Oddly > Oddly's Quotes

“Sometimes,
all you can do
is lie in bed,
and hope
to fall asleep
before
you fall apart.”
― William C. Hannan

“I feel a thousand capacities spring up in me. I am arch, gay, languid, melancholy by turns. I am rooted, but I flow.”
― Virginia Woolf, The Waves

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms...”
― Henry David Thoreau

“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

“My parents danced together, her head on his chest. Both had their eyes closed. They seemed so perfectly content. If you can find someone like that, someone who you can hold and close your eyes to the world with, then you're lucky. Even if it only lasts for a minute or a day. The image of them gently swaying to the music is how I picture love in my mind even after all these years.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

“It's like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

“I am on the highest branch.
We are written in paint.
I believe in signs.
The glow of Ultraviolet.
A lake. A prayer. It's so lovely to be lovely in Private.”
― Jennifer Niven, All the Bright Places

“We learn from history that we do not learn from history.”
― Georg Hegel

“The amazing thing is that every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust. You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements - the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution - weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way they could get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode. So, forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today.”
― Lawrence M. Krauss, A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing

“The squirrel has not yet found the acorn that will grow into the oak that will be cut to form the cradle of the babe that will grow to slay me.”
― Neil Gaiman, Stardust

“When Great Trees Fall

When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.

When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.

When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.

Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance,
fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance
of dark, cold
caves.

And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.”
― Maya Angelou

“I'm not really sure which parts of myself are real and which parts are things I've gotten from books.”
― Beatrice Sparks, Go Ask Alice

“We do not remember days, we remember moments. The richness of life lies in memories we have forgotten.”
― Cesare Pavese

“I have lived a thousand lives and I’ve loved a thousand loves. I’ve walked on distant worlds and seen the end of time. Because I read.”
― George R.R. Martin

“Not that I want to be a god or a hero. Just to change into a tree, grow for ages, not hurt anyone.”
― Czeslaw Milosz

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“Perhaps the greatest faculty our minds possess is the ability to cope with pain. Classic thinking teaches us of the four doors of the mind, which everyone moves through according to their need.

First is the door of sleep. Sleep offers us a retreat from the world and all its pain. Sleep marks passing time, giving us distance from the things that have hurt us. When a person is wounded they will often fall unconscious. Similarly, someone who hears traumatic news will often swoon or faint. This is the mind's way of protecting itself from pain by stepping through the first door.

Second is the door of forgetting. Some wounds are too deep to heal, or too deep to heal quickly. In addition, many memories are simply painful, and there is no healing to be done. The saying 'time heals all wounds' is false. Time heals most wounds. The rest are hidden behind this door.

Third is the door of madness. There are times when the mind is dealt such a blow it hides itself in insanity. While this may not seem beneficial, it is. There are times when reality is nothing but pain, and to escape that pain the mind must leave reality behind.

Last is the door of death. The final resort. Nothing can hurt us after we are dead, or so we have been told.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

“So often, a visit to a bookshop has cheered me, and reminded me that there are good things in the world.”
― Vincent van Gogh

“Courage, dear heart.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

“We accept the love we think we deserve.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“Do not accept an evil you can change.”
― E. Lockhart, We Were Liars

“The universe is seeming really huge right now. I need something to hold on to.”
― E. Lockhart, We Were Liars

“Silence is a protective coating over pain.”
― E. Lockhart, We Were Liars

“Be a little kinder than you have to.
Never eat anything bigger than your ass
Do not accept an evil you can change
Always do what your afraid to do”
― E. Lockhart, We Were Liars

“It is good to be loved, even though it will not last.”
― E. Lockhart, We Were Liars

“What we’ll always have is something we lost”
― Ocean Vuong, Time Is a Mother

“I promise you, I was here. I felt things that made death so large it was indistinguishable from air—and I went on destroying inside it like wind in a storm.”
― Ocean Vuong, Time Is a Mother

“Oh no. The sadness is intensifying. How rude.”
― Ocean Vuong, Time Is a Mother

“nobody's free without breaking open”
― Ocean Vuong, Time Is a Mother

“You can walk away. You can be nothing & still breathing. Believe me.”
― Ocean Vuong, Time is a Mother