Quotes by Authors - N
Vladimir Nabokov
Literature and butterflies are the two sweetest passions known to man.
(from Pale Fire) Human life is but a series of footnotes to a vast obscure unfinished masterpiece.
Ogden Nash
Middle age is when you've met so many people that every new person you meet reminds you of someone else.
I think that I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree.
Indeed unless the billboards fall
I'll never see a tree at all.
The cow is of the bovine ilk;
One end is moo, the other, milk.
God in His wisdom made the fly
And then forgot to tell us why.
He who is ridden by a conscience
Worries about a lot of nonscience.
The wasp and all his numerous family
I look upon as a major calamily
He throws open his nest with prodigality
But I distrust his waspitality
Very Like a Whale
One thing that literature would be greatly the better for
Would be a more restricted employment by authors of simile and metaphor.
Authors of all races, be they Greeks, Romans, Teutons or Celts,
Can't seem just to say that anything is the thing it is but have to go out of their way to say that it is like something else.
What does it mean when we are told
That the Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold?
In the first place, George Gordon Byron had had enough experience
To know that it probably wasn't just one Assyrian, it was a lot of Assyrians.
However, as too many arguments are apt to induce apoplexy and thus hinder longevity
We'll let it pass as one Assyrian for the sake of brevity.
Now then, this particular Assyrian, the one whose cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold,
Just what does the poet mean when he says he came down like a wolf on the fold?
In heaven and earth more is dreamed of in our philosophy there are a great many things,
But I don't imagine among them there is a wolf with purple and gold cohorts or purple and gold anythings.
No, no, Lord Byron, before I'll believe that this Assyrian was actually like a wolf I must have some kind of proof,
Did he run on all fours and did he have a hairy tail and a big red mouth and big white teeth and did he say Woof woof woof?
Frankly I think it very unlikely, and all you were entitled to say, at the very most,
Was that the Assyrian cohorts came down like a lot of Assyrian cohorts about to destroy the Hebrew host.
But that wasn't fancy enough for Lord Byron, oh dear me, no, he had to invent a lot of figures of speech and then interpolate them,
With the result that whenever you mention Old Testament soldiers to people they say Oh yes, they're the ones that a lot of wolves dressed up in purple and gold and ate them.
That's the kind of thing that's being done all the time by poets, from Homer to Tennyson;
They're always comparing ladies to lilies and veal to venison,
And they always say things like that the snow is a white blanket after a winter storm.
Oh it is, is it, all right then, you sleep under a six-inch blanket of snow and I'll sleep under a half-inch blanket of un-poetical blanket material and we'll see which one keeps warm,
And after that maybe you'll begin to comprehend dimly
What I mean by too much metaphor and simile.
George Jean Nathan
Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote.
I drink to make other people interesting.
Native American Proverb
Listen or thy tongue will keep thee deaf.
Navajo Proverb
You can't wake a person who is pretending to be asleep.
Susanne Necker
Fortune does not change men, it unmasks them.
Mohammed Neguib
Religion is a candle inside a multi-colored lantern. Everyone looks through a particular color, but the candle is always there.
Pablo Neruda
(XXXIII of El libro de las preguntas) Was it where they lost me that I finally found myself?
Ron Nesen
Nobody believes the official spokesman... but everybody trusts an unidentified source.
Christian Nestelle
The beauty seen is partly in him who sees it.
Dorothy Nevill
The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right place but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.
Flower A. Newhouse
Lack of will power has caused more failure than lack of intelligence or ability.
James R. Newman
There are . . . scientific works-- star catalogues, for example-- which are not art; but the theoretical structures of Gauss, Einstein, or Maxwell are original, individual, very personal responses and expressions of exactly the same kind as the creative works of Beethoven or Dostoevski.
Isaac Newton
If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants.
The New Yorker
(from a cartoon of two goldfish in a bowl) So if there's no God, who changes the water??
Martin Niemoeller, Dachau, 14 October 1968, Congressional Record p. 31636
In Germany, they came first for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists but I didn't speak up because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time nobody was left to speak up.
Friedrich Nietzsche
One should die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly.
What does not destroy me, makes me strong.
(from Beyond Good and Evil) Morality in Europe today is herd morality.
He who has a why can endure any how.
Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves?
Without music, life would be a mistake
If a woman seeks education it is probably because her sexual apparatus is malfunctioning.
Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent.
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.
(addressing anti-Semitic Christians) You who hate the Jews so, why did you adopt their religion?
