Blake Quotes

To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour.

A truth that's told with bad intent Beats all the lies you can invent.

It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.

Love sucks. Sometimes it feels good. Sometimes it's just another way to bleed.

Stupidity isn't punishable by death. If it was, there would be a hell of a population drop.

If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.

If a thing loves, it is infinite.

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

Never trust people who smile constantly. They're either selling something or not very bright.

People are supposed to fear the unknown, but ignorance is bliss when knowledge is so damn frightening.

Jesus.” Blake rubbed his throat. “You have anger management problems. Its like a disease.” “There’s a cure and it’s called kicking your ass.

Before I knew you, I thought brave was not being afraid. You've taught me that bravery is being terrified and doing it anyway.

The problem with knowledge, is its inexhaustible craving. the more of it you have, the less you feel you know

Those who restrain desire do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained.

What is now proved was once only imagined.

But hey, at least we’ll have this strange story to tell, love and death and blood and daddy-issues. And holy crap, I’m a psychiatrist’s wet dream.

There comes a point when you just love someone. Not because they're good, or bad, or anything really. You just love them. It doesn't mean you'll be together forever. It doesn't mean you won't hurt each other. It just mean you love them. Sometimes in spite of who they are, and sometimes because of who they are. And you know that they love you, sometimes because of who you are, and sometimes in spite of it.

I must create a system, or be enslaved by another man's. I will not reason and compare: my business is to create.

Neither love nor evil conquers all, but evil cheats more.

The imagination is not a state: it is the human existence itself.

The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.

Can the sarcasm,' he said. 'Please, I always use fresh sarcasm, never canned.

Dawson shifted, dropping his head into his hand. "Do you ever stop talking?" "When I'm sleeping," Blake replied. "And when you're dead," Daemon threw back. "You'll stop talking when you're dead." Blake's lips thinned. "Point taken.

The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity... and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.

You make me want things I can't have.

In the universe, there are things that are known, and things that are unknown, and in between, there are doors.

To generalize is to be an idiot.

Maybe they know what I know, that the true way to a man's heart is six inches of metal between his ribs. Sometimes four inches will do the job, but to be really sure, I like to have six.

It's terrifying when you consider that every thought we have, every choice we could possibly make, branches off into a new world.

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.

I talk to myself everyone once in a while. Give myself very good advice. Sometimes I even take it.

You fuck - you ate my cat!

Accidental sex. He made it sound like I fell down, and there just happened to be an erection in the way.

You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.

Most hatred is based on fear, one way or another. Yeah. I wrapped myself in anger, with a dash of hate, and at the bottom of it all was an icy center of pure terror.

Every Night and every Morn Some to Misery are born. Every Morn and every Night Some are born to Sweet Delight, Some are born to Endless Night.

The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness.

A flaw of humanity,” said Parisa, shrugging. “The compulsion to be unique, which is at war with the desire to belong to a single identifiable sameness.

Can you love my brain even when it is small? When it is malevolent? When it is violent? Can you love it even when it does not love me?

We're more than the sum total of our choices, that all the paths we might have taken factor somehow into the math of our identity.

Eternity is in love with the productions of time.

Zebrowski says that if you killed someone else just hide the body, he's not starting over on the paperwork.

Friends don't count the cost of favors.

Love seeketh not itself to please, nor for itself hath any care, but for another gives its ease, and builds a Heaven in Hell's despair.

I was walking among the fires of Hell, delighted with the enjoyments of Genius; which to Angels look like torment and insanity.

The truth may not set you free, but used carefully, it can confuse the hell out of your enemies.

He who kisses joy as it flies by will live in eternity's sunrise.

Truth can never be told so as to be understood and not be believed.

If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is - infinite.

they were binary stars, trapped in each other’s gravitational field and easily diminished without the other’s opposing force

The moral of this story is: Beware the man who faces you unarmed. If in his eyes you are not the target, then you can be sure you are the weapon.

I knew from the moment I heard you, the moment I saw the gun and realized that this lovely, petit woman was the executioner, that you would never die waiting for me to save you - that you would save yourself.

Never argue when you're winning.

Still it might be nice, once in a while, not to have to choose between evils. Just once, couldn't I choose the lesser good?

Without contraries is no progression. Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate, are necessary to human existence.

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom...You never know what is enough until you know what is more than enough.

Each night I lie and dream about the one Who kissed me and awakened my desire I spent a single hour with him alone And since that hour, my days are layed with fire.

I enjoy my anger, it’s the only hobby I have.

For all eternity, I forgive you and you forgive me.

One thing I've learned about vampires--they keep pulling new rabbits out of their cloaks. Big, fanged, carnivorous bunnies that'll eat your eyeballs if you're not paying attention.

Excessive sorrow laughs. Excessive joy weeps.

