He stood, a point on a sheet of green paper proclaiming himself the center, with no walls, no borders anywhere; the sky no height above him, totally un- enclosed and shouted: Let me out!

-Atwood, Margaret Eleanor
  The Animals in that Country,'Progressive Insanities of a Pioneer'.

Any man may be in good spirits and good temper when he's well dressed. There an't much credit in that. If I was very ragged and very jolly, then I should begin to feel I had gained a point, Mr. Pinch.

-Dickens, CharlesJohn Huffam
^4  Mark Tapley. Martin Chuzzlewit, ch.5.

   Was there ever in anyone's life span a point free in time, devoid of memory, a night when choice was any more than the sum of all the choices gone before?

-Didion,Joan
  Run River, ch.4.

Good old Watson! You are the one fixed point in a changing age.

-Doyle, SirArthur Conan
  His Last Bow, title story.

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is, But neither arrest nor movement.

-Eliot,T(homas) S(tearns)
  Four Quartets,'Burnt Norton', pt.2.

After the kingfisher's wing Has answered light to light, and is silent, the light is still At the still point of the turning world.

-Eliot,T(homas) S(tearns)
  Four Quartets,'Burnt Norton', pt.5.

You've missed the point completely, Julia: There were no tigers. That was the point.

-Eliot,T(homas) S(tearns)
  The Cocktail Party, act1, sc.1, opening lines.

People talk about the conscience, but it seems to me one must just bring it up to a certain point and leave it there.You can let your conscience alone if you're nice to the second housemaid.

-James, Henry
  Nanda Brookenham. The Awkward  Age, bk.6, ch.3.

Dieu est le point tangent de ze¤  ro et de l'infini. God is the tangential point of zero and the infinite.

-Jarry, Alfred
  Gestes et opinions du Docteur Faustroll Pataphysicien, vol.8, pt.41.

Efficiency†is measured at the extremities.You do not find the efficiency of an army at headquarters, nor of a firminhead office.It isattheremotest pointötheprivate soldier or humble legionary on the distant frontier, the girl at the counter or the branch-office junior salesman öthat the really decisive test of an army or a firm is made.It istherethat all theinstructionand knowledge of relevant facts and procedural disciplines bear fruitöor wither on the tree.

-Jay, SirAntony Rupert
  Management and Machiavelli.

Ist es schwer und kann es ein AuÞenseiter begreifen,dass man eine Geschichte von ihrem Anfang in sich erlebt, vom fernen Punkt bis zu der heranfahrenden Lokomotive aus Stahl, Kohl und Dampf, sie aber auchjetzt noch nicht verl a« sst, sondern von ihr gejagt wird und aus eigenem Schwung vor ihr l a« uft, wohin sie nur st o« Þt und wohin man sie lockt. It is so difficult and can an outsider understand that you experience a story within yourself from its beginning, fromthe distant point up to theapproaching locomotive of steel, coal and steam, and you don't abandon it even now, but want to be pursued by it and have time for it, therefore are pursued by it and of your own volition run before it wherever it may thrust and wherever you may lure it.

-Kafka, Franz
Diary entry,  Aug. Collected in Max Brod (ed)  The Diaries of Franz Kafka,1910^1913 (1948).

Every one is more or less mad on one point.

-Kipling, (Joseph) Rudyard
  Plain Tales from the Hills,'On the Strength of a Likeness'.

   I have now reached the point where I can look over the great art of antiquityand its Renaissance.But, for myself, I cannot find anyartistic connection with ourown times. And to want to create something outside of one's own age strikes me as suspect.

-Klee, Paul
^2  The Diaries of Paul Klee1898^1918, entry 294.

Lords and Commons of England, consider what nation it is whereof ye are, and whereof ye are the governors: a nation not slow and dull, but of a quick, ingenious, and piercing spirit, acute to invent, subtle and sinewy to discourse,not beneaththereachofany pointthehighest that human capacity can soar to.

-Milton,John
  Areopagitica: a speech for the liberty of unlicensed printing.

Six percent unemployment only looks good from the vantage point of the other 94 percent.

-Passell, Peter
  In the NewYorkTimes, 31 Mar.

Observation is always selective. It needs a chosen object, a definite task, an interest, a point of view, a problem.

-Popper, Sir Karl Raimund
  Conjectures and Refutations (published1963), ch.1.

   It is impossible to repeat in one period what was done in another.The pointof view isnotthesame, anymorethan are the tools, the ideals, the needs, or the painters' techniques.

-Renoir, Pierre Auguste
From Renoir's notebook, quoted in L Nochlin Impressionism and Post-Impressionism1874^1904 (1966).

But could we not reach the point of highest perfection in a new kind of art, in this art of landscape, and perhaps reach a higher beauty than existed before?

-Runge, Philipp Otto
  Letter, quoted in L Eitner Neoclassicism and Romanticism 1750^1850 (1964).

My uncle was famous for his balanced point of view. At the time of which I am writing (when he was nearly seventy) it had become so balanced, that the act of balancing seemed rather automatic.One had only to offer him an opinion for him to balance it with a counter- opinion of exactly the same weight, as a grocer puts a pound weight against a pound of sugar.

-Spender, Sir Stephen Harold
World withinWorld, p.77.

Science moves, but slowly slowly, creeping on from point to point.

-Tennyson
  Poems,'Locksley Hall', l.134.