Half-instructed confessors have done my soul great harm; for I could not always have such learned ones as I would have desired. They certainly did not wish to deceive me, but the fact was that they knew no better. Of something which was a venial sin, they said it was no sin, and out of a very grave mortal sin they made a venial sin. This has done me such harm, that my speaking here of so great an evil, as a warning to others, will be readily understood.
No poem is worth anything unless it starts from a poetic trance, out of which you can be wakened by interruption as from a dream. In fact, it is the same thing.
Let not the 12 million Negroes be ashamed of the fact that they are the grandchildren of slaves. There is dishonor in being slave-owners.
In high school I was worried about singing in a choir not being a cool thing, like "I want girls to like me so I don't want to do something that's not cool. " But, in fact, if you do something you like to do and you're good at it, you're going to find someone who will like you for that reason.
Why I love chess and tennis - the volleying aspect, and the fact that your competitors' reactions and motivations and bluffs come into the game itself.
I don't know, maybe it's just timely, or maybe it's the fact that I live in a house with four women, but I just find my thoughts kind of skewing that direction at the moment.
We all have a tendency to think that the world must conform to our prejudices. The opposite view involves some effort of thought, and most people would die sooner than think in fact they do so.
I'm not going to impugn anyone's integrity. I'm not going to attack their character. And, in fact, I will happily praise both Donald Trump and Marco Rubio as men who I admire, as people who I'm not going to go personal with them.
The fact that people actually want my autograph is crazy.
There is always a chance to get even and I'm proud of the fact that for all the blows I always got back up again. That's what makes me most content.
My identity might begin with the fact of my race, but it didn't, couldn't end there. At least that's what I would choose to believe.
A property in the 100-year floodplain has a 96 percent chance of being flooded in the next hundred years without global warming. The fact that several years go by without a flood does not change that probability.
STRANGELOVE REPRODUCTION: Having children to make up for the fact that one no longer believes in the future.
We wish to find the truth, no matter where it lies. But to find the truth we need imagination and skepticism both. We will not be afraid to speculate, but we will be careful to distinguish speculation from fact.
Gender has always been considered a fact immutable. But we now know it's actually more fluid, complex, and mysterious. Because of my success, I never have the courage to share my story. Not because I thought what I am is wrong but because of how the world treats those of us who wish to break free.
Things always become obvious after the fact
This civilization is rapidly passing away, however. Let us rejoice or else lament the fact as much as everyone of us likes; but do not let us shut our eyes to it.
Rules such as "Write what you know," and "Show, don't tell," while doubtlessly grounded in good sense, can be ignored with impunity by any novelist nimble enough to get away with it. There is, in fact, only one rule in writing fiction: Whatever works, works.
For every fact there is an infinity of hypotheses.
The summer moon hung full in the sky. For the time being it was the great fact of the world.
