D. T. Max Quotes

Men prominent in life are mostly hard to converse with. They lack small-talk, and at the same time one doesn't like to confront them with their own great themes.

No Roman ever was able to say, 'I dined last night with the Borgias'.

One might well say that mankind is divisible into two great classes: hosts and guests.

A hundred eyes were fixed on her, and half as many hearts lost to her.

I said to myself, 'You're a man from a humble background, what you didn't learn in school, you'll learn now. Catch up.

I grew up in a military family, and there's something about that military-style uniform, all cleaned up, a brutal control effort the military necessarily breeds.

People get really caught up in their own trips.

Just imagine if I would have come back to Germany with a victory. I had nothing to do with the Nazis, but they would have given me a medal. After the war I might have been considered a war criminal.

I am too old for an eyebrow piercing but too young for an eyebrow lift.

It seems to be a law of nature that no man, unless he has some obvious physical deformity, ever is loth to sit for his portrait.

There are twenty-four characters in this book named Max. Let there be an end to this silly business of authors never giving their own names to characters in their novels. False modesty, faugh!

Make yourself master of one single subject and the time must come when your knowledge will be valuable.

It is well to be alone. It fertilizes the creative impulse.

On the rock bound coast of New Brunswick the waves break incessantly. Every now and then comes a particularly dangerous wave that breaks viciously into the rock. It is called 'The Rage.' That's me.

True dandyism is the result of an artistic temperament working upon a fine body within the wide limits of fashion.

You wonder if God has a place for a person like you. Find your answer in the Bethlehem stable.

The British electors will not vote for a man who does not wear a hat.

Three outstanding qualities make for success: judgment, industry, health. And the greatest of these is judgment.

The freedom of man is, in political liberalism, freedom from persons, from personal dominion, from the master; the securing of each individual person against other persons, personal freedom.

The more I had to act like a saint, the more I felt like being a sinner.

I used to want to be a lawyer, but I didn't want to have half my brain sucked out.

There is a time for risky love. There is a time for extravagant gestures. There is a time to pour out your affections on one you love. And when the time comes - seize it, don't miss it.

The dullard's envy of brilliant men is always assuaged by the suspicion that they will come to a bad end.

That's the thing you learn about values: they're what people make up to justify what they did.

The sinless One took on the face of a sinner so that we sinners could take on the face of a saint.

But in practical affairs, particularly in politics, men are needed who combine human experience and interest in human relations with a knowledge of science and technology.

With a clever strategy, each action is self-reinforcing. Each action creates more options that are mutually beneficial. Each victory is not just for today but for tomorrow.

As a teacher, as a propagandist, Mr. Shaw is no good at all, even in his own generation. But as a personality, he is immortal.

You will find that the woman who is really kind to dogs is always one who has failed to inspire sympathy in men.

Innovation is new stuff that is made useful.

To destroy is still the strongest instinct of our nature.

Given how well the cards have been dealt to someone like myself, I think there's an inherent obligation to try to reach out and make a difference.

Could the search for ultimate truth really have revealed so hideous and visceral looking an object?

When words are most empty, tears are most apt.

Anything that is worth doing has been done frequently. Things hitherto undone should be given, I suspect, a wide berth.

I was good at football and cricket at school. My dad said, 'Son, be an architect,' and I came to Melbourne passionate about becoming an architect.

Shared interests are great, but not essential. Shared emotional states are what you're after.

Good sense about trivialities is better than nonsense about things that matter.

Let the conversation flow at its own pace, don't try to rush it or control it. You need to let go and be part of the conversation.

One of the most common mistakes people make in any conversation is to think about what they want to say next instead of actually listening to what the other person is saying.

You are heaven's Halley's comet; we have one shot at seeing you shine.

Only on the assumption of belief in the validity of values is the attempt to espouse value-judgments meaningful. However, to judge the validity of such values is a matter of faith .

On hearing the news [of being awarded a Nobel Prize], a friend who knows me only too well, sent me this laconic message: 'Blood, toil, sweat and tears always were a good mixture'.

Men of genius are not quick judges of character. Deep thinking and high imagining blunt that trivial instinct by which you and I size people up.

Strictly speaking, every citizen above a certain level of income is guilty of some offense.

Either marriage is a destiny, I believe, or there is no sense in it at all, it's a piece of humbug.

I don't believe in providence and fate, as a technologist I am used to reckoning with the formulae of probability.

Have you noticed ... there is never any third act in a nightmare? They bring you to a climax of terror and then leave you there. They are the work of poor dramatists.

Humility is a virtue, and it is a virtue innate in guests.

The difference between an author and a horse is that the horse doesn't understand the horse dealer's language.