Phoenix Force/deceased Characters

Famous quotes containing the words phoenix, force, deceased and/or characters:

“A victorious tomcat is like a tiger; a plucked phoenix is not worth a chicken.”
—Chinese proverb.

“Happiness ain’t a thing in itself—it’s only a contrast with something that ain’t pleasant.... And so, as soon as the novelty is over and the force of the contrast dulled, it ain’t happiness any longer, and you have to get something fresh.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)

“The Papacy is no other than the ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679)

“I have often noticed that after I had bestowed on the characters of my novels some treasured item of my past, it would pine away in the artificial world where I had so abruptly placed it.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)