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Conundrums Quotes

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Conundrums Quotes

“If you were offered the chance to live your own life again, would you seize the opportunity? The only real philosophical answer is automatically self-contradictory: 'Only if I did not know that I was doing so.' To go through the entire experience once more would be banal and Sisyphean—even if it did build muscle—whereas to wish to be young again and to have the benefit of one's learned and acquired existence is not at all to wish for a repeat performance, or a Groundhog Day. And the mind ought to, but cannot, set some limits to wish-thinking. All right, same me but with more money, an even sturdier penis, slightly different parents, a briefer latency period… the thing is absurd. I seriously would like to know what it was to be a woman, but like blind Tiresias would also want the option of re-metamorphosing if I wished. How terrible it is that we have so many more desires than opportunities.”

LifePhilosophyDesireOpportunityWomenMoneyYouthOld AgeParentsAbsurdityWishful ThinkingConundrumsGroundhog DaySelf ContradictionTiresias
Book:Hitch 22: A Memoir
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“Might the safest space be this: Safe from having to wear your armor. Safe from having to laugh off your pain. Safe to laugh at your pain, at yourself. Safe to know your truth... Safe to feel... Safe to disagree... Not safe from struggling with the conundrums of life, Safe to struggle with them To sit in the dis-comfort of no-extremes... Safe to spin through all the chaos... And feel the shoulder of another traveler... And know you are not alone. You are not alone.”

TruthFeelingCompanionshipTravelingSafe SpaceConundrumsDis Comfort
Author:Shellen Lubin
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“A lot of my books deal with very controversial issues that most people often don't want to talk about, issues that, in my country, are more likely to get put under the carpet than get discussed. And when you talk about moral conundrums, about shades of gray, what you're doing is asking the people who want the world to be black and white to realize instead that maybe it's all right if it isn't. I know you'll learn something picking up my books, but my goal as a writer is not to teach you but to make you ask more questions.”

PeopleIfsKnowsWorldWantBookCountryAsksGoalBlackRealizingWhiteDealsMoralTeachIssuesAskingGrayShadeBlack And WhiteCarpetControversialConundrumsShades Of GrayControversial Issues
Author:Steven Tyler
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“Most of us don't have mothers who blazed a trail for us--at least, not all the way. Coming of age before or during the inception of the women's movement, whether as working parents or homemakers, whether married or divorced, our mothers faced conundrums--what should they be? how should they act?--that became our uncertainties.”

WayShouldAgeMotherParentWomenMovementMarriedUncertaintyComing Of AgeTrailsDivorcedInceptionConundrumsHomemakerWorking Parents
Author:Anne Roiphe
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“I think everybody has a hard time connecting, but as you get older and you want more and you expect more and you know more, it's just different. If you start wanting too much from it without it naturally unfolding, then that makes it bad. If you start not wanting anything, then you are not serious. I mean it's just this conundrum of issues.”

IfsThinkingKnowsWantMeanDifferentHardIssuesToo MuchSeriousHard TimesConnectingUnfoldingConundrums
Author:Uma Thurman
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“We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. . . . Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, 'Too late.' ... Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world.”

WorldLongStillsFactsTodayBeautifulOpportunityLostStruggleWrittenTomorrowCivilizationLateMy FriendsStandingBonesNakedBitterToo LateNew WorldFierceThievesProcrastinationPatheticUrgencyUnfoldingBreaking SilenceConundrumsLost OpportunityDejected
Author:Martin Luther King, Jr.
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“There's so much going on in Andrei [Bolkonsky]. He's wrangling with these big existential conundrums, and he tries out different routes to fulfillment. He tries falling in love, that doesn't work. He goes to war and searches for military glory, that doesn't work. He does the quiet life of a farmer. He's always active. That's what I loved about him, he's always looking, searching. He's really inquisitive.”

TryingDoeDifferentWarBigsFallMilitaryQuietGloryFalling In LoveActiveFulfillmentFarmersExistentialRoutesInquisitiveQuiet LifeConundrumsWrangling
Author:James Norton
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“Americans have an interesting conundrum, a black and white line: You're on one side or the other of Puritanism or licentiousness. But that gray area where people abide, between their ears or on the Internet, needs to be fleshed out more in terms of permission granted. I think a lot of women are contained within the parentheses of shoulds and role-play. It's all about entitlement and history. It's all about upper-body strength - and exacting your will.”

