A Quote by John Banville

I shall strip away layer after layer of grime -- the toffee-colored varnish and caked soot left by a lifetime of dissembling -- until I come to the very thing itself and know it for what it is. My soul. My self.

John Banville

Quote Topics

After Away Colored Come Grime Itself Know Layer Left Lifetime My Soul Self Shall Soul Strip Thing Toffee Until Very

Quote Author

John Banville
Irish - Novelist
Born: December 8, 1945

Touring Seoul is like an onion that you keep peeling away layer after layer.

Park Won-soon

They needed to share one secret after another with a beautiful woman, to peel away layer after layer, mask after mask, and still find themselves worshiped.

Denis Johnson

All perfection is there already in the soul. But this perfection has been covered up by nature; layer after layer of nature is covering this purity of the soul.

Swami Vivekananda

I experience each moment like baklava: rich in this layer, and this layer, and this layer.

Ram Dass

I spent a lot of time trying to layer upon layer upon layer as I wrote. I think that's often the fear of a writer, that little nuances won't get picked up.

Morgan Parker

At the center of each human heart is goodness, layered over with hurt, confusion, and mistaken ideas. Our task is to gently peel off layer after layer until the unfettered heart can shed its love upon the world.

Sue Thoele

Life is like an onion: you peel off layer after layer and then you find there is nothing in it.

James Huneker

People who teach you cram old ideas, old views, old ways, into you. Like covering plants with layer after layer of old earth; it's no wonder the poor things so rarely come up fresh and green.

John Fowles

The distinguishing of the strata, or layers, in the embryonic membrane was a turning-point in the study of the history of evolution, and placed later researches in their proper light. A division of the (disc-shaped) embryo into an animal and a plastic part first takes place. In the lower part (the plastic or vegetative layer) are a serous and a vascular layer, each of peculiar organization. In the upper part also (the animal or serous germ-layer) two layers are clearly distinguishable, a flesh-layer and a skin-layer. (1828)

Karl Ernst von Baer

Through faithful practice, layer after layer of the mind opens before us, and each reveals new facts to us.

Swami Vivekananda

If you have to control people, you have to have an administrative force that does it. So in U.S. industry, even more than elsewhere, there's layer after layer of management - a kind of economic waste, but useful for control and domination. And the same is true in universities.

Noam Chomsky

The only thing for which we can combine is the underlying ideal of Socialism; justice and liberty. But it is hardly strong enough to call this ideal underlying. It is almost completely forgotten. It has been buried beneath layer after layer of doctnaire priggishness, party squabbles and half-backed progressivism until it is like a diamond hidden under a monition of dung. The job of the Socialist is to get it out again. Justice and liberty! Those are the words that have got to ring like a bugle across the world.

George Orwell

I like to compare my method with that of painters centuries ago, proceeding from layer to layer.

Alberto Moravia

Habits start out as off-hand remarks, magazine advertisements, friendly hints, experiments - like flimsy cobwebs with little substance. They grow with practice, layer by layer - thought on thought - fused with imagination and emotion until they become like steel cables - unbreakable. Habits are attitudes which grow from cobwebs into cables that control your everyday life. Self-discipline alone can make or break a habit. Self discipline alone can effect a permanent change in your self image and in you. Self-discipline achieves goals. Self discipline is not 'doing without,' it is 'doing within.'