People aim for the stars, and they end up like goldfish in a bowl. I wonder if it wouldn't be simpler just to teach children right from the start that life is absurd.
Muriel Barbery
Related It is no wonder that people are so horrible when they start their life as children. KINGSLEY AMIS Very few of us have any idea whatsoever of what life is like living in a goldfish bowl, except, of c... GRAHAM TAYLOR I couldn't be a royal. It's like living in a supersonic goldfish bowl. OZZY OSBOURNE What makes life most difficult is the media intrusion, ... I think the public has gotten more and mo... PENNY JUNOR No wonder people are so horrible when they start life as children. KINGSLEY AMIS How many people long for that "past, simpler, and better world," I wonder, without ever recognizing ... R.A. SALVATORE I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ... KELLY JONES If you will just start with the idea that this is a hard world,it will all be much simpler. LOUIS D. BRANDEIS In those simpler days, you could just take pictures of movie stars and show them the way they were, ... ELLIOTT ERWITT Some people like you, some people don't. In the end you just have to be yourself. ANDRES INIESTA I'm a city guy. I really like the fast-pace life, and there is no better place for that than L.A., u... JUSTIN BLALOCK I can't moan about any of it. I had a great time in the goldfish bowl. ROBERT PLANT If two people are meant for one another, that doesn't mean that they have to rush and be together ri... JONATHAN ANTHONY BURKETT If you have any interests you can gain a wider audience for those interests while the goldfish bowl ... ELEANOR ROOSEVELT I have as much privacy as a goldfish in a bowl. PRINCESS MARGARET I've got a new invention. It's a revolving bowl for tired goldfish. LEFTY GOMEZ I hate reality shows like Big Brother and I'm A Celebrity. I'd rather watch a goldfish bowl. JANET STREET PORTER I wonder if other mothers feel a tug at their insides, watching their children grow up into the peop... JODI PICOULT I can't moan about any of it. I had a great time in the goldfish bowl. ROBERT PLANT I knew from last year that the rims are so tight, the only way you can make a shot is if it goes rig... ANTOINE AGUDIO We all live in a televised goldfish bowl. KINGMAN BREWSTER, JR. We all live in a televised goldfish bowl. KINGMAN BREWSTER The most important thing I can do for my children is to protect them and to teach them. After that, ... THOMAS J. POWELL It is not in the world of ideas that life is lived. Life is lived for better or worse in life, and t... ARCHIBALD MACLEISH Performers are the neediest people in the world. Unless you've been in that goldfish bowl - nobo... OLIVIA HUSSEY I think that many people will intentionally overlook all of the lifeless facts about their relations... C. JOYBELL C. My desire and wish is that the things I start with should be so obvious that you wonder why I spend ... BERTRAND RUSSELL My desire and wish is that the things I start with should be so obvious that you wonder why I spend ... BERTRAND RUSSELL A lasting marriage, they say, is one where the two reach for different sections of the Sunday paper.... BILLY COLLINS If your morals make you dreary, depend upon it they are wrong. I do not say give them up, for they m... ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON If your morals make you dreary, depend upon it, they are wrong. I do not say give them up, for they ... ROBERT STEVENSON I failed a lot of times running after people that didn't feel the same way for me. I treated them li... MAHMOUD EL HALLAB It was no wonder that people were so horrible when they started life as children. KINGSLEY AMIS Nothing in my life is going right, right now and there's got to be a reason for that. I think that G... MINDY MCCREADY I've got a new invention. It's a revolving bowl for tired goldfish. LEFTY GOMEZ Pregnancy is barbaric. … The husband's guilty waning of sexual desire, the woman's tears in fr... THE CHILDREN I beheld the trappings of upper-middle-class comfort. The big-screen TV and VCR. The crush of name-b... THE CHILDREN I like work/life separation, not work/life balance. What I mean by that is, if I'm on, I want to... TIMOTHY FERRISS Most people go in bookshops and have no idea what they want to buy. Somehow, the books sit there, al... CECELIA AHERN If these is right from the beginnig up to the end like in books "Don't touch this book", this is rea... DEYTH BANGER Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably ca... LAWRENCE M. KRAUSS Life is not a game. Still, in this life, we choose the games we live to play. J.R. RIM Journalism is just a gun. It's only got one bullet in it, but if you aim right, that's all you need.... WARREN ELLIS I painted stars and the moon and clouds and just endless, dark sky.” I finished the sixth, and was... SARAH J. MAAS this sounds a little simple, but I think if we didnt know illness we wouldnt really feel the exhilir... PRISCILLA WARNER I wonder how many people don't get the one they want, but end up with the one they're supposed to be... FANNIE FLAGG If you look at the beginning of children's entertainment in literature, the first books that wer... LEE UNKRICH If you have ever opened a can of worms, boxed yourself into a corner, ended up in hot water, or foun... MARYROSE WOOD Sarcasm is weird. Even not in acting, in life I feel like 'sarcastic' is a word that people ... AUBREY PLAZA People have stars, but they aren't the same. For travelers, the stars are guides. For other people, ... ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPéRY And God has set up prayer in such a way that, if you want to explain it away, you can. That's the hu... DALLAS WILLARD The superstitious know how to reproach people for their vices better than they know how to teach the... BARUCH SPINOZA Shoot for the moon - if you miss you'll end up in the stars. ARTIE SHAW Always the aim for me is making people feel like they are not alone. That's just the greatest fe... ZOOEY DESCHANEL If you start by doing it right, they'll be better in the end. But if I let them go, it ain't going t... FRED GRAVES I remember lying out in my bed and looking at the vast, quiet sky. Right up above my head, there wer... SPIKE MILLIGAN Even if society dictates that men and women should behave in certain ways, it is fathers and mothers... AUGUSTUS Y. NAPIER At the same time, though, I was beginning to wonder if this was just how it was supposed to be for m... SARAH DESSEN The only people you have to look out for in life are the people that don't care about anything or an... SHANNON L. ALDER I guess that we just tried to teach the boys good values from the very start. MICHELLE JONES You're full of contradictions, Ms. Wallace." I looked up at him and arched a brow. "I'm a girl... TAMMARA WEBBER Life is so much easier when I allow myself to be myself and go with the flow. Whatever that looks li... TAYLOR SCHILLING Life, I've learned, is never fair. If they teach anything in schools, that should be it. NICHOLAS SPARKS Aim for the stars and you'll make it to the moon. Aim for the moon and you'll never make it through ... RAY BEDARD Reach for the stars. CHRISTA MCAULIFFE We just signed a commitment for peaceful settlement, ... We aim to end violence and to begin a new l... HAMID AWALUDDIN I am a great believer in jobs for teens. They teach important life lessons, build character, and inf... GILLIAN FLYNN We all pine for a time in life when things were simpler. Even when they weren't necessarily simp... BEN GIBBARD I find that when people doubt or believe it won’t work or can’t be done, they really want me to ... DR.'S RICK AND SUSANN CRAWFORD Studies show that people who learn to save early in life usually make smarter financial decisions la... DANA HURST The scientific method gives us
information by testing and repeating observable things so that we
can... LEWIS N. ROE Time is a teacher which in the end it kills all it's students. (Synchronicity 2015 Film) DEYTH BANGER People are dying to tell you their secrets; it's just a matter of getting the conversation going... CHARLES MCCARRY It makes me happy to think that this world of art-as-investment is a minuscule fraction of the art w... ADAM DAVIDSON I always like to reveal the fact that the emperor has no clothes. And children are best at that. The... MIRA NAIR It is important that an aim never be defined in terms of activity or methods. It must always relate ... W. EDWARDS DEMING It is important that an aim never be defined in terms of activity or methods. It must always relate ... W. EDWARDS DEMING Remain in wonder if you want the mysteries to open up for you. Mysteries never open up for those who... OSHO These children that come at you with knives, they are your children. You taught them. I didn't teach... CHARLES MANSON Watching a baseball game on television is like chasing the great white whale in a goldfish bowl. It ... WARD JUST Taking a single letter from the alphaber," he said, "should make life simpler." "I don't ... JAMES THURBER If violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad. If it is wrong to be violent defending bl... MALCOLM X For people who say they hate being lied to, just start telling them nothing but the pure truth--abou... SETH ADAM BROWN People think that the people in Hollywood have some master plan. They just make the movies that peop... ALAN ARKIN If you end up biting your teeth, the upper jaw with the lower jaw, while having your meal from a whi... APURVA GAGLANI I just decided that I would not put my professional life on hold to raise children. I know that soun... EMMANUELLE BEART I aim for the stars, and winning a world title will not be a fulfilment of a dream for me. It never ... TYSON FURY I was trying to aim for the pack. (Paris) just marched right through and got it. COREY MARET If we taught music the way we try to teach engineering, in an unbroken four year course, we could en... CHARLES F. KETTERING Sorry wastes time. You have to live your life like you'll never be sorry. It's easier just to do