"Everything is touched by the holy when it is in the presence of death."

-- Karl Marlantes

“Genius is another word for magic, and the whole point of magic is that it is inexplicable.”

Source : Margot Fonteyn (1979). “The magic of dance”, British Broadcasting Corp.
“A detective with his murder mystery, a chemist seeking the structure of a new compound, use little of the formal and logical modes of reasoning. Through a series of intuitions, surmises, fancies, they stumble upon the right explanation, and have a knack of seizing it when it once comes within reach.”
“If you are forced to describe things for someone else, it sharpens your senses. And also your sense of how hard it is to make the translation from the vibrant, multi-faceted world to a sentence that distils it.”

Source : "Ask the Author Live: Judith Thurman on Laura Ingalls Wilder". Live chat, www.newyorker.com. July 31, 2009.
“[P]ure mathematics is on the whole distinctly more useful than applied. For what is useful above all is technique, and mathematical technique is taught mainly through pure mathematics.”
“You're not going to be great at everything. Surround yourself with people that can compliment you so you can work together and then everybody can be successful.”

Source : "Larry King Live", edition.cnn.com. April 16, 2005.
“When you love someone, that love has no limit, no measure, because you know in your deepest being that when that love demands sacrifice, you will give it without question. You will not look for reasons, for justification - the act of giving, of sacrificing, is a natural compulsion, like breathing, and it will, in the end, surprise you because you did it without second thoughts.”
“I don't have a diet, and whenever I feel like eating a burger or pizza or tacos, I just go for it. I feel like my body is telling me I need that. I think it's important for an actress to look like a real person.”
“I have seen flowers come in stony places And kind things done by men with ugly faces, And the gold cup won by the worst horse at the races, So I trust, too.”

Source : John Masefield, Peter Vansittart (1984). “John Masefield's letters from the front, 1915-1917”, Constable & Company Limited

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