Oliver $ Quotes

The dream of my life is to lie down by a slow river and stare at the light in the trees - to learn something by being nothing

The whole idea is to earn the flavor. No one gives it to you.

You have sat too long for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!

Racial discrimination, South Africa's economic power, its oppression and exploitation of all the black peoples, are part and parcel of the same thing.

And I say to my heart: rave on.

The only way I'll really smile is if you cut me ear to ear.

When you are trying to move mountains you want-and need-people on your side who want to move them with you.

If a man has lost a leg or an eye, he knows he has lost a leg or an eye; but if he has lost a self—himself—he cannot know it, because he is no longer there to know it.

He who stops being better stops being good.

I want to think again of dangerous and noble things. I want to be light and frolicsome. I want to be improbable and beautiful and afraid of nothing as though I had wings.

Success. Is not the position where you are standing, but which direction you are going.

You don't need people’s opinion on a fact. You might as well have a poll asking: ‘Which number is bigger, 15 or 5?’ or ‘Do owls exist?’ or ‘Are there hats?'

Every child should be taught to cook in school, not just talk about nutrition all day. Good food can be made in 15 minutes. This could be the first generation where the kids teach the parents.

Language, that most human invention, can enable what, in principle, should not be possible. It can allow all of us, even the congenitally blind, to see with another person’s eyes.

This is a court of law, not a court of justice.

The higher I get the lower I sink.

But how could anyone who's ever seen a summer - big explosion of green and skies lit up electric with splashy sunsets, a riot of flowers and wind that smells like honey - pick the snow?

It's getting harder just to feel alive.

Rough work, iconoclasm, but the only way to get at truth.

We speak not only to tell other people what we think, but to tell ourselves what we think. Speech is a part of thought.

Much more of the brain is devoted to movement than to language. Language is only a little thing sitting on top of this huge ocean of movement.

To make a fine gentleman, several trades are required, but chiefly a barber.

My right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins.

So come to the pond, or the river of your imagination, or the harbor of your longing, and put your lips to the world. And live your life.

It may be that apartheid brings such stupendous economic advantages to countries that they would sooner have apartheid than permit its destruction.

I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization.

A rolling stone gathers no moss, but it gains a certain polish.

Three generations of imbeciles are enough.

Youth fades, love droops, the leaves of friendship fall; A mother's secret hope outlives them all.

Live free or die.

Save me from the ones that haunt me in the night.

Drug companies are a bit like high school boyfriends - they're much more concerned with getting inside you than being effective once they're in there.

Catholicism is more than a religion, it is a political power. Therefore I'm led to believe there will be no peace in Ireland until the Catholic Church is crushed

One writer, for instance, excels at a plan or a title page, another works away at the body of the book, and a third is a dab at an index.

I just never really thought there could be something worse than death.

Vegetarians are hotter then meat eaters.

Many kids can tell you about drugs but do not know what celery or courgettes taste like.

My work is the world. Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird - equal seekers of sweetness. Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.

To reach a port we must sail, sometimes with the wind, and sometimes against it. But we must not drift or lie at anchor.

If you must make a noise, make it quietly.

People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy.

You are so much better than a STUPID piece of metal.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves and call out, Stay awhile.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination.

Subtlety may deceive you; integrity never will.

It's morning, and again I am that lucky person who is in it.

I write the lyrics based on what is going on in my life - I'm not going to write about the old hair metal stuff, like castles and stuff.

It is up to me now to choose how to live out the months that remain to me.

I have learned that if you fear God, you have no one else to fear.

Dogs are like kids. Cats are like roommates.