Rickie Waddel > Rickie's Quotes

“Next morning, we drank endless cups of coffee in the airport restaurant…Suddenly wide-eyed, she stared past me: “Good grief, some of the people they let in here.”
― Michael Wyndham Thomas, The Erkeley Shadows

“Solitude led to retrospective thinking, and if the past is what you are trying to get away from, then constant distractions in the present are needed.”
― R.D. Ronald, The Elephant Tree

“On the end of my bed. He’s short, round and bald, with a tartan loin cloth, and what looks like a spout on the top of his head,’ Bryony said. ‘You flatter me,’ came the snide male voice. ‘But it’s a valve.”
― Sara Pascoe, Being a Witch, and Other Things I Didn't Ask For

“Victor's tortured eyes blazed down at her, and for a moment she was afraid.  Then he leaned down and dissolved into tears in the arms of Celena who was only six.”
― Barbara Sontheimer, Victor's Blessing

“Anything less than true companionship with God leaves us feeling on the fringes, close but not close enough.”
― Ami Loper, Constant Companion: Your Practical Path to Real Interaction with God

“The West's post-Holocaust pledge that genocide would never again be tolerated proved to be hollow, and for all the fine sentiments inspired by the memory of Auschwitz, the problem remains that denouncing evil is a far cry from doing good.”
― Philip Gourevitch, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families

“Do thou restrain the haughty spirit in thy breast, for better far is gentle courtesy.”
― Homer, The First Six Books of Homer's Iliad

“That day I learned something essential: We can only fell sorry for ourselves when our misfortunes are still supportable...once this limit is crossed, the only way to bear the unbearable is to laugh at it.”
― Marjane Satrapi

“Do you love to do – to DO and especially to make? With that, and the freedom to exercise it, life has no terrors.”
― Charlotte Perkins Gilman

“You're the last line of defense. When you're dead, Hitler will march through Leningrad the way he marched through Paris. Do you remember that?'
'That's not fair. The French didn't fight,' Tatiana said, wanting to be anywhere right now but standing in front of men loading artwork from the Hermitage onto armored trucks.
'They didn't fight, Tania, but you will fight. For every street and for every building. And when you lose--'
'The art will be saved.'
'Yes! The art will be saved,' Alexander said emotionally. 'And another artist will paint a glorious picture, immortalizing you, with a club in your raised hand, swinging to hit the German tank as it's about to crush you, all against the backdrop of the statue of Peter the Great atop his bronze horse. And that picture will hang in the Hermitage, and at the start of the next war the curator will once again stand on the street, crying over his vanishing crates.”
― Paulina Simons

“El que se humilla como este niño... ¿Qué es la humildad infantil? No es falta de inteligencia, sino falta de maña, falta de intereses ocultos. Es esa preciosa y efímera etapa antes de haber acumulado suficiente orgullo o actitud como para que nos importe lo que piensan los demás. Es la misma honestidad genuina que hace que un niño de tres años pueda chapotear alegremente en un charco de lluvia, revolcarse en el césped como un cachorrito mientras ríe a carcajadas o decir en voz muy alta que tienes un moco colgando de la nariz, la que se necesita para entrar en el cielo. Es lo opuesto a la ignorancia.”
― Todd Burpo, Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back

“Too pissed off to care, Aurelia interrupted him. "No, I will not wait just one moment!" Piercing him with her best scary stare, she said, "It surprises me that no one has pointed out your glaringly obvious agenda, so let me be the first.”
― Therisa Peimer, Taming Flame

“The early women rise before I do. Their lamps splinter the gloom of the kitchens. They chatter in whispers as they brew tea for the cooks. Windows are open to counter the heat of the ovens. Outside, the sky is as black as my soul.”
― K. Ritz, Sheever's Journal, Diary of a Poison Master

“Like water around rocks, people streamed around them as though this sort of interaction, noisy and involving foreigners, was nothing unusual.”
― Sara Pascoe, Being a Witch, and Other Things I Didn't Ask For

“The first duty of the sovereign [is] that of protecting the society from the violence and invasion of other independent societies, [which] can be performed only by means of a military force”
― Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

“It is useless for me to describe to you how terrible Violet, Klaus, and even Sunny felt in the time that followed. If you have ever lost someone very important to you, then you already know how it feels, and if you haven't, you cannot possibly imagine it.”
― Lemony Snicket, The Bad Beginning

“Dear Mother,
I meant to write you before this and I hope you haven't been worried.... I have met some Beautiful People and...”
― Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

“and she had succeeded, on the second try, in hurling herself out of the world.”
― Jeffrey Eugenides, The Virgin Suicides