Grace > Grace's Quotes

“He hoped wherever he was going that there'd still be the sun and the moon and the stars. He'd spent a majority of his life with his head turned down. It seemed only fair that eternity would allow him to raise his face toward the sky.”
― T.J. Klune, Under the Whispering Door

“You’re an animal, Sibling Dex. You are not separate or other. You’re an animal. And animals have no purpose. Nothing has a purpose. The world simply is. If you want to do things that are meaningful to others, fine! Good! So do I! But if I wanted to crawl into a cave and watch stalagmites with Frostfrog for the remainder of my days, that would also be both fine and good. You keep asking why your work is not enough, and I don’t know how to answer that, because it is enough to exist in the world and marvel at it. You don’t need to justify that, or earn it. You are allowed to just live. That is all most animals do.”
― Becky Chambers, A Psalm for the Wild-Built

“Any love that is love is right.”
― Francesca Lia Block, Dangerous Angels

“I want to be untouchable and beautiful and completely dead inside.”
― Francesca Lia Block, Baby Be-Bop

“It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

“I am not good at noticing when I'm happy, except in retrospect.”
― Tana French, In the Woods

“Anyway, the reason I hate communion isn't the meat-eating component. I get hungry enough, I'll eat anything. The reason I hate it is because everybody in the church except me, Jason Bock, stands up and gets in line for their little snack. I sit there alone in the pew while everybody stares at me as they file past. I sit there and burn under hellfire and damnation stare my father gives me. And I feel awful. But what choice do I have? According to Father Haynes, if a nonbeliever takes Holy Communion, he'll be damned for all eternity. Of course, being a nonbeliever damns me anyway, so I suppose it doesn't really matter, but I figure it's safer not to partake. Just in case I'm wrong about the whole God thing.
So I sit and endure the stares and the pangs and twinges of Catholic guilt, knowing that I am doing the right thing if I'm right, and the right thing even if I'm wrong.

Being Catholic is hard. Being ex-Catholic is even harder.”
― Pete Hautman, Godless

“The absence of violence is not love.”
― A.S. King, Still Life with Tornado

“Don't be afraid of death; be afraid of an unlived life. You don't have to live forever, you just have to live.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“With me, the present is forever and forever is always shifting, flowing, melting. This second is life. And when it is gone it is dead. But you can’t start over with each new second. You have to judge by what is dead. It’s like quicksand…hopeless from the start. A story, a picture, can renew sensation a little, but not enough, not enough. Nothing is real except the present, and already, I feel the weight of centuries smothering me. Some girl a hundred years ago lived as I do. And she is dead. I am the present, but I know I, too, will pass. The high moment, the burning flash, come and are gone, continuous quicksand. And I don’t want to die.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

“You may not be able to judge a book by its cover, but you can certainly judge a person by their books.”
― C.J. Tudor, The Burning Girls

“Belief should be a conscious choice, not something you’re brainwashed into when you’re too young to understand or question it. Faith isn’t something you pass down like an heirloom. It’s not tangible or absolute. Not even for a priest. It’s something you have to keep working at, like marriage or children.”
― C.J. Tudor, The Burning Girls

“The Old Testament is crap. It’s full of misogyny, torture and inconsistencies. Jesus preached about love. All love.”
― C.J. Tudor, The Burning Girls

“If you think you're free, there's no escape possible.”
― Ram Dass, Be Here Now

“She liked Harry Styles a few years ago, and now she likes that white-bread, absolute fucking baguette of a lad from Call Me by Your Name.”
― Eliza Clark, Boy Parts

“Is this thing safe?"
"Safe as life," Gansey replied.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven Boys

“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate...Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Why?” she asked as she trembled. “Why do you care so much?” “Because I don’t know how else to be.”
― T.J. Klune, Under the Whispering Door

“I can't wait to see him again, to hold my son's face in my hands and tell him how proud I am of him. We think we have time for such things, but there's never enough for all we should have said.”
― T.J. Klune, Under the Whispering Door

“It was a relief, really. This old body had worn down, and try as I might, I couldn't make it work like I wanted it to anymore. Sometimes, death is a blessing, even if we don't realize it right away.”
― T.J. Klune, Under the Whispering Door

“Common sense is no match for the voice of God.”
― Jon Krakauer, Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith

“But some things are more important than being happy. Like being free to think for yourself.”
― Jon Krakauer, Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith

“As a means of motivating people to be cruel or inhumane-as a means of inciting evil, to borrow the vocabulary of the devout-there may be no more potent force than religion.”
― Jon Krakauer, Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith

“I coveted you. I had no right to want you--but I reached out and took you anyway. And now look what's become of you! Trying to seduce a vampire.”
― Stephenie Meyer, Eclipse

“You know I love you right?”

“I know,” he breathed, his arm tightening automatically around my waist. “You know how much I wish it was enough.”
― Stephenie Meyer, Eclipse

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.”
― Anais Nin

“Name one hero who was happy."
I considered. Heracles went mad and killed his family; Theseus lost his bride and father; Jason's children and new wife were murdered by his old; Bellerophon killed the Chimera but was crippled by the fall from Pegasus' back.
"You can't." He was sitting up now, leaning forward.
"I can't."
"I know. They never let you be famous AND happy." He lifted an eyebrow. "I'll tell you a secret."
"Tell me." I loved it when he was like this.
"I'm going to be the first." He took my palm and held it to his. "Swear it."
"Why me?"
"Because you're the reason. Swear it."
"I swear it," I said, lost in the high color of his cheeks, the flame in his eyes.
"I swear it," he echoed.
We sat like that a moment, hands touching. He grinned.
"I feel like I could eat the world raw.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“In the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out of the sun.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”
― Annie Dillard, The Writing Life