Really, there was nothing more dangerous than a woman who knew her own worth.

Sticks and stones will break your bones, but failure will get you killed.

He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star.

Life's a bitch,” I said. “And then you die,” Larry finished for me.

Everyone has their weaknesses. Some people smoke. I collect stuffed penguins. If you won't tell, I won't.

She's my purpose and we're going to save each other. We're going to save everyone. And then I'm going to convince her that she's supposed to stay here. With me.

My mother groaned, my father wept, into the dangerous world I leapt.

God, living people are irritating.

Land of the Dead? Is that what you dream about?” she asks. “Boy who kills ghosts for a living?” “No. I dream about penguins doing bridge construction. Don’t ask why.

Sometimes it's not the optimist you need, but another pessimist to walk beside you and know, absolutely know, that the sound in the dark is a monster, and it really is as bad as you think. Did that sound hopeless? It didn't feel hopeless. It felt reassuring. It felt - real.

If you fear nothing, then you are not brave. You are merely too foolish to be afraid.

I'd never met coffee that wasn't wonderful. It was just a matter of how wonderful it was.

I didn't know what to say to that, so i kept my mouth shut. When in doubt,shut the fuck up.

I am sincere, ma petite, even when I lie.

She’s like Bruce Lee, the Hulk and Neo from The Matrix all rolled in to one.

I’ve seen most of what there is to be afraid of in this world, and to tell you the truth, the worst of them are the ones that make you afraid in the light. The things that your eyes see plainly and can’t forget are worse than huddled black figures left to the imagination. Imagination has a poor memory; it slinks away and goes blurry. Eyes remember for much longer.

Great things are done when men and mountains meet.

A man can't soar too high, when he flies with his own wings.

What is love? Sometimes it's just letting yourself be who and what you are, and letting the person you're supposed to love be who and what he is too. Or maybe what and who they are.

You can't save everybody. In fact, there are days when I think you can't save anyone. Each person has to save himself first, then you can move in and help. I have found this philosophy does not work during a gun battle, or a knife fight either. Outside of that it works just fine.

Sometimes you fight what you are, and sometimes you give in to it. And some nights you just don’t want to fight yourself anymore, so you pick someone else to fight.

Ready to s-snuggle?” he asked Kaidan, a slight clatter in his voice. Only Blake could joke on a night like this and get away with it. Kaidan shook his head and undressed down to his boxers, too, the tension finally shedding away from his frame. “I swear, mate. If I feel something poke me in the back. . .” Blake's laugh was dry. “I'm pretty sure my junk froze off, man, so don't worry.

Improvement makes strait roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement, are roads of Genius.

one of the good things about being a woman is that my level of testosterone poisoning is lower than most men's.

Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night.

He who binds to himself a joy Does the winged life destroy; But he who kisses the joy as it flies Lives in eternity's sun rise.

Death didn't bother me much. Strong Christian and all that. Method of death did. Being eaten alive. One of my top three ways not to go out.

He was twenty. I remembered twenty. I'd known everything at twenty. It took me another year to realize I knew nothing. I was still hoping to learn something before I hit thirty, but I wasn't holding my breath.

Life with a cheat code isn't life. Our existence isn't something to be engineered or optimized for the avoidance of pain. That's what it is to be human - the beauty and the pain, each meaningless without the other.

She is in all of his spaces and all of his thoughts. He contemplates formulas and degrees of rationality and they all turn into her. He thinks about time, which has only recently begun, or at least now feels different. He thinks: the Babylonians were wrong; time is made of her.

I was angry with my friend: I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe; I told it not, my wrath did grow. And I water'd it in fears, Night & morning with my tears; And I sunnéd it with smiles And with soft deceitful wiles. And it grew both day and night, Till it bore an apple bright; And my foe beheld it shine, And he knew that it was mine, And into my garden stole, When the night had veil'd the pole: In the morning glad I see My foe outstretch'd beneath the tree.

No one tells you it's all about to change, to be taken away. There's no proximity alert, no indication that you're standing on the precipice. And maybe that's what makes tragedy so tragic. Not just what happens, but how it happens: a sucker punch that comes at you out of nowhere, when you're least expecting it. No time to flinch or brace.

She should have remembered that people have given everything they own, everything they are, to be taken care of, and to have their pain gone. It's the lure of cults: the promise of a good family; it's what people think love is, but love isn't absence of pain, it's a hand to hold while you're going through it.

I was just offered a contract on your life, for enough money to make it worth my while." It was my turn to be quiet. Did you take it?" Would I be calling you if I had?" Maybe," I said. He laughed. True, but I'm not going to take it." Why not?" Friendship." Try again," I said. I figure I'll get to kill more people guarding you. If I take the contract, I only get to kill you." Comforting...

