Function Quotes - Page 11

• Words are good for saying what things are, but sometimes they don't function for what things aren't.

  Colum McCann

  Sometimes

  Colum McCann (2009). “Let the Great World Spin: A Novel”, p.155, Random House

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• At first glance, the key and the lock it fits may seem very different," Sazed said. "Different in shape, different in function, different in design. The man who looks at them without knowledge of their true nature might think them opposites, for one is meant to open, and the other to keep closed. Yet, upon closer examination he might see that without one, the other becomes useless. The wise man then sees that both lock and key were created for the same purpose.

  Brandon Sanderson

  Wise, Men, Thinking

  Brandon Sanderson (2011). “Mistborn Trilogy”, p.1196, Macmillan

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• There was a sergeant at a desk. I knew he was a sergeant because I recognized the marks on his uniform, and I knew it was a desk because it's always a desk. There's always someone at a desk, except when it's a table that functions as a desk. You sit behind a desk, and everyone knows you're supposed to be there, and that you're doing something that involves your brain. It's an odd, special kind of importance. I think everyone should get a desk; you can sit behind it when you feel like you don't matter.

  Steven Brust

  Thinking, Brain, Special

  Steven Brust (2010). “Iorich”, p.243, Macmillan

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• How can cosmic religious feeling be communicated from one person to another, if it can give rise to no definite notion of a God and no theology? In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it.

  Albert Einstein

  Religious, Art, Views

  Albert Einstein (2016). “The Albert Einstein Collection: Essays in Humanism, The Theory of Relativity, and The World As I See It”, p.181, Open Road Media

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• I was created to fulfill a function and I failed in it. I negated my own existence.

  Douglas Adams

  Existence, My Own

  Douglas Adams (2010). “The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy”, p.555, Del Rey

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• Christianity taught us to see the eye of the lord looking down upon us. Such forms of knowledge project an image of reality, at the expense of reality itself. They talk figures and icons and signs, but fail to perceive forces and flows. They bind us to other realities, and especially the reality of power as it subjugates us. Their function is to tame, and the result is the fabrication of docile and obedient subjects.

  Gilles Deleuze

  Eye, Reality, Taught Us

  Gilles Deleuze, FeÌl?ix Guattari (2004). “Anti-Oedipus”, p.22, A&C Black

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• The various forms of education or ‘normalization’ imposed upon an individual consist in making him or her change points of subjectification, always moving towards a higher, nobler one in closer conformity with the supposed ideal. Then from the point of subjectification issues a subject of enunciation, as a function of a mental reality determined by that point. Then from the subject of enunciation issues a subject of the statement, in other words, a subject bound to statements in conformity with a dominant reality

  Gilles Deleuze

  Moving, Reality, Issues

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• Poirot said placidly, “One does not, you know, employ merely the muscles. I do not need to bend and measure the footprints and pick up the cigarette ends and examine the bent blades of grass. It is enough for me to sit back in my chair and think. It is this – ” he tapped his egg-shaped head – “this, that functions!

  Agatha Christie

  Thinking, Eggs, Doe

  Agatha Christie (2010). “Five Little Pigs (Poirot)”, p.11, HarperCollins UK

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• Wizards don't believe in gods in the same way that most people don't find it necessary to believe in, say, tables. They know they're there, they know they're there for a purpose, they'd probably agree that they have a place in a well-organised universe, but they wouldn't see the point of believing, of going around saying "O great table, without whom we are as naught." Anyway, either the gods are there whether you believe in them or not, or exist only as a function of the belief, so either way you might as well ignore the whole business and, as it were, eat off your knees.

  Terry Pratchett

  Believe, People, Purpose

  Terry Pratchett (2009). “Reaper Man: A Novel of Discworld”, p.28, Harper Collins

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• The brain is more than an assemblage of autonomous modules, each crucial for a specific mental function. Every one of these functionally specialized areas must interact with dozens or hundreds of others, their total integration creating something like a vastly complicated orchestra with thousands of instruments, an orchestra that conducts itself, with an ever-changing score and repertoire.

  Oliver Sacks

  Creating, Brain, Orchestra

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• a samurai is a total human being, whereas a man who is completely absorbed in his technical skill has degenerated into a ‘function’, one cog in a machine.

  Yukio Mishima

  Men, Skills, Cogs

  Yukio Mishima, Tsunetomo Yamamoto (1977). “Yukio Mishima on Hagakure: the Samurai ethic and modern Japan”

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• And a new philosophy emerged called quantum physics, which suggest that the individual’s function is to inform and be informed. You really exist only when you’re in a field sharing and exchanging information. You create the realities you inhabit.

  Timothy Leary

  Philosophy, Reality, Information

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• The civil magistrate cannot function without some ethical guidance, without some standard of good and evil. If that standard is not to be the revealed law of God (which, we must note, was addressed specifically to perennial problems in political morality), then what will it be? In some form or expression it will have to be the law of man (or men) — the standard of self-law or autonomy.

  Greg L. Bahnsen

  Men, Self, Expression

  "By This Standard: The Authority of God's Law Today".

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• There are three deaths. The first is when the body ceases to function. The second is when the body is consigned to the grave. The third is that moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the last time.

  David Eagleman

  Names, Three, Body

  FaceBook post by David Eagleman from Feb 15, 2012

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• The grandiose person is never really free; first because he is excessively dependent on admiration from others, and second, because his self-respect is dependent on qualities, functions, and achievements that can suddenly fail.

  Alice Miller

  Self, Achievement, Quality

  Alice Miller (1997). “The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self”, p.36, Basic Books

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• Religion is not about accepting twenty impossible propositions before breakfast, but about doing things that change you. It is a moral aesthetic, an ethical alchemy. If you behave in a certain way, you will be transformed. The myths and laws of religion are not true because they they conform to some metaphysical, scientific or historical reality but because they are life enhancing. They tell you how human nature functions, but you will not discover their truth unless you apply these myths and doctrines to your own life and put them into practice.

  Karen Armstrong

  Life, Change, Truth

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• Sometimes we don't need words. Rather, it's words that need us. If we were no longer here, words would lose their whole function. They would end up as words that are never spoken, and words that aren't spoken are no longer words. - (Where I'm Likely To Find It)

  Haruki Murakami

  Needs, Sometimes, Ends

  FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from Sep 18, 2015

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• I like to receive money for my work. But I can pass that up this time. I like to have people know my work is done by me. But I can pass that up. I like to have tenants made happy by my work. But that doesn't matter too much. The only thing that matters, my goal, my reward, my beginning, my end is the work itself. My work done my way. Peter, there's nothing in the world that you can offer me, except this. Offer me this and you can have anything I've got to give. My work done my way. A private, personal, selfish, egotistical motivation. That's the only way I function. That's all I am.

  Ayn Rand

  Motivation, Selfish, People

  Ayn Rand (2005). “The Fountainhead”, p.553, Penguin

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• Because beyond their practical function, all gestures have a meaning that exceeds the intention of those who make them; when people in bathing suits fling themselves into the water, it is joy itself that shows in the gesture, notwithstanding any sadness the divers may actually feel. When someone jumps into the water fully clothed, it is another thing entirely: the only person who jumps into the water fully clothed is a person trying to drown; and a person trying to drown does not dive headfirst; he lets himself fall: thus speaks the immemorial language of gestures.

  Milan Kundera

  Fall, Sadness, Water

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• You can be shaped, or you can be broken. There is not much in between. Try to learn. Be coachable. Try to learn from everybody, especially those who fail. This is hard. ... How promising you are as a Student of the Game is a function of what you can pay attention to without running away.

  David Foster Wallace

  Running, Games, Broken

  David Foster Wallace (2011). “Infinite Jest”, p.128, Hachette UK

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• No, honestly, my mouth shouldn't be able to function unless my brain's engaged.

  Jodi Picoult

  Brain, Mouths, Able

  Jodi Picoult (2009). “Handle with Care: A Novel”, p.84, Simon and Schuster

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• There are those rare people who function like human magnets, who are individually so attractive – or repellent, depending on the situation – that a considerable amount more seems to happen to them, and likewise, their presence in a certain place makes more seem to happen around them. They’re magical people. They have special power.

  Daniel Wallace

  People, Special, Attractive

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• The artist usually sets out -- or used to -- to point a moral and adorn a tale. The tale, however, points the other way, as a rule. Two blankly opposing morals, the artist's and the tale's. Never trust the artist. Trust the tale. The proper functions of a critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it.

  D. H. Lawrence

  Artist, Two, Way

  Studies in Classic American Literature (1923) ch. 1

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• Your brain, Peekay, has two functions; it is a place for original thought, but also it is a reference library. Use it to tell you where to look, and then you will have for yourself all the brains that have ever been

  Bryce Courtenay

  Two, Brain, Library

  Bryce Courtenay (1989). “The Power of One”, Random House LLC

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• Words don't change their shape, they change their meaning, their function...They don't have a meaning of their own any more, they refer to other words that you don't know, that you've never read or heard...you've never seen their shape, but you feel...you suspect...they correspond to...an empty space inside you...or in the universe.

  Marguerite Duras

  Space, Shapes, Empty

  Marguerite Duras, Duras (1993). “Summer Rain”, Scribner Paper Fiction

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