The sigh of History rises over ruins, not over landscapes, and in the Antilles there are few ruins to sigh over, apart from the ruins of sugar estates and abandoned forts.
A thousand years may scare form a state. An hour may lay it in ruins.
I am a keen medievalist and like going around museums and ruins and finding out about the people and local culture. I'm not one for sitting by a pool or lying on a beach. I also like to sketch while I'm on holiday, if I have time.
The existence of any evil anywhere at any time absolutely ruins a total optimism.
Anyone who cannot come to terms with his life while he is alive needs one hand to ward off a little his despair over his fate... but with his other hand he can note down what he sees among the ruins.
The American press has the blues. Too many authorities have assured it that its days are numbered, too many good newspapers are in ruins.
Success produces confidence; confidence relaxes industry, and negligence ruins the reputation which accuracy had raised.
To sleep around is absolutely wrong for a woman; it's degrading and it completely ruins her personality. Sooner or later it will destroy all that is feminine and beautiful and idealistic in her.
False friendship, like the ivy, decays and ruins the walls it embraces; but true friendship gives new life and animation to the object it supports.
I'm going to college. I don't care if it ruins my career. I'd rather be smart than a movie star.
In 1953, after the armistice ending the Korean War, South Korea lay in ruins. President Eisenhower was eager to put an end to hostilities that had left his predecessor deeply unpopular, and the war ended in an uneasy stalemate.
Love is a springtime plant that perfumes everything with its hope, even the ruins to which it clings.
When the French nation gradually came into existence among the ruins of the Roman civilization in Gaul, a new language was at the same time slowly evolved.
Our works decay and disappear but God gentlest works stay looking down on the ruins we toil to rear.
I try to jog in every city I visit, and I particularly enjoy harbour-front paths that let me ogle big ships, railroad bridges and the ruins of factories and warehouses.
Our earliest evidence of government, in the ruins of Babylon and Egypt, shows nothing but ziggurats and pyramids of wasted taxpayer money, the TARP funds and shovel-ready stimulus programs of their day.
The model of the human habitat dictated by zoning is a formless, soul-less, centerless, demoralizing mess. It bankrupts families and townships. It disables whole classes of decent, normal citizens. It ruins the air we breathe. It corrupts and deadens our spirit.
The reality is I have a closet full of shoes that I don't wear because they are not comfortable, and I am not going to be hobbling between meetings. There's nothing that ruins an entrance like somebody who's uncomfortable in their shoes.
One and all, the orthodox creeds are crumbling into ruins everywhere.
I am deeply saddened for the people of Ferguson who woke up to see parts of their community in ruins. No one should have to live like this; no one deserves this. We must do better, and we will.
Basically, I think of fiction and non-fiction as different ways of engaging with the world. You reach a point where you feel you have said all you possibly can, in reportage or a review essay or a reflection on history, which 'From the Ruins of Empire' was.
What I hated then - and hate now - is the way that people say to girls like me who get pregnant young that it ruins your life. Having a child doesn't ruin your life - having a child is a blessing.
My music is a personal thing, and I feel like if I talk too much about the songs, or if there's too much of my personal life out there, it ruins it.
Artists of all times are like the gamblers of Monte Carlo, and this blind lottery allows some to succeed and ruins others. In my opinion, neither the winners nor the losers are worth worrying about.
There are versions of the pro-gay and anti-gay agenda that assume a simplistic rather than simple understanding of the issue - at least from a biblical perspective. Reject it or embrace it: that's the easy choice that makes for great sound-bites but ruins lives.
Talking about how I might write the next book is like talking about whether or not to have sex. Any dithering ruins it.
I think what ruins relationships and causes most fights is insecurity.
The best thing is to always keep honest people around, because when you have a bunch of yes men around that know that you're making a mistake but let you go on with it, that's when it ruins your mind state as an artist.
