Tracey > Tracey's Quotes

“The world was ending then, it's ending still, and I'm happy to belong to it again.”
― Jonathan Franzen, How To Be Alone

“I find it a huge strain to be responsible for my tastes and be known and defined by them.”
― Jonathan Franzen, Strong Motion

“Pirates could happen to anyone.”
― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

“We must be born with an intuition of mortality. Before we know the word for it. Before we know that there are words. Out we come, bloodied and squalling, with the knowledge that for all the points of the compass, there's only one direction. And time is its only measure.”
― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

“Do not ask who I am and do not ask me to remain the same. More than one person, doubtless like me, writes in order to have no face.”
― Michel Foucault

“All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
― Samuel Beckett

“The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you.”
― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

“How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that's so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.”
― Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky

“Poetry is an abstraction bloodied.”
― Wallace Stevens

“It ought to make us feel ashamed when we talk like we know what we're talking about when we talk about love.”
― Raymond Carver

“It's possible, in a poem or short story, to write about commonplace things and objects using commonplace but precise language, and to endow those things—a chair, a window curtain, a fork, a stone, a woman's earring—with immense, even startling power.”
― Raymond Carver

“Every great or even every very good writer makes the world over according to his own specifications.”
― Raymond Carver

“I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.”
― Edgar Allan Poe

“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”
― Albert Einstein

“Resist much. Obey little.”
― Walt Whitman

“Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself.”
― Robert Frost

“Do you hate people?

I don't hate them...I just feel better when they're not around.”
― Charles Bukowski, Barfly

“Live to the point of tears.”
― Albert Camus

“Albert Camus wrote that the only serious question is whether to kill yourself or not.
Tom Robbins wrote that the only serious question is whether time has a beginning and an end.
Camus clearly got up on the wrong side of bed, and Robbins must have forgotten to set the alarm.
There is only one serious question. And that is: Who knows how to make love stay?
Answer me that and I will tell you whether or not to kill yourself.”
― Tom Robbins, Still Life With Woodpecker

“The end is in the beginning and yet you go on.”
― Samuel Beckett, Endgame

“Desiderata"
Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly, and listen to others,
even to the dull and ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be
greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career
however humble;
it is a real possession in the
changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you
to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself.
Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit
to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore, be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.
With all its sham,
drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.”
― Max Ehrmann