Quotes About Relevance

The things that soonest appear out of date are those that at first strike us as most modern.

There can only be systems that are more appropriate in a particular set of circumstances.

Make what you're saying relevant in time, as well as in content. Sometimes all it takes is the simple question Is this a good time to talk about...?

It is always easier to be engaged with the Christianity of the past or the future than to be faithful in the Christianity of today.

an author too old to be fresh and too young to be rediscovered

The full story is what you get told only if and when your work, and with it your existence, are no longer required.

News you can't read calmly, don't read at all!

Just because people throw it out and don't have any use for it, doesn't mean it's garbage.

Are pants really that important?" Laura said. She said it sarcastically because she was afraid of her tears.

Italo Calvino quote, 'A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.' For I have read The Great Gatsby numerous times, and always discover new things in each reading.

I invite you to try to think of a source of value that has absolutely nothing to do with the (actual or potential) experience of conscious beings. Take a moment to think about what this would entail: whatever this alternative is, it cannot affect the experience of any creature (in this life or in any other). Put this thing in a box, and what you have in that box is—it would seem, by definition—the least interesting thing in the universe.

Nothing in life is as important as you think it is when you are thinking about

Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which cannot apply will make no man wise.

Ce qui est utile à la littérature l'est souvent peu à la vie.

Supongo que nuestra memoria es como una película de asesinos en serie. Cada giro de la historia cambia el sentido total. Miras atrás y los detalles antes relevantes ya no son los que creías.

My platitudes don't hold their interest and I can hardly blame them for that. My real stories are all out of date. So what if I can speak firsthand about the Spanish flu, the advent of the automobile, world wars, cold wars, guerrilla wars, and Sputnik — that's all ancient history now. But what else do I have to offer? Nothing happens to me anymore. That's the reality of getting old, and I guess that's really the crux of the matter. I'm not ready to be old yet.

But if something was really important, fate made sure it somehow came back to you and gave you another chance.

He was the closest thing I'd ever had to something, or someone, that mattered. But in the end, close didn't count. You were either in, or you weren't.

None of it meant anything, and all of it was important.

That was nothing to get excited about, as it was one of the commoner human experiences—neither to give a damn nor be given a damn about.

His early book, not much noticed when it was published, was now on many reading lists, and the younger generation of historians accepted it as a model of the new sort of history, "history that interests us"—personal, engagée—and looks at the past with an intense need for contemporary relevance.

Your best work involves timing. If someone wrote the best hip hop song of all time in the Middle Ages, he had bad timing.

An intentional "error" in the details of your message will attract criticism. The attention will make your message rise in importance—at least in people's minds—simply because everyone is talking about it.

But if your story is about the inner workings of competitive quilting, you'd better make it short and extra witty. People drift off when you stop talking about stuff that isn't, well, them. The