Famous quotes containing the words secret, angels, operating, divisions and/or direct:
“I had a quick grasp of the secret to sanity—it had become the ability to hold the maximum of impossible combinations in one’s mind.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“What angels invented these splendid ornaments, these rich conveniences, this ocean of air above, this ocean of water beneath, this firmament of earth between? this zodiac of lights, this tent of dropping clouds, this striped coat of climates, this fourfold year?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Many people operate under the assumption that since parenting is a natural adult function, we should instinctively know how to do it—and do it well. The truth is, effective parenting requires study and practice like any other skilled profession. Who would even consider turning an untrained surgeon loose in an operating room? Yet we “operate” on our children every day.”
—Louise Hart (20th century)
“Nothing does more to activate Christian divisions than talk about Christian unity.”
—Conor Cruise O’Brien (b. 1917)
“James’s great gift, of course, was his ability to tell a plot in shimmering detail with such delicacy of treatment and such fine aloofness—that is, reluctance to engage in any direct grappling with what, in the play or story, had actually “taken place”Mthat his listeners often did not, in the end, know what had, to put it in another way, “gone on.””
—James Thurber (1894–1961)