the... JENNIFER NIVEN We knew it was going to be a battle. They wanted to avenge their loss up there. I wasn't sure how th... JACKIE PARSLEY I think people should try to teach young children that these qualities - stubbornness and a capacity... RENZO PIANO I start to think there really is no cure for depression, that happiness is an ongoing battle, and I ... ELIZABETH WURTZEL The amazing thing is that every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in ... LAWRENCE M. KRAUSS As a man has no right to kill one of his children if it is diseased or insane, so a man who has made... J.M. SYNGE Love is like a pane of glass.. It can take harsh beatings from the weather around it... But if it ge... TYLER HOYT For me, life is a bowl of cherries. SISSY SPACEK And of course, when you see your brother in the toilet bowl...there's a little voice that say, 'I wo... BILL COSBY I'm not cross about the idea of baptism; I just think the idea that when a child is born it is i... HOZIER The two men had a conversation. Brief, cryptic, to the point. As though they had exchanged numbers a... ARUNDHATI ROY
More Muriel Barbery
When tea becomes ritual, it takes its place at the heart of our ability to see greatness in small th... MURIEL BARBERY They didn't recognize me," I repeat. He stops in turn, my hand still on his arm. "It is be... MURIEL BARBERY We never look beyond our assumptions and what's worse, we have given up trying to meet others; we ju... MURIEL BARBERY And on the way home I thought: pity the poor in spirit who know neither the enchantment nor the beau... MURIEL BARBERY Personally I think that grammar is a way to attain beauty. MURIEL BARBERY I thought: pity the poor in spirit who know neither the enchantment nor the beauty of language. MURIEL BARBERY Maybe that's what being alive is about: so we can track down those movments that are dying. MURIEL BARBERY Most people, when they move, well they just move depending on whatever's around them. At this very m... MURIEL BARBERY This pause in time, within time ... When did I first experience the exquisite sense of surrender tha... MURIEL BARBERY When someone that you love dies..it's like fireworks suddenly burning out in the sky and everything ... MURIEL BARBERY The only purpose of cats is that they constitute mobile decorative objects. MURIEL BARBERY Sólo se me ocurre el psicoanálisis para rivalizar con el cristianismo en la predilección por los ... MURIEL BARBERY I am going to die, but that is of no importance. MURIEL BARBERY We have a knowledge of harmony, anchored deep within. It is this knowledge that enables us, at every... MURIEL BARBERY In a split second of eternity, everything is changed, transfigured. A few bars of music, rising from... MURIEL BARBERY There is always the easy way out, although I am loath to use it. I have no children, I do not watch ... MURIEL BARBERY ... c'est peut-être ça la vie : beaucoup de désespoir mais aussi quelques moments de beauté où ... MURIEL BARBERY ...what I dread more than anything else in this life is noise...silence helps you to go inward..anyo... MURIEL BARBERY It would be so much better if we could share our insecurity, if we could all venture inside ourselve... MURIEL BARBERY . . . maybe that's what life's all about: there's a lof of despair, but also the odd moments of beau... MURIEL BARBERY We think we can make honey without sharing in the fate of bees, but we are in truth nothing but poor... MURIEL BARBERY If you dread tomorrow it's because you don't know how to build the present, and when you don't know ... MURIEL BARBERY But many intelligent people have a sort of bug: they think intelligence is an end in itself. They ha... MURIEL BARBERY Life has meaning and we grown-ups know what it is is the universal lie that everyone is suppo... MURIEL BARBERY Beautiful things should belong to beautiful souls. MURIEL BARBERY There's so much humanity in a love of trees, so much nostalgia for our first sense of wonder, so muc... MURIEL BARBERY I have read so many books. And yet, like most Autodidacts, I am never quite sure of what I have gain... MURIEL BARBERY The tea ritual: such a precise repetition of the same gestures and the same tastes; accession to sim... MURIEL BARBERY I may be indigent in name, position, and in appearance, but in my own mind I am an unrivaled goddess... MURIEL BARBERY Do you know that it is in your company that I have had my finest thoughts? MURIEL BARBERY When something is bothering me, I seek refuge. No need to travel far; a trip to the realm of literar... MURIEL BARBERY Madame Michel has the elegance of the hedgehog: on the outside she is covered in quills, a real fort... MURIEL BARBERY I find this a fascinating phenomenon: the ability we have to manipulate ourselves so that the founda... MURIEL BARBERY I have finally concluded, maybe that's what life is about: there's a lot of despair, but also the od... MURIEL BARBERY If you have but one friend, make sure you choose her well. MURIEL BARBERY For the first time in my life I understood the meaning of the word 