grace > grace's Quotes

“Are there many little boys who think they are a
Monster? But in my case I am right said Geryon to the
Dog they were sitting on the bluffs The dog regarded him
Joyfully”
― Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red

“If you don't hunt it down and kill it, it will hunt you down and kill you.”
― Flannery O'Connor

“And so I try to be kind to everything I see, and in everything I see, I see him.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

“Caring too much for objects can destroy you. Only—if you care for a thing enough, it takes on a life of its own, doesn’t it? And isn’t the whole point of things—beautiful things—that they connect you to some larger beauty?”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“Because the sunset, like survival, exists only on the verge of its own disappearing. To be gorgeous, you must first be seen, but to be seen allows you to be hunted.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“He is a weapon, a killer. Do not forget it. You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“The thing with the Rolexes is amazing, amazing, Ivan wrote. Light, he said, seemed to sweep, but quantum theory said it ticked. Waves were the combination of sweeping and ticking. Could true sweeping ever happen on this Earth of ours? Maybe one could do sweeping math, og sweeping sex. Sweeping was beautiful, but powerless. Energy came from ticking - the capacity for rapid change. Immortality was sweeping. Lives coming and going, generations, years, minutes, seconds: all are on the fake Rolex.”
― Elif Batuman, The Idiot

“He had looked at Jude, then, and had felt that same sensation he sometimes did when he thought, really thought of Jude and what his life had been: a sadness, he might have called it, but it wasn't a pitying sadness; it was a larger sadness, one that seemed to encompass all the poor striving people, the billions he didn't know, all living their lives, a sadness that mingled with a wonder and awe at how hard humans everywhere tried to live, even when their days were so very difficult, even when their circumstances were so wretched. Life is so sad, he would think in those moments. It's so sad, and yet we all do it.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

“Even girls made of stars are captives, bound at the wrists and traded like property. Even girls made of stars aren't asked, aren't believed, aren't considered worth the effort unless they can offer something in return.
Even girls made of stars buy into those lies sometimes.”
― Ashley Herring Blake, Girl Made of Stars

“A man moves through time. It means nothing except that, like a harpoon, once thrown he will arrive.”
― Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red

“Be strong, saith my heart; I am a soldier;
I have seen worse sights than this.”
― Homer, The Odyssey

“You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

“It’s changed me forever, but changed doesn’t have to mean broken.”
― Ashley Herring Blake, Girl Made of Stars

“I thought once that gods are the opposite of death, but I see now they are more dead than anything, for they are unchanging, and can hold nothing in their hands.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“As a grown woman, I would have said to my father that there are true things in this world observed only by a single set of eyes.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body and Other Parties: Stories

“Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing.”
― sylvia plath

“Great heroes need great sorrows and burdens, or half their greatness goes unnoticed. It is all part of the fairy tale.”
― Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn

“Every weirdo in the world is on my wavelength.”
― Thomas Pynchon

“They were two superior eels
at the bottom of the tank and they recognized each other like italics.”
― Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red

“let me live, love, and say it well in good sentences”
― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

“Your name is a golden bell hung in my heart. I would break my body to pieces to call you once by your name.”
― Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn

“I will not be like a bird bred in a cage, I thought, too dull to fly even when the door stands open.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“It can be really exasperating to look back at your past. What’s the matter with you? I want to ask her, my younger self, shaking her shoulder. If I did that, she would probably cry. Maybe I would cry, too.”
― Elif Batuman, The Idiot

“Words bounce. Words, if you let them, will do what they want to do and what they have to do.”
― Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red

“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.”
― Flannery O'Connor, Flannery O'Connor: Collected Works

“The true secret in being a hero lies in knowing the order of things. The swineherd cannot already be wed to the princess when he embarks on his adventures, nor can the boy knock on the witch's door when she is already away on vacation. The wicked uncle cannot be found out and foiled before he does something wicked. Things must happen when it is time for them to happen. Quests may not simply be abandoned; prophecies may not be left to rot like unpicked fruit; unicorns may go unrescued for a very long time, but not forever. The happy ending cannot come in the middle of the story.”
― Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn

“Whenever you get there, there is no there there.”
― Gertrude Stein

“I never thought to differentiate between you and the person who writes your letters. But I think I see your point. I send you an email: how do you know who wrote it? It could be anyone. There's no way for me to convince you. I say, "It's me!"; you say: "Who's 'me'?"
Wouldn't it be amazing if it turned out that we both had ghostwriters? Just imagine them taking a long walk together, walking and walking, and talking only if something came up...”
― Elif Batuman, The Idiot

“You can look at a picture for a week and never think of it again. You can also look at a picture for a second and think of it all your life.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch