A short story is the ultimate close-up magic trick -- a couple of thousand words to take you around the universe or break your heart.
Neil GaimanRead
I would like to see anyone, prophet, king or God, convince a thousand cats to do the same thing at the same time.
Interpretation
This quote humorously highlights the difficulty of achieving unified action among independent beings, like cats.
In this quote, Neil Gaiman emphasizes the inherent challenges of persuasion and the unique independence of individual beings, using cats as a metaphor. He suggests that even the most powerful figures—prophets, kings, or divine beings—would struggle to get a multitude of cats to act in unison, reflecting on the complexities of cooperation and influence in life.
In practice
This quote can be utilized in a discussion about teamwork and leadership challenges.
A short story is the ultimate close-up magic trick -- a couple of thousand words to take you around the universe or break your heart.
Jesus. Low-Key Lyesmith," said Shadow. and then he heard what he was saying and he understood. "Loki," he said. "Loki Lie-smith." "You're slow," said Loki, "but you get there in the end." And his lips twisted into a scarred smile and the embers danced in the shadows of his eyes.
As a teenager I wrote to R.A. Lafferty. And he responded, too, with letters that were like R.A. Lafferty short stories, filled with elliptical answers to straight questions and simple answers to complicated ones.
The important thing to understand about American history, wrote Mr. Ibis, in his leather-bound journal, is that it is fictional, a charcoal-sketched simplicity for the children, or the easily bored.
Nothing’s changed. You’ll go home. You’ll be bored. You’ll be ignored. No one will listen to you, really listen to you. You’re too clever and too quiet for them to understand. They don’t even get your name right.
I like the stars. It's the illusion of permanence, I think. I mean, they're always flaring up and caving in and going out. But from here, I can pretend...I can pretend that things last. I can pretend that lives last longer than moments. Gods come, and gods go. Mortals flicker and flash and fade. Worlds don't last; and stars and galaxies are transient, fleeting things that twinkle like fireflies and vanish into cold and dust. But I can pretend.
In vain do we seek tranquility in the desert; temptations are always with us; our passions, represented by the demons, never let us alone: those monsters created by the heart, those illusions produced by the mind, those vain specters that are our errors and our lies always appear before us to seduce us; they attack us even in our fasting or our mortifications, in other words, in our very strength.
The United States is not, and never will be, at war with Islam.
Light griefs are plaintive , but great ones are dumb
It's so easy for propaganda to work, and dissent to be mocked.
Capitalism has been called a system of greed—yet it is the system that raised the standard of living of its poorest citizens to heights no collectivist system has ever begun to equal, and no tribal gang can conceive of.
Outside the kingdom of the Lord there is no nation which is greater than any other. God and history will remember your judgment.
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