'never'. And it's really awful. Y... MURIEL BARBERY Je savais qu'un afflux inespéré d'énergie l'avait levé de son lit, lui avait donné la force de ... MURIEL BARBERY For a few seconds Maria did not move, or even breathe, apparently. Then she gave a sorrowful gulp an... MURIEL BARBERY Iata deci cugetarea mea profunda pe ziua de azi: e pentru prima oara cand intalnesc pe cineva care c... MURIEL BARBERY Elsewhere the world may be blustering or sleeping, wars are fought, people live and die, some nation... MURIEL BARBERY There are only two moments when everything is possible in this life," said Petrus, "when one drinks,... MURIEL BARBERY Qui croit Pouvoir faire du miel Sans partager le destin des abeilles? MURIEL BARBERY When we move, we are in a way de-structured by our movement toward something: we are both her... MURIEL BARBERY I used to think it a pity that her mother rather than she had not thought of birth control. MURIEL SPARK If I had my life over again I should form the habit of nightly composing myself to thoughts of death... MURIEL SPARK Being over seventy is like being engaged in a war. All our friends are going or gone and we survive ... MURIEL SPARK I wouldn't take the Pope too seriously. He's a Pole first, a pope second, and maybe a Christian thir... MURIEL SPARK If you're going to do a thing, you should do it thoroughly. If you're going to be a Christian, you m... MURIEL SPARK To me education is a leading out of what is already there in the pupil's soul. To Miss Mackay it is ... MURIEL SPARK Nourish beginnings, let us nourish beginnings. Not all things are blest, but the seeds of all things... MURIEL RUKEYSER To me education is a leading out of what is already there in the pupil's soul. To Miss Mackay it is ... MURIEL SPARK To me education is a leading out of what is already there in the pupil's soul. MURIEL SPARK A loser seldom lives in the present, but instead destroys the present by focusing on past memories o... MURIEL JAMES One's prime is elusive. You little girls, when you grow up, must be on the alert to recognize your p... MURIEL SPARK I think there is choice possible to us at any moment, as long as we live. But there is no sacrifice.... MURIEL RUKEYSER One should only see a psychiatrist out of boredom. MURIEL SPARK It is impossible to persuade a man who does not disagree, but smiles. MURIEL SPARK The universe is made of stories, not atoms. MURIEL RUKEYSER One's prime is elusive. You little girls, when you grow up, must be on the alert to recognize yo... MURIEL SPARK Be on the alert to recognize your prime at whatever time of your life it may occur. MURIEL SPARK Parents learn a lot from their children about coping with life. MURIEL SPARK It is impossible to repent of love. The sin of love does not exist. MURIEL SPARK The universe is made of stories, not of atoms. MURIEL RUKEYSER When a noble life has prepared old age, it is not decline that it reveals, but the first days of imm... MURIEL SPARK I think there is choice possible to us at any moment, as long as we live. But there is no sacrifice.... MURIEL RUKEYSER The universe is made up of stories, not of atoms. MURIEL RUKEYSER Art and religion first; then philosophy; lastly science. That is the order of the great subjects of ... MURIEL SPARK Women and men have to fight together to change society - and both will benefit... Partnership, not d... MURIEL FOX Most of us experience happiness when we are enjoying life and feeling free, enjoying the process and... JAMES MURIEL It is impossible to persuade a man who does not disagree, but smiles. MURIEL SPARK The universe is made up of stories, not of atoms MURIEL RUKEYSER Breathe-in experience, breathe-out poetry. MURIEL RUKEYSER Nourish beginnings, let us nourish beginnings. Not all things are blest, but the seeds of all things... MURIEL RUKEYSER The fear of poetry is an indication that we are cut off from our own reality MURIEL RUKEYSER To me education is a leading out of what is already there in the pupil's soul. To Miss Mackay it... MURIEL SPARK Art and religion first; then philosophy; lastly science. That is the order of the great subjects of ... MURIEL SPARK Dreams the sources of action, the meeting and the end, / a resting-place among the flight of things. MURIEL RUKEYSER I hear the singing of the lives of women. They clear mystery, the offering, and pride. MURIEL RUKEYSER This was going full circle for him. MURIEL COOPER One characteristic of modern poetry is that arrangement of parts which strikes many people as being ... MURIEL RUKEYSER The actual world, not some fantastic structure that has nothing to do with reality, must provide the... MURIEL RUKEYSER Our house was the most lit-up house on Frazier Street. MURIEL COOPER However confused the scene of our life appears, however torn we may be who now do face that scene, i... MURIEL RUKEYSER The journey is my home MURIEL RUKEYSER Godfrey's wife, Charmian, sat with her eyes closed, attempting to put her thoughts into alphabetical... MURIEL SPARK All my pupils are the crème de la crème. Give me