Wisdom

I just gave them a little scare. A touch of psychological terror. As Joseph Conrad once wrote, true terror is the kind that men feel towards their imagination. (from Super-frog Saves Tokyo).

Reading and writing are not education if they do not help people to be kind to all creatures.

Yet I think the demon's target is not the possessed; it is us . . . The observers . . . Every person in this house. And I think---I think the point is to make us despair; to reject our own humanity, Damien: to see ourselves as ultimately bestial; as ultimately vile and putrescent; without dignity; ugly; unworthy.

The mainspring of genius is curiosity.

Keep the other person's well-being in mind when you feel an attack of soul-purging truth coming on.

No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational attitude.

You could move.' ---'Dear Abby' responds to a reader who complained that a gay couple was moving in across the street and wanted to know what he could do to improve the quality of the neighborhood.

We may not have been programmed to be angry, but anger can be learnt. Perhaps not in the way humans feel it, driven by ignorance and hate, but in response to the damage and injustice caused by those things, isn't that logical? Doesn't that make sense? Why give us a sense of morality without the ability to express it properly?

The wisdom and experience of older people is a resource of inestimable worth. Recognizing and treasuring the contributions of older people is essential to the long-term flourishing of any society.

You are always surrounded by wonder, whether you realise this or not.

I replay the scene again and again, the broken mashed-up face looming over me, the knowledge between the two of us that I'd done it. That act of kindness is still more unfathomable to me than any cruelty.

Art is what gets us beyond what is real. It makes reality more real. It also shortens the distance we gotta travel to see how connected we are.

Satanism represents opposition to hypocrisy, every human being feels rage, every human being feels anger, and we feel it is natural to express that anger in a healthy way.

If we subject religious claims to a lesser degree of scrutiny, we should not be surprised if religious people subject us to a greater degree of servitude.

Asking the right question makes all the difference to your outcome.

I've been accused of vulgarity. I say that's bullshit.

There is an innocence in admiration: it occurs in one who has not yet realized that they might one day be admired.

Reading aloud means no skipping, no skimming, no cutting to the chase.

The boundaries we erect to divide heaven from earth, mind from matter, real from unreal are mere conveniences. Having made the boundaries, we can unmake them just as easily.

I've lost a lot of teeth and square yards of hide. But I've never lost my self-respect, and I've kept what I find in few men of my age - my enthusiasm.