Erynn Wilson > Erynn's Quotes

“It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.”
― Oscar Wilde

“The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald

“If we maintain the open-mindedness of children, we challenge fixed ideas and established structures, including our own. We listen to people in other denominations and religions. We don't find demons in those with whom we disagree. We don't cozy up to people who mouth our jargon. If we are open, we rarely resort to either-or: either creation or evolution, liberty or law, sacred or secular, Beethoven or Madonna. We focus on both-and, fully aware that God's truth cannot be imprisoned in a small definition. ”
― Brennan Manning

“The novel as a form is usually seen to be moral if its readers consider freedom, individuality, democracy, privacy, social connection, tolerance and hope to be morally good, but it is not considered moral if the highest values of a society are adherence to rules and traditional mores, the maintenance of hierarchical relationships, and absolute ideas of right and wrong. Any society based on the latter will find novels inherently immoral and subversive.”
― Jane Smiley

“Perhaps the greatest danger of our global community is that the person in LA thinks he knows Cambodia because he's seen The Killing Fields on-screen, and the newcomer from Cambodia thinks he knows LA because he's seen City of Angels on video.”
― Pico Iyer

“Every woman is a rebel, and usually in wild revolt against herself.”
― Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
― Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan

“Once you have perceived that life is very cruel, the only response is to live with as much humanity, humour and freedom as you can.”
― Sarah Kane

“How do you eradicate contempt, especially when that contempt is founded on nothing more substantial than differences in table manners, variations in the structure of the eyelid?”
― J. M. Coetzee

“...the boy saw faces disinigrate before his eyes, faces that fell to pieces, then disappeared, leaving a hole.”
― Charles D'Ambrosio, The Dead Fish Museum

“on the phone
Bookseller: Hello Ripping Yarns.
Customer: Do you have any mohair wool?
Bookseller: Sorry, we're not a yarns shop, we're a bookshop.
Customer: You're called Ripping Yarns.
Bookseller: Yes, that's 'yarns' as in stories.
Customer: Well it's a stupid name.
Bookseller: It's a Monty Python reference.
Customer: So you don't sell wool?
Bookseller: No.
Customer: Hmf. Ridiculous.
Bookseller: ...but we do sell dead parrots.
Customer: What?
Bookseller: Parrots. Dead. Extinct. Expired. Would you like one?
Customer: Erm, no.
Bookseller: Ok, well if you change your mind, do call back.”
― Jen Campbell, Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops

“Books do furnish a room.”
― Anthony Powell, Dance to the Music of Time

“He never went out without a book under his arm, and he often came back with two.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“The books we love, they love us back. And just as we mark our places in the pages, those pages leave their marks on us. I can see it in you, sure as I see it in me. You're a daughter of the words. A girl with a story to tell.”
― Jay Kristoff, Nevernight

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“It's a disease. Nobody thinks or feels or cares any more; nobody gets excited or believes in anything except their own comfortable little God damn mediocrity.”
― Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road

“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.”
― Arundhati Roy, The Cost of Living

“If only there could be an invention that bottled up a memory, like scent. And it never faded, and it never got stale. And then, when one wanted it, the bottle could be uncorked, and it would be like living the moment all over again.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”
― Daphne Du Maurier, Rebecca

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

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“When his life was ruined, his family killed, his farm destroyed, Job knelt down on the ground and yelled up to the heavens, "Why god? Why me?" and the thundering voice of God answered, There's just something about you that pisses me off.”
― Stephen King, Storm of the Century

“It's hard not to feel humorless, as a woman and a feminist, to recognize misogyny in so many forms, some great and some small, and know you're not imagining things. It's hard to be told to lighten up because if you lighten up any more, you're going to float the fuck away. The problem is not that one of these things is happening; it's that they are all happening, concurrently and constantly.”
― Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist

“Books are a uniquely portable magic.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“He put the ring away, and Rowan let out his breath, not even realizing he had been holding it.”
― Neal Shusterman, Scythe

“This must be Thursday,' said Arthur to himself, sinking low over his beer. 'I never could get the hang of Thursdays.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“THE MOON BLEW UP WITHOUT WARNING AND FOR NO APPARENT reason.”
― Neal Stephenson, Seveneves

“Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“He experienced the singular pleasure of watching people he loved fall in love with other people he loved.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

“To him the stars seemed like so many musical notes affixed to the sky, just waiting for somebody to unfasten them.”
― Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis