Quotes on These Days

The truth is that every book we read, like every person we meet, has the capacity to change our lives. And though we can be sure our children will meet people, we must, must create, these days, their chance to meet books.

These days there's all too much coverage of pesudo-events about extraordinarily inauthentic people doing inauthentic things.

Every twenty minutes on the Appalachian Trail, Katz and I walked farther than the average American walks in a week. For 93 percent of all trips outside the home, for whatever distance or whatever purpose, Americans now get in a car. On average the total walking of an American these days - that's walking of all types: from car to office, from office to car, around the supermarket and shopping malls - adds up to 1.4 miles a week, barely 350 yards a day.

We have a habit in writing articles published in scientific journals to make the work as finished as possible, to cover up all the tracks, to not worry about the blind alleys or describe how you had the wrong idea first, and so on. So there isn't any place to publish, in a dignified manner, what you actually did in order to get to do the work, although, there has been in these days, some interest in this kind of thing.

Life for me these days is a lot about letting the unknown be wonderful.

Men tell us in these days that sin is what you think it is. Well, it is not. Sin is what God thinks it is. You may think according to your own conscience. God thinks according to His.

It is dry, hazy June weather. We are more of the earth, farther from heaven these days.

I have all but killed myself for Photography. My passion for it is greater than ever. It's forty years that I have fought its fight... I am not fighting to make a 'name' for myself. Maybe you have some feeling for what the fight is for. It's a world's fight... All that's born of spirit seems mad in these days of materialism run riot.

These days cry out, as never before, for us to pay attention, so we can move through them and get our joy and pride back.

Children's reading and children's thinking are the rock-bottom base upon which this country will rise. Or not rise. In these days of tension and confusion, writers are beginning to realize that books for children have a greater potential for good or evil than any other form of literature on earth.

These days grief seems like walking on a frozen river; most of the time he feels safe enough, but there is always that danger that he will plunge through. Now he hears the ice creak beneath him, and so intense and panicking is the sensation that he has to stand for a moment, press his hands to his face and catch his breath.

One of these days I'm going to put my body where my mind is.

I remember a time when a cabbage could sell itself by being a cabbage. Nowadays it’s no good being a cabbage – unless you have an agent and pay him a commission. Nothing is free anymore to sell itself or give itself away. These days, Countess, every cabbage has its pimp.

There's a lot of talk these days about giving children self-esteem. It's not something you can give; it's something they have to build.

Eat bitter, taste sweet," Frank said. "I hate that proverb." "But it's true. What do they call it these days---no pain, no gain? Same concept. You do the easy thing, the appealing thing, the peaceful thing, mostly it turns out sour in the end. But if you take the hard path---ah, that's how you reap the sweet rewards. Duty. Sacrifice. They mean something.

These days everyone was insisting on their identity, coming out as a man, woman, gay, black, Jew - brandishing whichever features they could claim, as if without a tag they wouldn’t be human.

You can keep as quiet as you like, but one of these days somebody is going to find you.

These days grief seems like walking on a frozen river; most of the time he feels safe enough, but there is always that danger that he will plunge through.

These days, it feels to me like you make a devil's pact when you walk into this country. You hand over your passport at the check-in, you get stamped, you want to make a little money, get yourself started... but you mean to go back! Who would want to stay? Cold, wet, miserable; terrible food, dreadful newspapers - who would want to stay? In a place where you are never welcomed, only tolerated. Just tolerated. Like you are an animal finally house-trained.

We are much too much inclined in these days to divide people into permanent categories, forgetting that a category only exists for its special purpose and must be forgotten as soon as that purpose is served.

It's far less important to me to be liked these days than to be understood.