Logan Pearsall Smith Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Logan Pearsall Smith. Here they are! All 36 of them:

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People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.
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Logan Pearsall Smith
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What I like in a good author is not what he says, but what he whispers.
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Logan Pearsall Smith (All trivia: Trivia, More trivia, Afterthoughts, Last words)
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There are two things to aim at in life: first, to get what you want; and, after that, to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second.
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Logan Pearsall Smith (All trivia: Trivia, More trivia, Afterthoughts, Last words)
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Then I thought of readingβ€”the nice and subtle happiness of reading. This was enough, this joy not dulled by Age, this polite and unpunishable vice, this selfish, serene, life-long intoxication.
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Logan Pearsall Smith (All trivia: Trivia, More trivia, Afterthoughts, Last words)
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How many of our daydreams would darken into nightmares, were there a danger of their coming true!
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Logan Pearsall Smith (All trivia: Trivia, More trivia, Afterthoughts, Last words)
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Then I though of reading -- the nice and subtle happiness of reading ... this joy not dulled by age, this polite and unpunishable vice, this selfish, serene, lifelong intoxication.
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Logan Pearsall Smith (All trivia: Trivia, More trivia, Afterthoughts, Last words)
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Hearts that are delicate and kind and tongues that are neither;β€”these make the finest company in the world.
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Logan Pearsall Smith (All trivia: Trivia, More trivia, Afterthoughts, Last words)
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Don't laugh at a youth for his affectations; he's only trying on one face after another till he finds his own.
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Logan Pearsall Smith (All trivia: Trivia, More trivia, Afterthoughts, Last words)
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Thank heavens, the sun has gone in and I don’t have to go out and enjoy it.
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Logan Pearsall Smith (All trivia: Trivia, More trivia, Afterthoughts, Last words)
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The test of a vocation is the love of the drudgery it involves.
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Logan Pearsall Smith (All trivia: Trivia, More trivia, Afterthoughts, Last words)
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Every author, however modest, keeps a most outrageous vanity chained like a madman in the padded cell of his breast.
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Logan Pearsall Smith (All trivia: Trivia, More trivia, Afterthoughts, Last words)
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The indefatigable pursuit of an unattainable perfection, even though it consists in nothing more than in the pounding of an old piano, is what alone gives a meaning to our life on this unavailing star.
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Logan Pearsall Smith (Afterthoughts)
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It is the wretchedness of being rich that you have to live with rich people ... To suppose, as we all suppose, that we could be rich and not behave as the rich behave, is like supposing that we could drink all day and stay sober.
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Logan Pearsall Smith (All trivia: Trivia, More trivia, Afterthoughts, Last words)
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We believe in the wrong things. That's what frustrates me the most. Not the lack of belief, but the belief in the wrong things. You want meaning? Well, the meanings are out there. We're just so damn good at reading them wrong. I don't think meaning is something that can be explained. You have to understand it on your own. It's like when you're starting to read. First, you learn the letters. Then, once you know what sounds the letters make, you use them to sound out words. You know that c-a-t leads to cat and d-o-g leads to dog. But then you have to make that extra leap, to understand that the word, the sound, the "cat" is connected to an actual cat , and that "dog" is connected to an actual dog. It's that leap, that understanding, that leads to meaning. And a lot of the time in life, we're still just sounding things out. We know the sentences and how to say them. We know the ideas and how to present them. We know the prayers and which words to say in what order. But that's only spelling" It's much harder to lie to someone's face. But. It is also much harder to tell the truth to someone's face. The indefatigable pursuit of an unattainable perfection, even though it consist in nothing more than in the pounding of an old piano, is what alone gives a meaning to our life on this unavailing star. (Logan Pearsall Smith) Being alone has nothing to do with