Sofiii > Sofiii's Quotes

“Never touch your idols: the gilding will stick to your fingers."

(Il ne faut pas toucher aux idoles: la dorure en reste aux mains.)”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“Love, she thought, must come suddenly, with great outbursts and lightnings,--a hurricane of the skies, which falls upon life, revolutionises it, roots up the will like a leaf, and sweeps the whole heart into the abyss.”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“The madman is not only a beggar who thinks he is a king, but also a king who thinks he is a king.”
― Jacques Lacan

“Besides, she had just reached the autumnal period of womanhood, in which reflection is combined with tenderness, in which the beginning of maturity colours the face with a more intense flame, when strength of feeling mingles with experience of life, and when, having completely expanded, the entire being overflows with a richness in unison with its beauty. Never had she possessed more sweetness, more leniency. Secure in the thought that she would not err, she abandoned herself to a sentiment which seemed to her justified by her sorrows. And, moreover, it was so innocent and fresh! What an abyss lay between the coarseness of Arnoux and the adoration of Frederick!”
― Gustave Flaubert, Sentimental Education

“As we are taught disease spreads from hand to hand so too does Knowledge and Freedom.”
― Robert Dinsdale, The Toymakers

“Books aren’t eggs, you know. Simply because a book has aged a bit doesn’t mean it’s gone bad.” There was now an edge to Monsieur Perdu’s voice too. “What is wrong with old? Age isn’t a disease. We all grow old, even books. But are you, is anyone, worth less, or less important, because they’ve been around for longer?”
― Nina George, The Little Paris Bookshop

“Blemishes on the beauty of a person one loves are like grace notes adding something to a piece of music.”
― Winston Graham, The Black Moon

“The French have a saying – is it the French? I don’t know, I believe so – there is a saying that you do not put a boiling kettle upon the fire. You put cold water in the kettle and allow it to warm. So with marriage.”
― Winston Graham, The Black Moon

“Then, with a handful of pages left, I started to dread the fact that this world that I loved was coming to an end. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye. I read slowly, just savoring the scenes.”
― Janet Skeslien Charles, The Paris Library

“GRIEF IS A sea made of your own tears. Salty swells cover the dark depths you must swim at your own pace. It takes time to build stamina. Some days, my arms sliced through the water, and I felt things would be okay, the shore wasn’t so far off.”
― Janet Skeslien Charles, The Paris Library

“Your father’s old, he won’t change. And dogs don’t have kittens, so you’re as stubborn as he. The only thing you can change is the way you see him.”
― Janet Skeslien Charles, The Paris Library

“It takes just a few ingredients to make a healthy meal, yet industrial food companies have Americans convinced there’s no time to cook. You eat bland soup from a can, even though leeks browned with butter taste like heaven.”
― Janet Skeslien Charles, The Paris Library

“You made it through a war; I can't even make it through Junior High.”
― Janet Skeslien Charles, The Paris Library

“He's not the hero and he's not the enemy and he's not a god. He's just a boy. And I'm just a girl, a girl who needs to pick up her own pieces and put them back together herself.”
― Amber Smith, The Way I Used to Be

“the hardest question we have to ask ourselves in this life is, "Who am I?" Ideally, we answer it for ourselves, but be warned that others will strive to do it for you- so don't let them.”
― Karma Brown, Recipe for a Perfect Wife

“The sun always returned...as long as you were strong enough to wait for it.”
― Karma Brown, Recipe for a Perfect Wife

“Alice, there are plenty of reasons to marry that have nothing to do with love. And you can be head over heels in love and not get married. But no matter what, you should never marry someone unless you believe you’ll die—one way or another—without that person. They should feel more important to you than oxygen. Otherwise you’ll suffocate, one damn anniversary at a time.”
― Karma Brown, Recipe for a Perfect Wife

“I hunt everywhere for a life worth living and a knowledge worth knowing. Having roots nowhere, I have everywhere to go.”
― Elif Shafak, The Forty Rules of Love

“Painfully delicate and surprisingly strong, silk resembles love. I told Shams how the silkworms destroy the silk they produce as they emerge from their cocoons. This is why the farmers have to make a choice between the silk and the silkworm. More often than not, they kill the silkworm while it is inside the cocoon in order to pull the silk out intact. It takes the lives of hundreds of silkworms to produce one silk scarf. … But eventually, for the silk to survive, the silkworm had to die.”
― Elif Shafak, The Forty Rules of Love

“Believe in your values and your rules, but never lord them over others... Learn the Truth, my friend, but be careful not to make a fetish out of your truths.”
― Elif Shafak, The Forty Rules of Love