Zoë Heller Quotes

I want to keep my dreams, even bad ones, because without them, I might have nothing all night long.

Never ignore a gut feeling, but never believe that it's enough.

where are the snowdens of yesteryear?

When I grow up I want to be a little boy.

The real work of social innovation is to fix our broken human systems.

Be careful how you interpret the world: It is like that.

Always mind the distance between your dreams and your reality.

Grief is an element. It has its own cycle like the carbon cycle, the nitrogen. It never diminishes not ever. It passes in and out of everything.

Every writer I know has trouble writing.

Funny how you can live a whole life waiting and not know it.

The country was in peril; he was jeopardizing his traditional rights of freedom and independence by daring to exercise them.

[They] agreed that it was neither possible nor necessary to educate people who never questioned anything.

Peace on earth would mean the end of civilization as we know it.

But how can one be warm alone?

He was a self-made man who owed his lack of success to nobody.

You know, that might be the answer - to act boastfully about something we ought to be ashamed of. That's a trick that never seems to fail.

The Texan turned out to be good-natured, generous and likable. In three days no one could stand him.

The logo is an identifier but it's also something that stands-in for who you are.

The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on.

In the long run, failure was the only thing that worked predictably. All else was accidental.

...[A]nything worth dying for ... is certainly worth living for.

Destiny is a good thing to accept when it's going your way. When it isn't, don't call it destiny; call it injustice, treachery, or simple bad luck.

The future is not really the future. It's just a present that looks good.

When you’re living in the moment, you’re living in the moment; whatever that moment is, that’s your reality. Everything else is a myth.

Insanity is contagious.

It seems to me that my lack of faith is not, as I once thought, a triumph of the rational mind, but rather a failure of the imagination - an inability to tolerate mistery.

It is okay for people you love to leave. For them to come and go. She taught it to me over and over.

Design is the best way to get from A to B when you don’t yet know what B is.

They can do anything we can't stop them from doing.

Everyone in my book accuses everyone else of being crazy. Frankly, I think the whole society is nuts - and the question is: What does a sane man do in an insane society?

There was no telling what people might find out once they felt free to ask whatever questions they wanted to.

It is the anonymous "they," the enigmatic "they" who are in charge. Who is "they"? I don't know. Nobody knows. Not even "they" themselves.

He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt.

I’m not running away from my responsibilities. I’m running to them. There’s nothing negative about running away to save my life.

You rest now. Rest for longer than you are used to resting. Make a stillness around you, a field of peace. Your best work, the best time of your life will grow out of this peace.

The night was full of horrors, and he thought he knew how Christ must have felt as he walked through the world, like a psychiatrist through a ward full of nuts.

I'd like to see the government get out of war altogether and leave the whole field to private individuals.

There is no disappointment so numbing...as someone no better than you achieving more.

The question is: what is a sane man to do in an insane society?

You have no respect for excessive authority or obsolete traditions. You're dangerous and depraved, and you ought to be taken outside and shot!

Some people are born mediocre, some people achieve mediocrity, and some people have mediocrity thrust upon them.

I think that maybe in every company today there is always at least one person who is going crazy slowly.

Hungry Joe collected lists of fatal diseases and arranged them in alphabetical order so that he could put his finger without delay on any one he wanted to worry about.

From men motivated by moral certitude, history teaches, no lasting good ever comes.

She was the epitome of stately sorrow each time she smiled.

All through the night, men looked at the sky and were saddened by the stars.

Effective management always means asking the right question.

I think in every country that there is at least one executive who is scared of going crazy.

¨ Oh, I´m not complaining. I know there´s a war on. I know a lot of people are going to have to suffer for us to win it. But why must I be one of them?¨

Most of us are never seen, not clearly, and when we are we likely jump and run.