Anna Gorbušinová > Anna's Quotes

“Life did not intend to make us perfect. Whoever is perfect belongs in a museum. ”
― Erich Maria Remarque

“Think of cocaine. In its natural form, as coca leaves, it's appealing, but not to an extent that it usually becomes a problem. But refine it, purify it, and you get a compound that hits your pleasure receptors with an unnatural intensity. That's when it becomes addictive.

Beauty has undergone a similar process, thanks to advertisers. Evolution gave us a circuit that responds to good looks - call it the pleasure receptor for our visual cortex - and in our natural environment, it was useful to have. But take a person with one-in-a-million skin and bone structure, add professional makeup and retouching, and you're no longer looking at beauty in its natural form. You've got pharmaceutical-grade beauty, the cocaine of good looks.

Biologists call this "supernormal stimulus" [...] Our beauty receptors receive more stimulation than they were evolved to handle; we're seeing more beauty in one day than our ancestors did in a lifetime. And the result is that beauty is slowly ruining our lives.

How? The way any drug becomes a problem: by interfering with our relationships with other people. We become dissatisfied with the way ordinary people look because they can't compare to supermodels.”
― Ted Chiang, Stories of Your Life and Others

“Some say they don’t really know what they are looking for in life. This might be because, instead of getting in touch with how they feel, they have led their lives according to other people’s expectations. Live your life not to satisfy others, but to fulfill what your heart desires.”
― Haemin Sunim, The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down: How to be Calm in a Busy World

“The more grateful we feel, the happier we become. This is because gratitude helps us realize we are all connected. Nobody feels like an island when feeling grateful. Gratitude awakens us to the truth of our interdependent nature.”
― Haemin Sunim, The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down: How to be Calm in a Busy World

“It might be possible that the world itself is without meaning.”
― Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

“Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier 'til this terrible disease came. I can't fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that – everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer. I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been. V.”
― Virginia Woolf

“Indeed — why should I not admit it? — in that moment, my heart was breaking.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day

“Because we don't know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, an afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four, five times more, perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps 20. And yet it all seems limitless.”
― Paul Bowles

“I don't want to be mistaken for anyone―so I mustn't mistake myself.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo

“Saying yes to life, even in its strangest and hardest problems.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo

“I am a disciple of the philosopher Dionysus, and I would prefer to be even a satyr than a saint.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo

“What is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying.”
― Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

“I know simply that the sky will last longer than I.”
― Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

“Existence is illusory and it is eternal.”
― Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

“In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion."

[The Minotaur]”
― Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

“Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.”
― Albert Camus

“Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?”
― Albert Camus

“But in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill himself.”
― Albert Camus

“Like calls to like. I'd sense it when the Hummingbird entered the Unsea, but I'd been too afraid to embrace it. This time, I didn't fight. I let go of my fear, my guilt, my shame. There was darkness inside me. He had put it there, and I would no longer deny it. The volcra, the nichevo'ya, they were my monsters, all of them. And he was my monster too.

"My power is yours", I repeated. His arms tightened around me. "And yours is mine," I whispered against his lips.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Siege and Storm

“I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Player Piano

“Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

“A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan

“What is a person, if not the marks they leave behind?”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“Because time is cruel to all, and crueler still to artists. Because visions weakens, and voices wither, and talent fades.... Because happiness is brief, and history is lasting, and in the end... everyone wants to be remembered”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“Stories are a way to preserve one's self. To be remembered. And to forget.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“Don't you remember, she told him then, when you were nothing but shadow and smoke?
Darling, he'd said in his soft, rich way, I was the night itself.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“There is a defiance in being a dreamer”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“Take a drink every time you hear you’re not enough.
Not the right fit.
Not the right look.
Not the right focus.
Not the right drive.
Not the right time.
Not the right job.
Not the right path.
Not the right future.
Not the right present.
Not the right you.
Not you.
(Not me?)
There’s just something missing.
From us.
What could I have done?
Nothing. It’s just…
(Who you are.)
I didn’t think we were serious.
(You’re just too…
…sweet.
…soft.
…sensitive.)
I just don’t see us ending up together.
I met someone.
I’m sorry
It’s not you.
Swallow it down.
We’re not on the same page.
We’re not in the same place.
It’s not you.
We can’t help who we fall in love with.
(And who we don’t.)
You’re such a good friend.
You’re going to make the right girl happy.
You deserve better.
Let’s stay friends.
I don’t want to lose you.
It’s not you.
I’m sorry.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“-Why does a man live?
-In order to think about it...”
― Erich Maria Remarque, Arch of Triumph: A Novel of a Man Without a Country

“Ни один человек не может стать более чужим, чем тот, которого ты в прошлом любил...”
― Erich Maria Remarque, Arch of Triumph: A Novel of a Man Without a Country