A lot of the fun lies in trying to penetrate the mystery; and this is best done by saying over the lines to yourself again and again, till they pass through the stage of sounding like nonsense, and finally return to a full sense that had at first escaped notice. Anthony Hecht
Then they all crowded round her once more, while the Dodo solemnly presented the thimble, saying 'We beg your acceptance of this elegant thimble'; and, when it had finished this short speech, they all cheered.
To assert in any case that a man must be absolutely cut off from society because he is absolutely evil amounts to saying that society is absolutely good, and no-one in his right mind will believe this today. Albert Camus
I went through life like an idiot for a great deal of the time, saying there's nothing I would change. That was a very arrogant thing to say. There's a lot I would change. There are people I would have steered clear of. Hugh Leonard
A student will send me an urgent appeal to hear her, saying she is poor and wants my advice as to whether it is worth while to continue her studies. I invariably refuse such requests. Alma Gluck
This soul, or life within us, by no means agrees with the life outside us. If one has the courage to ask her what she thinks, she is always saying the very opposite to what other people say. Virginia Woolf
Every person who is offered a knighthood has the opportunity to say yes or no. You get a letter from the Prime Minister saying you've been recommended for a knighthood and there are two little boxes, one says yes, one says no. Derek Jacobi
To say a poem is absolute is saying nothing, because an ink blot can be absolute. Yet you put into it what you like. So it becomes totally relative. Nicholas Mosley
When you have energy companies like Shell and British Petroleum, both of which are perhaps represented in this room, saying there is a problem with excess carbon dioxide emission, I think we ought to listen.
James Baker
It bothers me that I won't live to see the end of the century, because, when I was young, in St. Louis, I remember saying to Marilyn, my sister by adoption, that that was how long I wanted to live: seventy years. Harold Brodkey
A salute from this corner to President Bush for saying he was willing to investigate raising or eliminating the cap on salaries subject to the Social Security tax. Nick Clooney
As I have been saying for more than a year now, turning this vital mission over to the Iraqi people as soon as possible should remain a topic of debate for Congress while relying on our military commanders to set up the timetable. Howard Coble
Since Israel does not differentiate between attacking this group or that, we are saying our people can work individually or collectively to face this aggression. Ahmed Yassin
There is too much illustrating of the news these days. I look at many editorial cartoons and I don't know what the cartoonists are saying or how they feel about a certain issue. Paul Conrad
First and foremost, I would like to start off by saying that just because my husband is an entertainer, that does not mean that our personal business is for everyone's entertainment purposes. Kim Mathers
After saying yes to Turkey, the EU is having difficulty finding clear and consistent grounds for saying no to other, still more remote candidates - but being in the general vicinity of Europe does seem to be a continuing requirement.
Timothy Garton Ash