a girl of an impressionable age, and she is mine ... MURIEL SPARK Even if I didn't have a brokerage, I'd want to talk with a broker. You have big accounts, long-term ... MURIEL SIEBERT In our period, they say there is free speech. They say there is no penalty for poets, There is no pe... MURIEL RUKEYSER I am putting old heads on your young shoulders...all my pupils are the creme de la creme. MURIEL SPARK Flight is intolerable contradiction. MURIEL RUKEYSER Our poems will have failed if our readers are not brought by them beyond the poems. MURIEL RUKEYSER If you want to concentrate deeply on some problem, and especially some piece of writing or paper-wor... MURIEL SPARK ...only one man lived who could understand MURIEL RUKEYSER It is one of the secrets of Nature in its mood of mockery that fine weather lays heavier weight on t... MURIEL SPARK Parents learn a lot from their children about coping with life MURIEL SPARK We're going to see what Bush says tonight, and we're going to see what Greenspan says tomorrow -- no... MURIEL SIEBERT All my pupils are the creme de la creme. Give me a girl of an impressionable age, and she is mine fo... MURIEL SPARK Those who speak of our culture as dead or dying have a quarrel with life, and I think they cannot un... MURIEL RUKEYSER Phrases like 'the team spirit' are always employed to cut across individualism, love and personal lo... MURIEL SPARK What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open. MURIEL RUKEYSER Sandy felt warmly towards Miss Brodie at these times when she saw how she was misled in her idea of ... MURIEL SPARK [...] there were other people's Edinburghs quite different from hers [...] MURIEL SPARK But those of Miss Brodie's kind were great talkers and feminists and, like most femini... MURIEL SPARK I'm not saying anything against the Modern side. Modern and Classical, they are equal... MURIEL SPARK It is impossible to persuade a man who does not disagree, but smiles. MURIEL SPARK But now they were all fifteen, there was a lot they did not tell each other. MURIEL SPARK I'd rather deal with a rogue than a fool. MURIEL SPARK Nothing infuriates people more than their own lack of spiritual insight. MURIEL SPARK The word ‘education’ comes from the root e from ex, out, and duco, I lead. It means a leading ou... MURIEL SPARK I am putting old heads on your young shoulders,' Miss Brodie had told them at the time. MURIEL SPARK O where shall I find a virtuous woman, for her price is above rubies. MURIEL SPARK One's prime is the moment one was born for. MURIEL SPARK Do you know, Sandy dear, all my ambitions are for you and Rose. You have got insight, perhaps not qu... MURIEL SPARK Six years previously, Miss Brodie had led her new class into the garden for a history lesson underne... MURIEL SPARK In fact, it was the religion of Calvin of which Sandy felt deprived, or rather a specified recogniti... MURIEL SPARK The Brodie set did not for a moment doubt that she would prevail. As soon expect Julius Caesar to ap... MURIEL SPARK ... flattening their scorn underneath the chariot wheels of her superiority. MURIEL SPARK It's only possible to betray where loyalty is due MURIEL SPARK 4:15. Not 4 not 4:30 but 4:15. She thought to intimidate me with the use of quarter hours. MURIEL SPARK Miss Brodie was easily the equal of both sisters together, she was the square on the hypotenuse of a... MURIEL SPARK One’s prime is elusive. You little girls, when you grow up, must be on the alert to recognise your... MURIEL SPARK The word 'education' comes from the root e from ex, out, and duco, I lead. It means a leading out. T... MURIEL SPARK These years are still the years of my prime. It is important to recognise the years of one's prime, ... MURIEL SPARK Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life. MURIEL SPARK It is well, when in difficulties, to say never a word, neither black nor white. Speech is silver but... MURIEL SPARK For those who like that sort of thing," said Miss Brodie in her best Edinburgh voice, "That is the s... MURIEL SPARK Allow me, in conclusion, to congratulate you warmly upon your sexual intercourse, as well as your si... MURIEL SPARK The word "education" comes from the root e from ex, out, and duco, I lead. It means a leading out. T... MURIEL SPARK She wasn't a person to whom things happen. She did all the happenings. MURIEL SPARK Hildegard had long felt that sentimentality was a luxury she could not afford. MURIEL SPARK I am an advocate for older citizens. I want to change the image in this country people have of older... MURIEL SAUNDERS There is more to this sport than just the skill of placing your discs. You have to know how to outwi... MURIEL ROWLAND I truly believe that Betty Friedan was the most influential woman, not only of the 20th century but ... MURIEL FOX He came off as gruff, but the kids could see beneath that. He was about giving the kids opportunity. MURIEL COOPER You are stronger than you think. I have weathered many storms, tragedies, and heartaches in my life�... MICHELLE MURIEL