Paul Auster Quotes

Our lives don't really belong to us, you see -- they belong to the world, and in spite of our efforts to make sense of it, the world is a place beyond our understanding.

Paul Auster

• World
• Understanding
• Effort
• Spite

• Previous
• Next

Quotes to Explore

• There is no hope unmingled with fear, and no fear unmingled with hope.

  

  Baruch Spinoza
  • Hope
  • Fear
  • No Fear

• The trick to acting is not to show off, it's to think the thoughts of the character.

  

  Eddie Marsan
  • Character
  • Thoughts
  • Acting

• I have an ambition to write a great book, but that's really a competition with myself. I've noticed that a lot of young writers, people in all media, want to be famous but they don't really want to do anything. I can't think of anything less worth striving for than fame.

  

  Zadie Smith
  • People
  • Great
  • Book

• I think the kind of unexpected I really love is when you open books and the actual way of writing is different and interesting. Like reading Virginia Woolf for the first time or Lawrence Durrell for the first time.

  

  Lalla Ward
  • Time
  • Different
  • Writing

• For obstacle racing, you wanna be as light, lean, and fast as possible. So, if I lift a lot of weights, I'm gonna be a little bit heavier, which will make it harder for me to hold myself up.

  

  Kacy Catanzaro
  • Up
  • Me
  • Light

• I knuckle down with my demons, and with my weaknesses.

  

  Carlos Santana Santana
  • Down
  • Weaknesses
  • Demons

• Do you know why dogs are man's best friend? It's because they're not in politics.

  

  Yitzhak Navon
  • Why
  • Friend
  • Best

• In argument, truth always prevails finally; in politics, falsehood always.

  

  Walter Savage Landor
  • Truth
  • Politics
  • Argument

• I'm a Sikh; it's part of my religious tradition to never cut my hair and keep it wrapped in a turban.

  

  Waris Ahluwalia
  • Hair
  • Religious
  • Never

• I sort of understood that when I first started: that you shouldn't repeat a success. Very often you're going to, and maybe the first time you do, it works. And you love it. But then you're trapped.

  

  Jack Nicholson
  • Time
  • Love
  • Success

• President Bush's emergency declaration for the State of Texas is great news for the people and communities that have experienced the devastating wildfires firsthand. Already, communities have rallied to help neighbors in need.

  

  Randy Neugebauer
  • People
  • Great
  • Help

• Pigeon racing is a lousy, greedy, and often unlawful activity. One thing that it is not is kind to birds.

  

  Ingrid Newkirk
  • Kind
  • Racing
  • Birds

• The study titled 'Impact of Immigration on Wages, by Education Level, 1994-2007' found that increased immigration had an effect of lowering wages for earlier immigrants by an average of 4.6 percent. Running counter to popular perception is the finding that for native-born Americans, wages actually increased by 0.6 percent.

  

  Fabrizio Moreira
  • Education
  • Running
  • Study

• Evil. Mistrust those who rejoice at it even more than those who do it.

  

  Victor Hugo
  • Evil
  • More
  • Rejoice

• Films, fiction, can encompass a whole global vision on a particular subject with any story, whatever it is. You can play the story in whatever country with whatever language in whatever style you want to tell the story in.

  

  Gael Garcia Bernal
  • Country
  • Style
  • Vision

• The business breeds such a deep insecurity. It's the nature of the beast, and there is nothing you can do to get away from that.

  

  Kaitlin Doubleday
  • Business
  • Nature
  • Deep

• I like my parents but they are just not good parents. They are nice enough people. I'm not interested in hurting their feelings.

  

  Adam Carolla
  • People
  • Good
  • Parents

• I was four when I announced my ambition to write, eight when I began publishing such claims.

  

  Taiye Selasi
  • Write
  • Ambition
  • Four

• When I was 21, I was in a pretty serious band, and we almost got signed - went to New York, showcased, all that - but didn't end up getting signed, and we broke up. I went back to the drawing board; I really took a hit from that whole experience.

  

  Mark Foster Foster the People
  • Up
  • Experience
  • Pretty

• Skills can be taught. Character you either have or you don't have.

  

  Anthony Bourdain
  • Character

• Although computer chips now are thinner, they're more powerful, they're not as reliable. You'd harvest computer chips from the 1980s from all around the world because they're reliable.

  

  Danny Boyle
  • World
  • Powerful

• It's a great historical joke that when the Spanish met the Aztecs, it was a blind date made in serve-you-right heaven. At the time, they were the two most unpleasant cultures in the entire world, and richly deserved each other. Still, the story of how stout Cortes blustered, bullied and bludgeoned his way to collapsing an entire empire with a handful of contagious hoodlums is astonishing.

  

  Adrian Anthony Gill
  • World
  • History
  • Culture

• Our lives don't really belong to us, you see -- they belong to the world, and in spite of our efforts to make sense of it, the world is a place beyond our understanding.

  

  Paul Auster
  • World
  • Understanding
  • Effort