Quotes on Affair

Writing a poem is like having an affair, a one-night stand; a short story is a romance, a relationship; a novel is a marriage-one has to be cunning, devise compromises, and make sacrifices.

Now if there is one thing that we do worse than any other nation, it is try and manage somebody else's affairs.

If politics is the art of the possible, research is surely the art of the soluble. Both are immensely practical-minded affairs.

If I had as many love affairs as I've been given credit for, I'd be in a jar at the Harvard Medical School.

CALAMITY, n. A more than commonly plain and unmistakable reminder that the affairs of this life are not of our own ordering. Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.

We're worn into grooves by Time - by our habits. In the end, these grooves are going to show whether we've been second-rate or champions, each in his way, in dispatching the affairs of every day. By choosing our habits, we determine the grooves into which Time will wear us; and these are grooves that enrich our lives and make for ease of mind, peace, happiness - achievement.

All higher motives, ideals, conceptions, sentiments in a man are of no account if they do not come forward to strengthen him for the better discharge of the duties which devolve upon him in the ordinary affairs of life.

However much we talk of the inexorable laws governing the life of individuals and of societies, we remain at the bottom convinced that in human affairs everything in more or less fortuitous. We do not even believe in the inevitability of our own death. Hence the difficulty of deciphering the present, of detecting the seeds of things to come as they germinate before our eyes. We are not attuned to seeing the inevitable.

Since 9/11, there has been a huge leap in people wanting to get personally involved in public service and international affairs.

Good courage in a bad affair is half of the evil overcome.

So the major obstacle to the development of new supplies is not geology but what happens above ground: international affairs, politics, investment and technology.

The difficult problems in life always start off being simple. Great affairs always start off being small.

This world crisis came about without women having anything to do with it. If the women of the world had not been excluded from world affairs, things today might have been different.

CLERGYMAN, n. A man who undertakes the management of our spiritual affairs as a method of better his temporal ones.

Writing a short story is like having a short intense affair, whereas writing a novel is like a long rich marriage.

There are some who lack confidence in the integrity and capacity of the people to govern themselves. To all who entertain such fears I will most respectfully say that I entertain none. If man is not capable, and is not to be trusted with the government of himself, is he to be trusted with the government of others? Who, then, will govern? The answer must be, Man - for we have no angels in the shape of men, as yet, who are willing to take charge of our political affairs.

There are some militarists who say: ‘We are not interested in politics but only in the profession of arms.’ It is vital that these simple-minded militarists be made to realize the relationship that exists between politics and military affairs. Military action is a method used to attain a political goal. While military affairs and political affairs are not identical, it is impossible to isolate one from the other.

Physical pain is not a simple affair of an impulse, travelling at a fixed rate along a nerve. It is the resultant of a conflict between a stimulus and the whole individual.

Anything can happen in stock markets and you ought to conduct your affairs so that if the most extraordinary events happen, that you're still around to play the next day.

Truth can hardly be expected to adapt herself to the crooked policy and wily sinuosities of worldly affairs; for truth, like light, travels only in straight lines.

Never waste valuable time, or mental peace of mind, on the affairs of others—that is too high a price to pay.