#provoking

I like to imagine that the world is one big machine. You know, machines never have any extra parts. They have the exact number and type of parts they need. So I figure if the entire world is a big machine, I have to be here for some reason. And that means you have to be here for some reason, too. ↗

— Brian Selznick

#imagination

I've no interest in being thought provoking. Who needs more thoughts. I'd rather go down as one who is thought disposing. ↗

— Rasheed Ogunlaru

#mindfulness #rasheed-ogunlaru-quotes #thought-provoking #thoughtfulness #thoughts

There is a comfort in conformity, a security in control, that is appealing. There is a thrill in domination, and we are all secretly attracted to violence. ↗

— Tom Robbins

#violence #war #violence

What was behind this smug presumption that what pleased you was bad or at least unimportant in comparison to other things? … Little children were trained not to do “just what they liked’ but … but what? … Of course! What others liked. And which others? Parents, teachers, supervisors, policemen, judges, officials, kings, dictators. All authorities. When you are trained to despise “just what you like” then, of course, you become a much more obedient servant of others — a good slave. When you learn not to do “just what you like” then the System loves you. ↗

— Robert M. Pirsig

#art

To give and receive love, you have to be in touch with pain, you have to be capable of provoking it and feeling it. ↗

— Jeanne Moreau

#feeling #give #love #pain #provoking

What she'd done was give him a glimpse of something that scared the bejesus out of him, something never meant for men like him that could start a hunger that would eat away what little was left inside him that didn't need to be shoved into the dark place. ↗

— Ellen O'Connell

#beauty

Before you bombed my boy Osama I always thought an explosion was such a quick thing but now I know better. The flash is over very fast but the fire catches hold inside you and the noise never stops…I live in an inferno where you could shiver with cold Osama. This life is a deafening roar but listen. You could hear a pin drop. ↗

— Chris Cleave

#life

We live by our labors from one harvest to the next, there is no certain telling whether we shall be able to feed ourselves and our children, and if bad times are prolonged we know we must see the weak surrender their lives and this fact, too, is within our experience. In our lives there is no margin for misfortune. ↗

— Kamala Markandaya

#experience

As for fame, fame felt like nothing. Fame was not a sensation like love or hunger or loneliness, welling from within and invisible to the outside eye. It was rather entirely external, coming from the minds of others. It existed in the way people looked at him or behaved towards him. In that, being famous was no different from being gay, or Jewish, or from a visible minority: you are who you are, and then people project onto you some notion they have. ↗

— Yann Martel

#love

I have no fear, I have only love ↗

— Stevie Nicks

#love