PeopleThinkingNeedsPlayBodySidesBlackTermLinesWhiteInterestingRolesInternetAreasEarsGrantedGrayBlack And WhitePermissionEntitlementPuritanismGray AreaParenthesesConundrumsBody Strength
Author:Diane Lane
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“The puzzle and conundrums of Emily Dickinson's poetry or The Cantos, by Ezra Pound, is infinitely pleasurable. Or Ronald Johnson's Ark. And the experience extends a whole lifetime. But the intensity of certain vocalized language affects our bodies in a particular way, and that further actualization propels me. The Greeks explored this; there were very particular meters used in making war, different ones for a love chant.”

WayDifferentWarWholeBodyUsedCertainLanguageParticularLifetimeWhole LifeGreekPoundsIntensityPuzzlesJohnsonMeterEmilyArkActualizationConundrums
Author:Anne Waldman
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“America's the great conundrum and the great dream and the great fascination: the new land, the new world, the new temple, the new city, and the great mess. The most handguns, bombs, weaponry, violence, the cop of the world etcetera. All the contradictions. Mediocrity versus something like indigenous jazz, one of the most evolved sophisticated musical forms on the planet.”

WorldDreamAmericaFormCitiesViolenceLandPlanetsJazzMusicalMessBombsContradictionTemplesMediocrityNew WorldCopSophisticatedVersusIndigenousFascinationHandgunsWeaponryConundrumsEtcetera
Author:Anne Waldman
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“Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death - ought to decide, indeed, to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life.”

HumansWholeFactsSeemsOrderPassionNationsRaceOur LivesTroubleSacrificeBloodOughtCrossesRootsArmyDenyFlagsRejoiceTabooConfrontingMosquesTotemsConundrumsSteeplesBlood Sacrifice
Author:James A. Baldwin
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“We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there "is" such a thing as being too late. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and postive action.”

FactsMotivationalTodayActionTomorrowLateToo LateApathyFierceComplacencyUrgencyUnfoldingVigorousSense Of UrgencyConundrumsBefore It's Too Late
Author:Martin Luther King, Jr.
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“It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death-- ought to decide, indeed, to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life. One is responsible to life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return. One must negotiate this passage as nobly as possible, for the sake of those who are coming after us.”

FactsSeemsPassionDarknessReturnOughtResponsibleSakePassagesRejoiceConfrontingBeaconsConundrums
Author:James A. Baldwin
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“I think that today, more so than ever, corporate responsibility is the best strategic as well as financial path that most businesses can follow. For most businesses there are both compelling reasons to be responsible and compelling statistics that validate that responsible businesses do better according to traditional financial metrics. Of course, how you define "responsible" is somewhat of a conundrum.”

ThinkingWellsReasonTodayCoursesBusinessResponsibilityPathResponsibleFinancialTraditionalCorporateStatisticsCompellingSocial ResponsibilityStrategicBeing ResponsibleMetricsConundrumsCorporate ResponsibilityCompelling ReasonResponsible Business
Author:Jeffrey Hollender
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“Of course the sands of Present Time are running out from under our feet. And why not? The Great Conundrum: 'What are we here for?' is all that ever held us here in the first place. Fear. The answer to the Riddle of the Ages has actually been out in the street since the First Step in Space. Who runs may read but few people run fast enough. What are we here for? Does the great metaphysical nut revolve around that? Well, I'll crack it for you, right now. What are we here for? We are here to go!”

PeopleFirstsWellsMayDoeEnoughRunningAgeCoursesSpaceAnswersStepsFeetStreetsRight NowSandWhy NotCracksNutsFirst StepsMetaphysicalRiddlePresent TimeConundrums
Book:Back in No Time: The Brion Gysin Reader
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“If Murakami's novels are grand enigmas, his stories are bite-sized conundrums. (...) The great pleasure of the new story collection, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, is watching Murakami come at his obsessions from so many different angles. There's a panoply of strangeness between these covers (.....) This collection shows Murakami at his dynamic, organic best. As a chronicler of contemporary alienation, a writer for the Radiohead age, he shows how taut and thin our routines have become, how ill-equipped we are to contend with the forces that threaten to disrupt us.”

IfsDifferentStoriesShowsAgeForceSleepPleasureNovelBlindIllContemporaryObsessionCollectionsBitesAngleAlienationStrangenessEnigmaDifferent AnglesRadioheadConundrums
Author:Antoine Wilson
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