263 Quotes by Mark Helprin

It’s a defining difference, curiosity. I’ve never known a stupid person who was curious, or a curious person who was stupid.

No one ever said that you would live to see the repercussions of everything you do, or that you have guarantees, or that you are not obliged to wander in the dark, or that everything will be proved to you and neatly verified like something in science. Nothing is: at least nothing that is worthwhile. I didn’t bring you up only to move across sure ground. I didn’t teach you to think that everything must be within our control or understanding. Did I? For, if I did, I was wrong.

I read. The more you read, the more the world opens up to you... and the happier you are and more comforted you feel. It’s up to you. No you is educated who cannot educate himself.

They’re not just dreams. Not anymore, I dream more than I wake now, and, at times, I have crossed over. Can’t you see? I’ve been there.

Harry understood that those left behind – the failures and the deformed, the suffering and the dead – are not just equal in soul, but that they are we and we are they. Struggle as we may for distinction, soon enough we fail, and, without exception, follow.

Anticipation is the heart of wisdom. If you are going to cross a desert, you anticipate that you will be thirsty, and you take water.

A profession is like a great snake that wraps itself around you. Once you are enwrapped, you are in a slow fight for the rest of your life, and the lightness of youth leaves you.

He heard the Baymen tell of war, but they never said it could be harnessed, its head held down, and made to run in place.

People in my constituency are starving and born with sixteen fingers. Did you ever eat weasel shish-kebob? Freddy doesn’t walk by the side of the motorways to gather dandelions for his salad, but the people who sent me here do. Why are we supporting him? He doesn’t deserve it. The Tories won’t give milk to children who go to school hungry and come home to baked cat.