A Quote by Mark Helprin

Perhaps he was a fool, but he thought that if a work were truly great you would only have to read it once and you would be stolen from yourself, desperately moved, changed forever.
The thought of these vast stacks of books would drive him mad: the more he read, the less he seemed to know — the greater the number of the books he read, the greater the immense uncountable number of those which he could never read would seem to be…. The thought that other books were waiting for him tore at his heart forever.
If women were once permitted to read Sophocles and work with logarithms, or to nibble at any side of the apple of knowledge, there would be an end forever to their sewing on buttons and embroidering slippers.
We feel an affinity with a certain thinker because we agree with him; or because he shows us what we were already thinking; or because he shows us in a more articulate form what we were already thinking; or because he shows us what we were on the point of thinking; or what we would sooner or later have thought; or what we would have thought much later if we hadn’t read it now; or what we would have been likely to think but never would have thought if we hadn’t read it now; or what we would have liked to think but never would have thought if we hadn’t read it now.
If you asked me now who I am, the only answer I could give with any certainty would be my name. For the rest: my loves, my hates, down even to my deepest desires, I can no longer say whether these emotions are my own, or stolen from those I once so desperately wished to be.
I would never normally approach a woman in this way, but I couldn't help but notice that you have the eyes of a lady I was once desperately in love with. " "What a shame to love only once," she said, showing her white teeth in a wicked smile. "I've heard some men can manage twice or even more." I ignored her gibe. "I am only a fool once. Never will I love again.
With Keith's [my fiance] murder, I was changed. I thought I would be a prosecutor forever, but there were so many days when I would leave the courtroom during a trial, and go down the hall to the ladies' room, and go into a little stall, and cry.
It is entirely impossible for man to rise into the air and float there. For this you would need wings of tremendous dimensions and they would have to be moved at three feet per second. Only a fool would expect such a thing to be realized.
I had this chronic hyperactivity and an inability to focus, so I was forever being moved to another class, with a much smaller group of children - some of them about 18. If I was asked to read a paragraph, this white wall would go up in my head. Still now, I read very slowly and can rarely work out a tip.
During all those years of experimentation and research, I never once made a discovery. All my work was deductive, and the results I achieved were those of invention, pure and simple. I would construct a theory and work on its lines until I found it was untenable. Then it would be discarded at once and another theory evolved. This was the only possible way for me to work out the problem.
Few human creatures would consent to be changed into any of the lower animals for a promise of the fullest allowance of a beast's pleasures; no intelligent human being would consent to be a fool, no instructed person would be an ignoramus, no person of feeling and conscience would be selfish and base, even though they should be persuaded that the fool, the dunce, or the rascal is better satisfied with his lot than they are with theirs.
You would think, wouldn’t you, that if you were the child of a happy marriage, then you ought to have a better than average marriage yourself – either through some genetic inheritance or because you’d learnt from example? But it doesn’t seem to work like that. So perhaps you need the opposite example – to see mistakes in order not to make them yourself. Except this would mean that the best way for parents to ensure their children have happy marriages would be to have unhappy ones themselves. So what’s the answer?
Don't think of yourself as an intestinal tract and tangle of nerves in the skull, that will not work unless you drink coffee. Think of yourself as incandescent power, illuminated perhaps and forever talked to by God and his messengers.... Think if Tiffany's made a mosquito, how wonderful we would think it was!
I'm not someone who has a list of great books I would read if I only had the time. If I want to read a particular so-called classic, I go ahead and read it. If I had more time, I would certainly read more, but I'd read the way I always do - that is, I'd read whatever happened to interest me, not necessarily classics.
I rose and moved towards him. You would have done the same yourself. It is an ancient matter. Something propels you towards sudden grief, or perhaps also sometimes repels. You move away. I moved towards it, I couldn't help it.
Once I moved to London I thought it was unbeatable. I work a lot in L.A. and love it, but would never give up London. It's a true world city, with an energy that's unique.
I never thought we would rise to the height where the salaries are today. The rules have changed an awful lot. That benefits the public. Let's put it this way. It makes the game a little more exciting is what I think players were trying to work for because there would be more scoring in the games.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!