K > K's Quotes

“If you haven't said 'I love you' to someone today, do it. You won't always be happy, but you should try to be. Don't be too afraid of germs. Those people have no fun. Remember to look around sometimes. You might see something you haven't seen before or at the very least avoid being hit by a flying object. Speaking of flying objects, don't spend your life looking for extraterrestrial life, unless you work for NASA. Remember that you always have to cooperate with someone. Life is an endless negotiation. Play fair. Stay out of jail. Don't live in the past. Eat breakfast. It really is the most important meal of the day. Try to make new friends, even when you think you're too old to do that. ...And finally, remember this" 'Yes' is always a better work than 'no'. Unless, of course, someone has just asked you to commit a felony.”
― Lisa Lutz

“....You should keep dental floss on you at all times; when your eyesight goes, quit driving; don't keep too many secrets, eventually they'll eat away at you. But the most valuable lesson he taught me was this: Every day we get older, and some of us get wiser, but there's no end to our evolution. We are all a mess of contradictions; some of our traits work for us, some against us. And this is what I figured out on my own: Over the course of a lifetime, people change, but not as much as you'd think. Nobody really grows up.”
― Lisa Lutz

“Closed eyes, heart not beating, but a living love.”
― Avis Corea

“I hope that one day you will have the experience of doing something you do not understand for someone you love.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

“It's the tragedy of loving, you can't love anything more than something you miss.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer

“There are women who make things better... simply by showing up. There are women who make things happen. There are women who make their way. There are women who make a difference. And women who make us smile. There are women of wit and wisdom who- through strength and courage- make it through. There are women who change the world everyday... Women like you.”
― Ashley Rice

“They'd never been lovers, of course, not in the physical sense. But they'd been lovers as most of us manage, loving through expressions and gestures and the palm set softly upon the bruise at the necessary moment. Lovers by inclination rather than by lust. Lovers, that is, by love.”
― Gregory Maguire, Out of Oz

“The music in my heart I bore
Long after it was heard no more.”
― William Wordsworth, Great Narrative Poems of the Romantic Age

“The moon is a loyal companion.
It never leaves. It’s always there, watching, steadfast, knowing us in our light and dark moments, changing forever just as we do. Every day it’s a different version of itself. Sometimes weak and wan, sometimes strong and full of light. The moon understands what it means to be human.
Uncertain. Alone. Cratered by imperfections.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

“I saw thee once - only once - years ago:
I must not say how many - but not many.
It was a July midnight; and from out
A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring,
Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven,
There fell a silvery-silken veil of light,
With quietude, and sultriness, and slumber,
Upon the upturn'd faces of a thousand
Roses that grew in an enchanted garden,
Where no wind dared stir, unless on tiptoe -
Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses
That gave out, in return for the love-light,
Their odorous souls in an ecstatic death -
Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses
That smiled and died in the parterre, enchanted
By thee, and by the poetry of thy presence.

Clad all in white, upon a violet bank
I saw thee half reclining; while the moon
Fell upon the upturn'd faces of the roses,
And on thine own, upturn'd - alas, in sorrow!

