Claire > Claire's Quotes

“To live every day as if it had been stolen from death, that is how I would like to live. To feel the joy of life, as Eve felt the joy of life. To separate oneself from the burden, the angst, the anguish that we all encounter every day. To say that I am alive, I am wonderful, I am. I am. That is something to aspire to. When I am a person, that is how I will live my life.”
― Garth Stein, The Art of Racing in the Rain

“She did not believe that the world was a vale of tears but rather a joke that God had played and that it was idiotic to take it seriously.”
― Isabel Allende, The House of the Spirits

“You forget the life you had before, after awhile. Things you cherish and hold dear are like pearls on a string. Cut the knot and they scatter across the floor, rolling into dark corners never to be found again. So you move on, and eventually you forget what the pearls even looked like. At least, you try.”
― Diana Gabaldon, Outlander

“Love is poison. A sweet poison, yes, but it will kill you all the same.”
― George R.R. Martin

“Sometimes, you have to step outside of the person you've been and remember the person you were meant to be. The person you want to be. The person you are.”
― H.G. Wells

“If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn't matter a damn how you write.”
― W. Somerset Maugham

“Don't write so that you can be understood, write so that you can't be misunderstood.”
― William Howard Taft

“A writer must be fearless. A writer has to be like a clawed animal."
-The Carrie Diaries pg. 337”
― Candace Bushnell

“A book is kind of like a good Horcrux, if we can imagine that -- a piece of the writer's soul, preserved in a physical object for all time, and changing the lives of all those who come in contact with it.”
― Cheryl B. Klein, Second Sight: An Editor's Talks on Writing, Revising, and Publishing Books for Children and Young Adults

“Perhaps watching someone you love suffer can teach you even more than suffering yourself can.”
― Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle

“What we remember from childhood we remember forever - permanent ghosts, stamped, inked, imprinted, eternally seen.”
― Cynthia Ozick

“The purpose of a good education is to show you that there are three sides to a two-sided story.”
― Stanley Fish

“′Classic′ - a book which people praise and don't read.”
― Mark Twain

“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 the questions we can't answer that teach us the most. They teach us how to think. If you give a man an answer, all he gains is a little fact. But give him a question and he'll look for his own answers.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear

“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

“Shall I add a man to my collection?”
― Patricia A. McKillip, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld

“You can weave your life so long -- only so long, and then a thing in the world out of your control will tug at one vital thread and leave you patternless and subdued.”
― Patricia A. McKillip, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld

“What do you think love is- a thing to startle from the heart like a bird at every shout or blow? You can fly from me, high as you choose into your darkness, but you will see me always beneath you, no matter how far away, with my face turned to you. My heart is in your heart. I gave it to you with my name that night and you are its guardian, to treasure it, or let it whither and die. I do not understand you. I am angry with you. I am hurt and helpless, but nothing will fill the ache of the hollowness in me where your name would echo if I lost you.”
― Patricia A. McKillip, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld

“The best lies about me are the ones I told.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

“I also felt guilty about the three pens I'd stolen, but only for a second. And since there was no convenient way to give them back, I stole a bottle of ink before I left.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

“Show me a hero, and I'll write you a tragedy.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Even a broken heart doesn't warrant a waste of good paper.”
― Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle

“They joined hands.
So the world ended.
And the next one began.”
― Sarah J. Maas, Queen of Shadows

“There is in writing the constant joy of sudden discovery, of happy accident.”
― H.L. Mencken

“Some people ask: “Why the word feminist? Why not just say you are a believer in human rights, or something like that?” Because that would be dishonest. Feminism is, of course, part of human rights in general—but to choose to use the vague expression human rights is to deny the specific and particular problem of gender. It would be a way of pretending that it was not women who have, for centuries, been excluded. It would be a way of denying that the problem of gender targets women.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, We Should All Be Feminists

“What struck me—with her and with many other female American friends I have—is how invested they are in being “liked.” How they have been raised to believe that their being likable is very important and that this “likable” trait is a specific thing. And that specific thing does not include showing anger or being aggressive or disagreeing too loudly. We spend too much time teaching girls to worry about what boys think of them. But the reverse is not the case. We don’t teach boys to care about being likable. We spend too much time telling girls that they cannot be angry or aggressive or tough, which is bad enough, but then we turn around and either praise or excuse men for the same reasons. All over the world, there are so many magazine articles and books telling women what to do, how to be and not to be, in order to attract or please men. There are far fewer guides for men about pleasing women.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, We Should All Be Feminists

“My mate. Death incarnate. Night triumphant.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Mist and Fury

“I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

“You think the dead we loved ever truly leave us? You think that we don't recall them more clearly in times of great trouble?”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban