“And after that? What are you going to do with all this wisdom?”

“If I ever acquire wisdom I suppose I shall be wise enough to know what to do with it.”

-from The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham

“You attach more importance to money than I do.”

“I can well believe it,” I answered tartly. “You see, you’ve always had it and I haven’t. It’s given me what I value almost more than anything else in life – independence. You can’t think what a comfort it’s been to me to think that if I wanted to I could tell anyone in the world to go to hell.”

“But I don’t want to tell anyone in the world to go to hell, and if I did, the lack of a bank balance wouldn’t prevent me. You see, money to you means freedom; to me it means bondage.”

-from The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham

It was true that I didn’t have much ambition, but there ought to be a place for people without ambition, I mean a better place than the one usually reserved. How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?

-from Factotum by Charles Bukowski

by Jonathan B. in Literary Quote, Literature 

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There’d always been something about the boy, he was smart and stupid at the same time. As if he was meant to do everything the wrong way. Junior league ball, the boy was twelve, they subbed him in for the pitcher, good arm but he chokes, eight runs straight, loses the game. Afterward acting like nothing happened. It made no sense. The feeling that gave you, watching your son lose the game, but he just shrugged it off, didn’t care.

-from American Rust by Philipp Meyer

I cannot recall those years without horror, loathing, and heart-rending pain. I killed people in war, challenged men to duels with the purpose of killing them, and lost at cards; I squandered the fruits of the peasants’ toil and then had them executed; I was a fornicator and a cheat. Lying, stealing, promiscuity of every kind, drunkenness, violence, murder – there was not a crime I did not commit… Thus I lived for ten years.

-from Confession by Leo Tolstoy

Hello, I am Wanda June. Today was going to be my birthday, but I was hit by an ice-cream truck before I could have my party. I am dead now. I am in Heaven. That is why my parents did not pick up my cake at the bakery. I am not mad at the ice-cream truck driver, even though he was drunk when he hit me. It didn’t hurt much. It wasn’t even as bad as the sting of a bumblebee. I am really happy here! It’s so much fun. I’m glad the driver was drunk. If he hadn’t been, I might not have gone to Heaven for years and years and years. I would have had to go to high school first, and then beauty college. I would have had to get married and have babies and everything. Now I can just play and play and play. Any time I want any pink cotton candy I can have some. Everybody up here is happy — the animals and the dead soldiers and people who went to the electric chair and everything. They’re all glad for whatever sent them here. Nobody is mad. We’re all too busy playing shuffleboard. So if you think of killing somebody, don’t worry about it. Just go ahead and do it. Whoever you do it to should kiss you for doing it. The soldiers up here just love the shrapnel and the tanks and the bayonets and the dum dums that let them play shuffleboard all the time – and drink beer.

-from Happy Birthday, Wanda June by Kurt Vonnegut

If you can do no good, at least do no harm.

-from Slapstick by Kurt Vonnegut

I have no special regard for Satan; but, I can at least claim that I have no prejudice against him. It may even be that I lean a little his way, on account of his not having a fair show. All religions issue bibles against him, and say the most injurious things about him, but we never hear his side. We have none but the evidence for the prosecution, and yet we have rendered the verdict. To my mind, this is irregular. It is un-English, it is un-American; it is French.

-from Concerning the Jews by Mark Twain

Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.

-from The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Parents are like God because you wanna know they’re out there, and you want them to think well of you, but you really only call when you need something.

-from Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk

If trouble comes when you least expect it then maybe the thing to do is to always expect it.

-from The Road by Cormac McCarthy

No matter how much you know, no matter how much you think, no matter how much you plot and you connive and you plan, you’re not superior to sex. It’s a very risky game. A man wouldn’t have two-thirds of the problems he has if he didn’t venture off to get fucked. It’s sex that disorders our normally ordered lives. I know this as well as anyone.

-from The Dying Animal by Philip Roth

No one ever does live happily ever after, but we leave the children to find that out for themselves.

-from The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.

-from Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams

My God, a moment of bliss. Why, isn’t that enough for a whole lifetime?

-from White Nights by Fyodor Dostoevsky