Was it not Fate, that, on this July midnight -
Was it not Fate, (whose name is also Sorrow,)
That bade me pause before that garden-gate,
To breathe the incense of those slumbering roses?
No footsteps stirred: the hated world all slept,
Save only thee and me. (Oh, Heaven! - oh, G**!
How my heart beats in coupling those two words!)
Save only thee and me. I paused - I looked -
And in an instant all things disappeared.
(Ah, bear in mind the garden was enchanted!)
The pearly lustre of the moon went out:
The mossy banks and the meandering paths,
The happy flowers and the repining trees,
Were seen no more: the very roses' odors
Died in the arms of the adoring airs.
All - all expired save thee - save less than thou:
Save only divine light in thine eyes -
Save but the soul in thine uplifted eyes.
I saw but them - they were the world to me.
I saw but them - saw only them for hours -
Saw only them until the moon went down.
What wild heart-histories seemed to lie enwritten
Upon those crystalline, celestial spheres!
How dark a wo! yet how sublime a hope!
How silently serene a sea of pride!
How daring an ambition! yet how deep -
How fathomless a capacity for love!
But now, at length, dear Dian sank from sight,
Into a western couch of thunder-cloud;
And thou, a ghost, amid the entombing trees
Didst glide away. Only thine eyes remained.
They would not go - they never yet have gone.
Lighting my lonely pathway home that night,
They have not left me (as my hopes have) since.
They follow me - they lead me through the years.
They are my ministers - yet I their slave.
Their office is to illumine and enkindle -
My duty, to be saved by their bright fire,
And purified in their electric fire,
And sanctified in their elysian fire.
They fill my soul with Beauty (which is Hope,)
And are far up in Heaven - the stars I kneel to
In the sad, silent watches of my night;
While even in the meridian glare of day
I see them still - two sweetly scintillant
Venuses, unextinguished by the sun!”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven and Other Poems

“A good leg will fall, a straight back will stoop, a black beard will turn white, a curled pate will grow bald, a fair face will wither, a full eye will wax hollow. But a good heart...is the sun and moon...for it shines bright and never changes, but keeps its course truly.”
― William Shakespeare

“The only truth is music.”
― Jack Kerouac

“Everyone forgets Icarus also flew.”
― Jack Gilbert, Refusing Heaven: Poems

“Men and women, they were beautiful and wild, all a little violent under their pleasant ways and only a little tamed.”
― Margaret Mitchell, Przeminęło z wiatrem

“Everybody's damaged by something.”
― Emma Donoghue, Room

“You do not write your life with words...You write it with actions. What you think is not important. It is only important what you do.”
― Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls

“I dont hate it he thought, panting in the cold air, the iron New England dark; I dont. I dont! I dont hate it! I dont hate it!”
― William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom!

“It’s cruelty that gets to me. Still, it’s important to read about cruelty.

“Why is it important?”

Because when you read about it, it’s easier to recognize. That was always the hardest thing in the refugee camps—to hear the stories of the people who had been raped or mutilated or forced to watch a parent or a sister or a child be raped or killed. It’s very hard to come face-to-face with such cruelty. But people can be cruel in lots of ways, some very subtle. I think that’s why we all need to read about it. I think that’s one of the amazing things about Tennessee Williams’s plays. He was so attuned to cruelty—the way Stanley treats Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire. It starts with asides and looks and put-downs. There are so many great examples from Shakespeare—when Goneril torments King Lear or the way Iago speaks to Othello. And what I love about Dickens is the way he presents all types of cruelty. You need to learn to recognize these things right from the start. Evil almost always starts with small cruelties.”
― Will Schwalbe, The End of Your Life Book Club

“Try to let what is unfair teach you…what is unfair can be a stern but invaluable teacher…you can be shaped, or you can be broken. There is not much in between. Try to learn. Be coachable. Try to learn from everybody, especially those who fail. This is hard.”
― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

“We awaken by asking the right questions. We awaken when we see knowledge being spread that goes against our own personal experiences. We awaken when we see popular opinion being wrong but accepted as being right, and what is right being pushed as being wrong. We awaken by seeking answers in corners that are not popular. And we awaken by turning on the light inside when everything outside feels dark.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“Dance less in motion and more in spirit; awaken the dreamer within.”
― Shah Asad Rizvi

“..And remember to ask questions, and notice everything, the orchids and the fruit flies, the children rummaging for food in piles of shit, and the ibis that flies across the moon at dusk. Let us go at least as far as the falls.”
― Andrew Holleran, Dancer from the Dance

“It's funny about love', Sophia said. 'The more you love someone, the less he likes you back.'
'That's very true,' Grandmother observed. 'And so what do you do?'
'You go on loving,' said Sophia threateningly. 'You love harder and harder.”
― Tove Jansson, The Summer Book