)
Hi, Well I'm a philosophy of religion sort of guy, so what stirs me is perhaps a little different. I love Descartes, both for Cogito ergo sum and for his views on omnipotence - this latter of course leads to Tillich's brilliant work on the "Ground of Being". Then there's Kierkegaard's insightful "leap to faith" which I think everyone who claims to be religious should read. I also find Plato's allegory of the cave brilliant. Cheers, Greg.
"Who am I when I am not surrounded by the walls of my life? When they have all fallen into dust and rubble?" Ista from "Paladin of Souls" "Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself." Aral Vorkosigan quoted by Miles Vorkosigan in "A Civil Campaign" "Aim high. You may still miss your target but at least you won’t shoot your foot off." Eli Quinn *headscratch* can't remember were The first to think about, the second and third very, very true!
The Tao Te Ching is one of the most profound things I have read, however Hunter S Thompson seemed to sum it up in saying, 'All energy flows according to the whims of the great Magnet. What a fool I was to defy him.'
A writer who tells it like it is, who constantly opens your eyes with the simple truth of what he's saying, and is hilarious and downbeat to boot. There's only one: Charles Bukowski. His books are full of one-liners that can change your life, like: "Never trust a man with shiny shoes."
