16 hits
Humans need fantasy to be human. To be where the falling angel meets the rising ape.
"Tooth Fairies? Hogfathers? Little--"
Yes. As practice. You have to start out learning to believe the little lies.
"So we can believe the big ones?"
Yes. Justice. Mercy. Duty. That sort of thing.
"They're not the same at all!"
You think so? Then take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. And yet... Death waved a hand. And yet you act as if there is some ideal order in the world, as if there is some... rightness in the universe by which it may be judged.
"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point--"
My point exactly-- Terry Pratchett (Death and Susan in <em>Hogfather</em>)
Old age and treachery will beat youth and skill every time. (A coffee cup)
Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art.-- Susan Sontag
"The only interesting answers are those which destroy the questions."-- Susan Sontag
Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.-- Susan Ertz
Religion is probably, after sex, the second oldest resource which human beings have available to them for blowing their minds.-- Susan Sontag
Ponder: "It's all done by magic, Archchancellor."
Ridcully: "Ah. Right. None of that complicated business with springs and cogwheels and tubes and stuff, then."
Ponder: "That's right, sir. Just magic. Sufficiently advanced magic."-- Terry Pratchett (Hogfather)
Don't talk to me about the public not being able to stomach the abnormal, man -- most people get too used to lying to themselves about anything uncomfortable at so early an age that they themselves are not a reliable source.-- Susan Juroff
"Improvised be damned! I thought of it this morning in my bath and I wish now I hadn't wasted it on this little crowd."-- Winston Churchill
Abnormal, adj:
Not conforming to standard. In matters of thought and conduct, to be independent is to be abnormal, to be abnormal is to be detested. Wherefore the lexicographer adviseth a striving toward the straiter [sic] resemblance of the Average Man than he hath to himself. Whoso attaineth thereto shall have peace, the prospect of death and the hope of Hell.-- Ambrose Bierce (The Devil's Dictionary)
On applause: They named it Ovation from the Latin ovis, a sheep.-- Plutarch
...as opposed to Xena's paradox, which is, "How exactly can she fight in that leather outfit, and leave all of that flesh exposed, and survive?"