J. L. B. Smith Quotes

Acting is the most demanding, painful job in the world.

After you've read a novel, you only retain a vague memory of its contents. You remember the atmosphere, the odd image or phrase or vivid cameo.

Every generation of children has its private hero.

I abhor nothing more than bumping into someone I know on the Tube.

I read 'Crime and Punishment' years ago and don't recall the details of it, but I do retain a strong sense of the creeping paranoia and panic.

My sister-in-law believes that few narratives are so tightly constructed that you can't skip boring bits and still keep abreast of what's going on.

Listening to Chris Moyles on Radio 1 is the most miserable thing any human being can do, but attending awards ceremonies isn't far behind.

It's worth turning up to an awards gig if you know you've won one but, since you never do know, it's not worth it.

It was Julie Burchill who decreed that, beyond a certain age, a man should not be seen in a leather jacket.

I am 54 and age is slowly writing itself on my face.

Live life messy and love every moment of it.

Life is only worth-while through the eyes of a believer.

The difference between rich and poor", said Francie, "is that the poor do everything with thier own hands and the rich hire hands to do things.

As long as one can suffer, one is living....live and suffer until life is gone.

It meant that she belonged some place. She was a Brooklyn girl with a Brooklyn name and a Brooklyn accent. She didn't want to change into a bit of this and a bit of that.

Some people do crossword puzzles. I do books.

There's a tree that grows in Brooklyn. Some people call it the Tree of Heaven. No matter where its seed falls, it makes a tree which struggles to reach the sky.

I never listen to what people tell me and I can't read. The only way I know what is right and wrong is the way I feel about things. If I feel bad, it's wrong. If I feel good, it's right.

All of us are what we have to be and everyone lives the kind of life its in him to live.

And that's where the whole trouble is. We're too much alike to understand each other because we don't even understand our own selves.

Is it not so that a son what is bad to his mother is bad to his wife?

It takes a lot of doing to die.

I can never give a 'yes' or a 'no.' I don't believe everything in life can be settled by a monosyllable.

Well' Francie decided, 'I guess the thing that is giving me this headache is life - and nothing else but'.

A child forgets a time of hunger but never forgets the aching want of other things.

Bad quarrels come when two people are wrong. Worse quarrels come when two people are right.

No. I don't want to need anybody. I want someone to need me ... I want someone to need me.

She told Papa about it. He made her stick out her tongue and he felt her wrist. He shook his head sadly and said, "You have a bad case, a very bad case." "Of what?" "Growing up.

Oh time...time, pass so that I forget! Oh time, Great Healer, pass over me and let me forget.

Oh, I wish I was young again when everything seemed so wonderful!

Books became her friends, and there was one for every mood.

We'll leave now, so that this moment will remain a perfect memory...let it be our song and think of me every time you hear it.

New York! I've always wanted to see it and now I've see it. It's true what they say-- it's the most wonderful city in the world.

Suffering is also good, it makes a person rich in charachter.

She was surprised at how tiny it seemed now. She supposed the school was just as big as it had ever been only her eyes had grown used to looking at bigger things.

If there was only one tree like that in the world, you would think it was beautiful. But because there are so many, you just can't see how beautiful it really is.

She had had the pain; it had been like being boiled alive in scalding oil and not being able to die to get free of it

It was a good thing that she got herself into this other school. It showed her that there were other worlds beside the world she had been born into and that these other worlds were not unattainable.

It's a silly fool who thinks killing an animal with one tool is different than killing him with another.

When I looked in his eyes, I just kept on walking.

Its very sort of spontaneous and organic, not a preconceived sort of jamming. Now we record everything, cause sometimes you'll forget, you know, 'what was that thing again?' So we record everything.

The juxtaposition of words - the color, feeling, and sound of the words together - has as much to do with the story as the narrative itself does.

Going up north with the redwoods and driving along the coast, it's got everything, man. It's got the desert, the mountains, and the ocean. It's beautiful.

People who come up to me are drummers or fans of the band. I don't get it too much, but I'll be somewhere and someone will have me take a picture or something.

Family time is really important to me.

I'm a musician. It's what I do! I wouldn't be too good at anything else.

Once a citizen receives a direct payment from the state, the state has purchased their complicity

So now that the illusion of infinite growth is being exposed, the corresponding ballooning entitlements that enticed the larger public to become complicit in the illusion are becoming unglued.

Reality, unlike perception, cannot be changed by propaganda.

Humans are wired to feel uncomfortable with uncertainty and contingency, and so we gravitate to a position after a short time even if we have no new information.