how many people are around. (J.R. Moehringer) You could be standing a few feet away...I could have sat next to you on the subway, or brushed beside you as we went through the turnstiles. But whether or not you are here, you are here- because these words are for you, and they wouldn't exist is you weren't here in some way. At last I had it--the Christmas present I'd wanted all along, but hadn't realized. His words. The dream was obviously a sign: he was too enticing to resist. Wow. You must have a lot of faith in me. Which I appreciate. Even if I'm not sure I share it. I could do this on my own, and not freak out that I had no idea what waited for me on the other side of this night. Hope and belief. I'd always wanted hope, but never believed that I could have such an adventure on my own. That I could own it. And love it. But it happened. Because I'm So uncool and so afraid. If there was a clue, that meant the mystery was still intact I fear you may have outmatched me, because not I find these words have nowhere to go. It's hard to answer a question you haven't been asked. It's hard to show that you tried unless you end up succeeding. This was not a haystack. We were people, and people had ways of finding eachother. It was one of those moments when you feel the future so much that is humbles the present. Don't worry. It's your embarrassment at not having the thought that counts. You think fairy tales are only for girls? Here's ahint- ask yourself who wrote them. I assure you, it wasn't just the women. It's the great male fantasy- all it takes is one dance to know that she's the one. All it takes is the sound of her song from the tower, or a look at her sleeping face. And right away you know--this is the girl in your head, sleeping or dancing or singing in front of you. Yes, girls want their princes, but boys want their princesses just as much. And they don't want a very long courtship. They want to know immediately. Be careful what you;re doing, because no one is ever who you want them to be. And the less you really know them, the more likely you are to confuse them with the girl or boy in your head You should never wish for wishful thinking
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Rachel Cohn (Dash & Lily's Book of Dares (Dash & Lily, #1))
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The notion of making money by popular work, and then retiring to do good work on the proceeds, is the most familiar of all the devil's traps for artists.
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Logan Pearsall Smith (All trivia: Trivia, More trivia, Afterthoughts, Last words)
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What humbugs we are, who pretend to live for Beauty, and never see the Dawn!
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Logan Pearsall Smith (All trivia: Trivia, More trivia, Afterthoughts, Last words)
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What things there are to write, if one could only write them! My mind is full of gleaming thoughts; gay moods and mysterious, moth-like meditations hover in my imagination, fanning their painted wings. They would make my fortune if I could catch them; but always the rarest, those freaked with azure and the deepest crimson, flutter away beyond my reach.
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Logan Pearsall Smith (All trivia: Trivia, More trivia, Afterthoughts, Last words)
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There are few sorrows, however poignant, in which a good income is of no avail.
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Logan Pearsall Smith (All trivia: Trivia, More trivia, Afterthoughts, Last words)
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All Reformers, however strict their Conscience, live in houses just as big as they can pay for.
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Logan Pearsall Smith (All trivia: Trivia, More trivia, Afterthoughts, Last words)
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Yes there is a meaning; at least for me, there is one thing that matters - to set a chime of words tinkling in the minds of a few fastidious people.
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Logan Pearsall Smith
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A best-seller is the gilded tomb of a mediocre talent
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Logan Pearsall Smith (All trivia: Trivia, More trivia, Afterthoughts, Last words)
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We dressed ourselves up as Gauguin pictures and careered round Crosby Hall. Mrs. Whitehead was scandalized. She said that Vanessa and I were practically naked. My mother's ghost was invoked once more...to deplore the fact that I had taken a house in Brunswick Square and had asked young men to share it...Stories began to circulate about parties at which we all undressed in public. Logan Pearsall Smith told Ethel Sands that he knew for a fact that Maynard had copulated with Vanessa on a sofa in the middle of the drawing room. It was a heartless, immoral, cynical society it was said; we were abandoned women and our friends were the most worthless of young men.
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Virginia Woolf (Moments of Being: A Collection of Autobiographical Writing)
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There are two things to aim at in life,’ ” he quoted from Logan Pearsall Smith. β€œ β€˜First, to get what you want, and after that, to enjoy it.
