Liesel > Liesel's Quotes

“Stay away from the ones you love too much. Those are the ones who will kill you.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“But sometimes, unexpectedly, grief pounded over me in waves that left me gasping; and when the waves washed back, I found myself looking out over a brackish wreck which was illumined in a light so lucid, so heartsick and empty, that I could hardly remember that the world had ever been anything but dead.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“More than anything I was relieved that in my unfamiliar babbling-and-wanting-to-talk state I'd stopped myself from blurting the thing I'd never said, even though it was something we both knew well enough without me saying out loud to him in the street - which was, of course, I love you.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“And as much as I’d like to believe there’s a truth beyond illusion, I’ve come to believe that there’s no truth beyond illusion. Because, between ‘reality’ on the one hand, and the point where the mind strikes reality, there’s a middle zone, a rainbow edge where beauty comes into being, where two very different surfaces mingle and blur to provide what life does not: and this is the space where all art exists, and all magic.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“Love doesn't conquer everything. And whoever thinks it does is a fool.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“Not quite what one expected, but once it happened one realized it couldn't be any other way.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“Forgive me, for all the things I did but mostly for the ones that I did not.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“A great sorrow, and one that I am only beginning to understand: we don’t get to choose our own hearts. We can’t make ourselves want what’s good for us or what’s good for other people. We don’t get to choose the people we are.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“That life - whatever else it is - is short. That fate is cruel but maybe not random. That Nature (meaning Death) always wins but that doesn’t mean we have to bow and grovel to it. That maybe even if we’re not always so glad to be here, it’s our task to immerse ourselves anyway: wade straight through it, right through the cesspool, while keeping eyes and hearts open. And in the midst of our dying, as we rise from the organic and sink back ignominiously into the organic, it is a glory and a privilege to love what Death doesn’t touch.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“Because you were right when you said that people can’t always give us what we want from them; that you can’t ask them to love you the way you want. No one can be blamed for that.”
― Tomasz Jedrowski, Swimming in the Dark

“The odds had been stacked against us from the start: we had no manual, no one to show us the way. Not one example of a happy couple made up of boys. How were we supposed to know what to do? Did we even believe that we deserved to get away with happiness?”
― Tomasz Jedrowski, Swimming in the Dark

“I begin to think that not everyone suffers in the same way; that not everyone, in fact, suffers. Not from the same things, at any rate. And in a way this is what made us possible, you and me.”
― Tomasz Jedrowski, Swimming in the Dark

“I had always liked the act of leaving, the expanse between departure and arrival when you’re seemingly nowhere, defined by another kind of time.”
― Tomasz Jedrowski, Swimming in the Dark

“Sometimes reality comes crashing down on you. Other times reality simply waits, patiently, for you to run out of the energy it takes to deny it.”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

“Just because something isn’t meant to last a lifetime doesn’t mean it wasn’t meant to be.”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, One True Loves

“Everyone has a thousand wishes before a tragedy, but just one afterward.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“Another morning comes. It always does. Time always moves at the same rate, only feelings have different speeds. Every day can mark a whole lifetime or a single heartbeat, depending on who you spend it with. *”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“Being entertained, beguiled, or obsessed by the way someone thinks or communicates is an eternal pleasure.”
― Dolly Alderton, Dear Dolly

“One of the best pieces of advice I have ever been given is that when you're trying to get over someone, you need to focus on the facts of who they are rather than the idea of who they are”
― Dolly Alterton

“But wanting something because it's familiar doesn't necessarily mean it's right for us.”
― Dolly Alterton

“It’s not that I’m unaware of the suffering and the soon-to-be-more suffering in the world, it’s that I know the suffering exists beside wet grass and a bright blue sky recently scrubbed by rain. The beauty and the suffering are equally true.”
― Ann Patchett, Tom Lake

“we remember the people we hurt so much more clearly than the people who hurt us.”
― Ann Patchett, Tom Lake

“There is no explaining this simple truth about life: you will forget much of it. The painful things you were certain you’d never be able to let go? Now you’re not entirely sure when they happened, while the thrilling parts, the heart-stopping joys, splintered and scattered and became something else. Memories are then replaced by different joys and larger sorrows, and unbelievably, those things get knocked aside as well.”
― Ann Patchett, Tom Lake

“Da mio padre avevo imparato, molto tempo dopo avere smesso di seguirlo sui sentieri, che in certe vite esistono montagne a cui non è possibile tornare. Che nelle vite come la mia e la sua non si può tornare alla montagna che sta al centro di tutte le altre, e all'inizio della propria storia. E che non resta che vagare per le otto montagne per chi, come noi, sulla prima e più alta ha perso un amico.”
― Paolo Cognetti, Le otto montagne

“Lang nadat ik was opgehouden mijn vaders paden na te lopen, had ik van hem geleerd dat er in sommige levens bergen bestaan waar je niet naar terug kunt keren. Dat je in levens als het mijne en het zijne niet terug kunt naar de berg die het middelpunt is van alle andere, en het begin van je eigen geschiedenis. En dat mensen zoals wij, die op de eerste en hoogste berg een vriend hebben verloren, niets anders rest dan dwalen over de acht bergen.”
― Paolo Cognetti, Le otto montagne

“As they say: sometimes you have to take a step backwards in order to move forwards. That is, if you have the humility to admit it to yourself.”
― Paolo Cognetti, Le otto montagne

“You find your place in the world much less predictably than you'd imagine.”
― Paolo Cognetti, Le otto montagne

“Most people go through their whole lives, without ever really feeling that close with anyone.”
― Sally Rooney , Normal People

“So many of the bad things that happen in the world come from people pretending to be something they’re not.”
― Paul Murray, The Bee Sting