W. S. Merwin Quotes
I'm very pessimistic about the future of the human species. We have been so indifferent to life on the whole that it will take its toll. It's not just the polar bears that are having a hard time; what we're doing is gradually impoverishing and poisoning the whole of the rest of life.
Quotes to Explore
-
We are asleep with compasses in our hands.
-
Once I got married, I started working from an office. I found that having somewhere to go that isn't my house is mentally helpful: 'This is the place where I answer email and write blog posts,' and 'over there is the place where I do the dishes.'
-
By 1892, enlightenment had progressed to the point where the Salem trials were simply an embarrassing blot on the history of New England. They were a part of the past that was best forgotten: a reminder of how far the human race had come in two centuries.
-
Looking up and out, how can we not respect this ever-vigilant cognizance that distinguishes us: the capability to envision, to dream, and to invent? the ability to ponder ourselves? and be aware of our existence on the outer arm of a spiral galaxy in an immeasurable ocean of stars? Cognizance is our crest.
-
If the white man gives you anything - just remember when he gets ready he will take it right back. We have to take for ourselves.
-
I spent years studying the teachings of Patanjali, and he reminded us several thousand years ago that when we are steadfast - which means that we never slip in our abstention of thoughts of harm directed toward others - then all living creatures cease to feel enmity in our presence.
-
I was so opposed to the war in Vietnam that I initially refused President Nixon's urgings for me to go there.
-
Like parents, cooks shouldn't have favourites, but some recipes inevitably shine more than others.
-
I was really influenced by Joan Didion and Pauline Kael; they were both at the height of their influence when I was coming into my own as a reader.
-
For the third season, we do a sit around on one episode where we were in character and then we commented on one episode just being ourselves, so - not really. I was comfortable, though. I wasn't nervous.
-
For my parents' generation, the idea was not that marriage was about some kind of idealized, romantic love; it was a partnership. It's about creating family; it's about creating offspring. Indian culture is essentially much more of a 'we' culture. It's a communal culture where you do what's best for the community - you procreate.
-
The doctrine of original sin claims that all men sinned in Adam; but whether they did or whether it is merely a fact that all men sin does not basically affect the problem of suffering.
-
Television shows and movies that are all white, I can't watch them. They totally alienate me.
-
Thrillers provide the reader with a safe escape into a dangerous world where the stakes are as high as can be imagined with unpredictable outcomes. It's a perfect genre in which to explore hard issues of good and evil, a mirror that allows the reader to see both the good and not so good in themselves.
-
Eurasia is home to most of the world's politically assertive and dynamic states.
-
That image is a couple different people's homes that I knew growing up.
-
No one wants to work with a difficult star. I want to be the nice guy.
-
When I'm on vacation here in the States, I can do all kinds of stuff; I can train and keep busy.
-
I don't know why people have divided the whole world into two groups, west and east. Education is neither eastern nor western. Education is education and it's the right of every human being.
-
Tragedy is restful: and the reason is that hope, that foul, deceitful thing, has no part in it.
-
The eyes of that species of extinct giant, whose bones fill the mounds of America, have gazed on Niagara as our eyes do now.
-
I do not write for the public. You are my public and I hope to convert you.
-
As you write about your life, there's a lot of things that you think about that you regret. It's interesting, because one of the things I regret the most is spending so much time focused on wrestling as opposed to focusing on my family.
-
I'm very pessimistic about the future of the human species. We have been so indifferent to life on the whole that it will take its toll. It's not just the polar bears that are having a hard time; what we're doing is gradually impoverishing and poisoning the whole of the rest of life.