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Jan Karon (These High, Green Hills (Mitford Years #3))
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People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading. β€”LOGAN PEARSALL SMITH
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Wendy Wax (The Accidental Bestseller)
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For some, Life is rich and creamy, made according to an old peasant recipe from nothing but natural products, while Art is a pallid commercial confection, consisting mainly of artificial colourings and flavourings. For others, Art is the truer thing, full, bustling and emotionally satisfying, while Life is worse than the poorest novel: devoid of narrative, peopled by bores and rogues, short on wit, long on unpleasant incidents, and leading to a painfully predictable dΓ©nouement. Adherents of the latter view tend to cite Logan Pearsall Smith: β€˜People say that life is the thing; but I prefer reading.’ Candidates are advised not to use this quotation in their answers.
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Julian Barnes (Flaubert's Parrot)
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To suppose, as we all suppose, that we could be rich and not behave as the rich behave, is like supposing that we could drink all day and keep absolutely sober.
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Logan Pearsall Smith (Afterthoughts)
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Charming people live up to the very edge of their charm, and behave just as outrageously as the world allows.
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Logan Pearsall Smith (Afterthoughts)
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One late winter afternoon in Oxford Street, amid the noise of vehicles and voices that filled that dusky thoroughfare, as I was borne onward with the crowd past the great electric-lighted shops, a holy Indifference filled my thoughts. Illusion had faded from me; I was not touched by any desire for the goods displayed in those golden windows, nor had I the smallest share in the appetites and fears of all those moving and anxious faces. And as I listened with Asiatic detachment to the London traffic, its sound changed into something ancient and dissonant and sadβ€”into the turbid flow of that stream of Craving which sweeps men onward through the meaningless cycles of Existence, blind and enslaved forever. But I had reached the farther shore, the Harbour of Deliverance, the Holy City; the Great Peace beyond all this turmoil and fret compassed me around. Om Mani padme humβ€”I murmured the sacred syllables, smiling with the pitying smile of the Enlightened One on his heavenly lotus. Then, in a shop-window, I saw a neatly fitted suit-case. I liked that suit-case; I desired to possess it. Immediately I was enveloped by the mists of Illusion, chained once more to the Wheel of Existence, whirled onward along Oxford Street in that turbid stream of wrong-belief, and lust, and sorrow, and anger.
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Logan Pearsall Smith (All trivia: Trivia, More trivia, Afterthoughts, Last words)
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We grow with years more fragile in body, but morally stouter, and can throw off the chill of a bad conscience almost at once.
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Logan Pearsall Smith (All trivia: Trivia, More trivia, Afterthoughts, Last words)
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It is the wretchedness of being rich that you have to live with rich people. β€”LOGAN PEARSALL SMITH
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J.D. Robb (Indulgence in Death (In Death, #31))
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Logan Pearsall Smith packed a lot of wisdom into a few words when he said: β€œThere are two things to aim at in life: first, to get what you want; and, after that, to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second.
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Dale Carnegie (How to Stop Worrying and Start Living)
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The indefatigable pursuit of an unattainable perfection, even though it consist in nothing more than in the pounding of an old piano, is what alone gives a meaning to our life on this unavailing star.’ Logan Pearsall Smith.
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J.R. Moehringer (The Tender Bar)
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Leisure ”If you are losing your leisure, you may be losing your soul”- Logan Pearsall Smith Children these days have a huge academic burden to bear; couple that with loads of homework and they hardly find any time for leisure. Parents should try not to make the home another school by putting too much pressure on studies. While it’s great to have outings with the entire family every couple of months or so, they only provide a temporary relief to built-up tensions.Β  Making time everyday for some leisure activity is very important. It is during such activity that children open up about their experiences during the day.
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Girish Panicker (SIMPLE PARENTING: The A-Z of Parenting (Help Children Grow Into Confident, Independent, Fearless and Joyous Beings))
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People say life is the thing, but I prefer reading.
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Logan Pearsall Smith
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Β«La infatigable bΓΊsqueda de una perfecciΓ³n inalcanzable, asΓ­ se trate sΓ³lo de aporrear un viejo piano, es lo que por sΓ­ mismo da sentido a nuestra vida en esta vana estrella.Β» Logan Pearsall Smith.
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J.R. Moehringer (The Tender Bar: A Memoir)
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People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.
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― Logan Pearsall Smith