Insanity in individuals is something rare -- but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
For what purpose humanity is there should not even concern us: why you are there, that you should ask yourself: and if you have no ready answer, then set for yourself goals, high and noble goals, and perish in pursuit of them! I know of no better life purpose than to perish in attempting the great and the impossible.
One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.
Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.
Anais Nin
We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.
Each friend represents a world in us, a world not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.
Richard Nixon, contributed by Dr. Joseph Iaia
(from his speech to the White House staff the morning of his resignation, August 9, 1974)
Always do your best, never get discouraged, never be petty. And remember -- others may hate you but they don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.
Louis Nizer
A man who works with his hand is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist.
Freya North, from her novel Chloe.
[Love] comes but once. Do not question it. Do not forsake it. It cannot be retrieved.
If you detect even an inkling of happiness, a tiny glimpse of love, a mere hint of contentment, for heaven's sake, grab it and don't let go. Don't, ever, think twice.
Northern Exposure
(Marilyn speaking) Words are heavy like rocks...they weigh you down. If birds could talk, they wouldn't be able to fly.
Alfred Noyes
The Highwayman
The wind was a torrent of darkness upon the gusty trees
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight looping the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding--
Riding--riding--
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn door.
He'd a French cocked hat on his forehead, and a bunch of lace at his chin;
He'd a coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of fine doe-skin.
They fitted with never a wrinkle; his boots were up to his thigh!
His rapier hilt a-twinkle--
His pistol butts a-twinkle, under the jeweled sky.
Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard,
He tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred,
He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter--
Bess, the landlord's daughter--
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.
Dark in the dark old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked
Where Tim, the ostler listened--his face was white and peaked--
His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like mouldy hay,
But he loved the landlord's daughter--
The landlord's black-eyed daughter;
Dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say:
"One kiss, my bonny sweetheart; I'm after a prize tonight,
But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light.
Yet if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,
Then look for me by moonlight,
Watch for me by moonlight,
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way."
He stood upright in the stirrups; he scarce could reach her hand,
But she loosened her hair in the casement! His face burnt like a brand
As the sweet black waves of perfume came tumbling o'er his breat,
Then he kissed its waves in the moonlight
(O sweet black waves in the moonlight!)
And he tugged his reins in the moonlight, and galloped away to the west.
He did not come in the dawning; he did not come at noon.
And out of the tawny sunset, before the rise of the moon,
When the road was a gypsy's ribbon over the purple moor,
The redcoat troops came marching--
Marching--marching--
King George's men came marching, up to the old inn door.
They said no word to the landlord; they drank his ale instead,
But they gagged his daughter and bound her to the foot of her narrow bed.
Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets by their side;
There was Death at ever window,
And Hell at one dark window,
For Bess could see, through her casement, the road that he would ride.
They had bound her up at attention, with many a sniggering jest!
They had tied a rifle beside her, with the barrel beneath her breast!
"Now keep good watch!" and they kissed her. She heard the dead man say,
"Look for me by moonlight,
Watch for me by moonlight,
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though Hell should bar the way."
She twisted her hands behind her, but all the knots held good!
She writhed her hands 'til her fingers were wet with sweat or blood!
They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by like years,
'Til, on the stroke of midnight,
Cold on the stroke of midnight,
The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers!
The tip of one finger touched it, she strove no more for the rest;
Up, she stood at attention, with the barrel beneath her breast.
She would not risk their hearing, she would not strive again,
For the road lay bare in the moonlight,
Blank and bare in the moonlight,
And the blood in her veins, in the moonlight, throbbed to her love's refrain.
Tlot tlot, in the frosty silent! Tlot tlot, in the echoing night!
Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light!
Her eyes grew wide for a moment, she drew one last deep breath,
Then her finger moved in the moonlight --
Her musket shattered the moonlight--
Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him -- with her death.
He turned, he spurred to the West; he did not know who stood
Bowed, with her head o'er the casement, drenched in her own red blood!
Not 'til the dawn did he hear it, and his face grew grey to hear
How Bess the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.
Back he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky,
With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high!
Blood-red were his spurs in the golden noon, wine-red was his velvet coat
When they shot him down in the highway,
Down like a dog in the highway,
And he lay in his blood in the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.
And still on a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees
When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
When the road is a gypsy's ribbon looping the purple moor,
The highwayman comes riding--
Riding--riding--
The highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn door.
Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard,
He taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred,
He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's blacked-eyed daughter--
Bess, the landlord's daughter--
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.