Lauren Jay > Lauren Jay's Quotes

“Death is the fairest thing in the world. No one's ever gotten out of it. The earth takes everyone - the kind, the cruel, the sinners. Aside from that, there's no fairness on earth.”
― Svetlana Aleksievich, Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster

“Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull. ”
― George Orwell, 1984

“If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I'm neurotic as hell. I'll be flying back and forth between one mutually exclusive thing and another for the rest of my days.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

“If in doubt, make some tea.”
― Jodi Taylor, Just One Damned Thing After Another

“And everyone must lose his mind, everyone must! The sooner the better! It is essential — I know it.”
― Yevgeny Zamyatin, We

“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality.”
― Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

“Don't do it, Eleanor told the little girl; insist on your cup of stars; once they have trapped you into being like everyone else you will never see your cup of stars again; don't do it; and the little girl glanced at her, and smiled a little subtle, dimpling, wholly comprehending smile, and shook her head stubbornly at the glass. Brave girl, Eleanor thought; wise, brave girl.”
― Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

“I asked him once what he believed to be the basic flaw in the character of Germans, and he replied “obedience.” When I consider the ghastly orders obeyed by underlings of Columbus, or of Aztec priests supervising human sacrifices, or of senile Chinese bureaucrats wishing to silence unarmed, peaceful protesters in Tiananmen Square only three years ago as I write, I have to wonder if obedience isn’t the basic flaw in most of humankind.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Sucker's Portfolio

“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

“Sleep is good, he said, and books are better.”
― George R. R. Martin

“Why am I always looking at life through a window?”
― Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon

“Nothing makes a man so adventurous as an empty pocket.”
― Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame

“I am not questioning your honor, I am denying its existence.”
― George R.R. Martin

“You should never ask anyone for anything. Never- and especially from those who are more powerful than yourself.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“Man serves the interests of no creature except himself.”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

“Name one hero who was happy.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“I don't like people," said Velvet. "... I only like horses.”
― Enid Bagnold, National Velvet

“Second star to the right and straight on 'til morning. ”
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

“All children, except one, grow up.”
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

“Fairies have to be one thing or the other, because being so small they unfortunately have room for one feeling only at a time.”
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

“I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

“The silence depressed me. It wasn't the silence of silence. It was my own silence.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

“The trouble was, I had been inadequate all along, I simply hadn't thought about it.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

“because wherever I sat—on the deck of a ship or at a street café in Paris or Bangkok—I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

“I was supposed to be having the time of my life.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

“Everything people did seemed so silly, because they only died in the end.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

“The more hopeless you were, the further away they hid you.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

“A man is like a novel: until the very last page you don't know how it will end. Otherwise it wouldn't even be worth reading.”
― Yevgeny Zamyatin, We

“You're in a bad way! Apparently, you have developed a soul.”
― Yevgeny Zamyatin, We

“This is what life does for you in the end; it arranges a fight you can't win.”
― Hilary Mantel, The Mirror & the Light