Quotes
Authors
Colleen McCullough

"There's a story... a legend, about a bird that sings just once in its life. From the moment it leaves its nest, it searches for a thorn tree... and never rests until it's found one. And then it sings... more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. And singing, it impales itself on the longest, sharpest thorn. But, as it dies, it rises above its own agony, to outsing the lark and the nightingale. The thorn bird pays its life for just one song, but the whole world stills to listen, and God in his heaven smiles."

Source : "Fictional character: Ralph de Bricassart". "There are no ambitions noble", www.imdb.com. 1983.

Colleen McCullough

#Song Quotes #Agony Quotes #Heaven Quotes

“Practically any Western has a homesteader in trouble, and a mysterious rider shows up off the range, solves the problem over two or three days, and then rides off into the sunset.”
“When we truly discover how to love our neighbor as our self, Capitalism will not be possible and Marxism will not be necessary.”
“The night club had a curious and diverse appeal. To some it was a sex-exciter. To others, frequenting a night club and throwing away money was a form of exhibitionism...wealthy men from out of town visited the clubs for appalling orgies of spending and drinking, and most of them seemed to think it was worth the cost.”
“I think most of us maintain some sort of fantasy in our minds that we are heroes, if only secretly, that we could really be amazing if only given a chance. That we could all be loved one day. You can always think of yourself as being transcendent or heroic. I think we all are.”
“No matter what God's power may be, the first aspect of God is never that of the absolute Master, the Almighty. It is that of the God who puts himself on our human level and limits himself.”

Source : Jacques Ellul (2011). “Anarchy and Christianity”, p.34, Wipf and Stock Publishers
“To stand by yourself -- that was also part of dignity. That way, a person could get through a public flaying with dignity. Galileo. Luther. Even somebody who admitted his guilt and resisted the temptation to deny it. Something politicians couldn't do. Honesty, the courage for honesty. With others and yourself.”

Source : Pascal Mercier (2008). “Night Train to Lisbon: A Novel”, p.366, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
“Maybe the reason my memory is so bad is that I always do at least two things at once. It's easier to forget something you only half-did or quarter did.”
“A situation is always comic if it participates simultaneously in two series of events which are absolutely independent of each other, and if it can be interpreted in two quite different meanings.”

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