I look at the blanked-out faces of the other passengers--hoisting their briefcases, their backpacks, shuffling to disembark--and I think of what Hobie said: beauty alters the grain of reality. And I keep thinking too of the more conventional wisdom: namely, that the pursuit of pure beauty is a trap, a fast track to bitterness and sorrow, that beauty has to be wedded to something more meaningful. Only what is that thing? Why am I made the way I am? Why do I care about all the wrong things, and nothing at all for the right ones? Or, to tip it another way: how can I see so clearly that everything I love or care about is illusion, and yet--for me, anyway--all that's worth living for lies in that charm? A great sorrow, and one that I am only beginning to understand: we don't get to choose our own hearts. We can't make ourselves want what's good for us or what's good for other people. We don't get to choose the people we are. Because--isn't it drilled into us constantly, from childhood on, an unquestioned platitude in the culture--? From William Blake to Lady Gaga, from Rousseau to Rumi to Tosca to Mister Rogers, it's a curiously uniform message, accepted from high to low: when in doubt, what to do? How do we know what's right for us? Every shrink, every career counselor, every Disney princess knows the answer: "Be yourself." "Follow your heart." Only here's what I really, really want someone to explain to me. What if one happens to be possessed of a heart that can't be trusted--? What if the heart, for its own unfathomable reasons, leads one willfully and in a cloud of unspeakable radiance away from health, domesticity, civic responsibility and strong social connections and all the blandly-held common virtues and instead straight toward a beautiful flare of ruin, self-immolation, disaster?...If your deepest self is singing and coaxing you straight toward the bonfire, is it better to turn away? Stop your ears with wax? Ignore all the perverse glory your heart is screaming at you? Set yourself on the course that will lead you dutifully towards the norm, reasonable hours and regular medical check-ups, stable relationships and steady career advancement the New York Times and brunch on Sunday, all with the promise of being somehow a better person? Or...is it better to throw yourself head first and laughing into the holy rage calling your name?

Maybe they know what I know, that the true way to a man's heart is six inches of metal between his ribs. Sometimes four inches will do the job, but to be really sure, I like to have six. Funny how phallic objects are always more useful the bigger they are. Anyone who tells you size doesn't matter has been seeing too many small knives.

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz, who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated, who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy among the scholars of war,

I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite - only a sense of existence. Well, anything for variety. I am ready to try this for the next ten thousand years, and exhaust it. How sweet to think of! my extremities well charred, and my intellectual part too, so that there is no danger of worm or rot for a long while. My breath is sweet to me. O how I laugh when I think of my vague indefinite riches. No run on my bank can drain it, for my wealth is not possession but enjoyment.

Marginalia Sometimes the notes are ferocious, skirmishes against the author raging along the borders of every page in tiny black script. If I could just get my hands on you, Kierkegaard, or Conor Cruise O'Brien, they seem to say, I would bolt the door and beat some logic into your head. Other comments are more offhand, dismissive - Nonsense." "Please!" "HA!!" - that kind of thing. I remember once looking up from my reading, my thumb as a bookmark, trying to imagine what the person must look like who wrote "Don't be a ninny" alongside a paragraph in The Life of Emily Dickinson. Students are more modest needing to leave only their splayed footprints along the shore of the page. One scrawls "Metaphor" next to a stanza of Eliot's. Another notes the presence of "Irony" fifty times outside the paragraphs of A Modest Proposal. Or they are fans who cheer from the empty bleachers, Hands cupped around their mouths. Absolutely," they shout to Duns Scotus and James Baldwin. Yes." "Bull's-eye." "My man!" Check marks, asterisks, and exclamation points rain down along the sidelines. And if you have managed to graduate from college without ever having written "Man vs. Nature" in a margin, perhaps now is the time to take one step forward. We have all seized the white perimeter as our own and reached for a pen if only to show we did not just laze in an armchair turning pages; we pressed a thought into the wayside, planted an impression along the verge. Even Irish monks in their cold scriptoria jotted along the borders of the Gospels brief asides about the pains of copying, a bird singing near their window, or the sunlight that illuminated their page- anonymous men catching a ride into the future on a vessel more lasting than themselves. And you have not read Joshua Reynolds, they say, until you have read him enwreathed with Blake's furious scribbling. Yet the one I think of most often, the one that dangles from me like a locket, was written in the copy of Catcher in the Rye I borrowed from the local library one slow, hot summer. I was just beginning high school then, reading books on a davenport in my parents' living room, and I cannot tell you how vastly my loneliness was deepened, how poignant and amplified the world before me seemed, when I found on one page A few greasy looking smears and next to them, written in soft pencil- by a beautiful girl, I could tell, whom I would never meet- Pardon the egg salad stains, but I'm in love.