StephB > StephB's Quotes

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.”
― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid

“You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.”
― Madeleine L'Engle

“Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.”
― Stephen King

“Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.”
― Marilyn Monroe

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
― Albert Einstein

“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”
― Neil Gaiman, Coraline

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“Everything you can imagine is real.”
― Pablo Picasso

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”
― Helen Keller

“My poor mother
begged for a sheep
but raised a wolf.”
― Michelle K

“I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“For a Hero cannot triumph all the time. Sometimes he will be defeated, and how he faces that defeat is a test of his character.”
― Cressida Cowell, How to Steal a Dragon's Sword

“She swallowed it down and willed her heart to settle. This was an important moment. For the first time she could introduce herself how she wanted. She got to define her own self. And no one was going to stop her. "Ella," she said quietly, as if saying out loud what had been only in her head for so long would break it further.”
― S.T. Lynn, Cinder Ella

“Starlight, star bright, first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight." She closed her eyes hard enough to see spots. "I wish I could go to the princess' ball. Please, oh please." She repeated it over and over in her head, wishing as hard as she could.”
― S.T. Lynn, Cinder Ella

“(...)my love for you is deeper than anything that happened between us. My love for you is the sun, the sky, and the moon. It's the air I breathe. It lives in everything I do. It's better than good. It's everlasting.”
― Gabby Rivera, Juliet Takes a Breath

“If the first kiss made me hollow this kiss fills me up. I’ve been waiting for this since the day I met her, since I saw her dreams, since her voice began haunting me, since I got to know the person she is, since our minds connected. Everything has come to this.”
― Saruuh Kelsey, The Beast of Callaire

“Nolite te bastardes carborundorum. Don't let the bastards grind you down.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

“Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place, and I don't care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done! Now, if you know what you're worth, then go out and get what you're worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain't you. You're better than that! I'm always gonna love you, no matter what. No matter what happens. You're my son and you're my blood. You're the best thing in my life. But until you start believing in yourself, you ain't gonna have a life.”
― Sylvester Stallone, Rocky Balboa

“Everyone thinks of them in terms of poisoned apples and glass coffins, and forgets that they represent girls who walked into dark forests and remade them into their own reflections.”
― Seanan McGuire, Indexing

“I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost... I am helpless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in the same place.
But, it isn't my fault.
It still takes me a long time to get out.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in. It's a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault. I get out immediately.

walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

I walk down another street.”
― Portia Nelson, There's a Hole in My Sidewalk: The Romance of Self-Discovery

“When I die
Give what’s left of me away
To children
And old men that wait to die.

And if you need to cry,
Cry for your brother
Walking the street beside you
And when you need me,
Put your arms
Around anyone
And give to them
What you need to give to me.

I want to leave you something,
Something better
Than words
Or sounds.

Look for me
In the people I’ve known
Or loved,
And if you cannot give me away,
At least let me live in your eyes
And not on your mind.

You can love me most
By letting
Hands touch hands
By letting
Bodies touch bodies
And by letting go
Of children
That need to be free.

Love doesn’t die,
People do.
So, when all that’s left of me
Is love,
Give me away”
― Merrit Malloy

“i have
so much love
to give,
but no one
ever wants
it.

- a cup overfilled.”
― Amanda Lovelace

“Their love wanted to fix her, and refused to see that she wasn't broken.”
― Seanan McGuire, Every Heart a Doorway

“Because ‘boys will be boys’ is a self-fulfilling prophecy,” said Lundy. “They’re too loud, on the whole, to be easily misplaced or overlooked; when they disappear from the home, parents send search parties to dredge them out of swamps and drag them away from frog ponds. It’s not innate. It’s learned. But it protects them from the doors, keeps them safe at home. Call it irony, if you like, but we spend so much time waiting for our boys to stray that they never have the opportunity. We notice the silence of men. We depend upon the silence of women.”
― Seanan McGuire, Every Heart a Doorway

“That's the nice thing about insanity: evil people kill you, but crazy ones try to make you understand.”
― Seanan McGuire, A Local Habitation

“It gets better. It never gets easy, but it does start to hurt a little less.”
― Seanan McGuire, Every Heart a Doorway

“There are worlds built on rainbows and worlds built on rain. There are worlds of pure mathematics, where every number chimes like crystal as it rolls into reality. There are worlds of light and worlds of darkness, worlds of rhyme and worlds of reason, and worlds where the only thing that matters is the goodness in a hero's heart.”
― Seanan McGuire, Down Among the Sticks and Bones