Farah > Farah's Quotes

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
― Oscar Wilde

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Thus I die. Thus, thus, thus.
Now I am dead,
Now I am fled,
My soul is in the sky.
Tongue, lose thy light.
Moon take thy flight.
Now die, die, die, die.”
― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“Muhammad has always been standing higher than the Christianity. He does not consider god as a human being and never makes himself equal to God. Muslims worship nothing except God and Muhammad is his Messenger. There is no any mystery and secret in it.”
― Leo Tolstoy

“No book can be appreciated until it has been slept with and dreamed over.”
― Eugene Field

“No matter what he does, every person on earth plays a central role in the history of the world. And normally he doesn't know it.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“I am not interested in money, I just want to be wonderful.”
― Marilyn Monroe

“It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. We all know that our time in this world is limited, and that eventually all of us will end up underneath some sheet, never to wake up. And yet it is always a surprise when it happens to someone we know. It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things.”
― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid

“Reading is one form of escape. Running for your life is another.”
― Lemony Snicket

“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.”
― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid

“When someone is crying, of course, the noble thing to do is to comfort them. But if someone is trying to hide their tears, it may also be noble to pretend you do not notice them.”
― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid

“Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life

“Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant filled with odd little waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don't always like.”
― Lemony Snicket

“Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.”
― Edgar Allan Poe

“You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.”
― Mary Oliver

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”
― Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

“Lonely, ain't it?
Yes, but my lonely is mine. Now your lonely is somebody else's. Made by somebody else and handed to you. Ain't that something? A secondhand lonely.”
― Toni Morrison, Sula

“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

“Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation.”
― Walter Cronkite

“You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace.”
― Frank McCourt, Angela's Ashes

“Fat’ is usually the first insult a girl throws at another girl when she wants to hurt her.

I mean, is ‘fat’ really the worst thing a human being can be? Is ‘fat’ worse than ‘vindictive’, ‘jealous’, ‘shallow’, ‘vain’, ‘boring’ or ‘cruel’? Not to me; but then, you might retort, what do I know about the pressure to be skinny? I’m not in the business of being judged on my looks, what with being a writer and earning my living by using my brain…

I went to the British Book Awards that evening. After the award ceremony I bumped into a woman I hadn’t seen for nearly three years. The first thing she said to me? ‘You’ve lost a lot of weight since the last time I saw you!’

‘Well,’ I said, slightly nonplussed, ‘the last time you saw me I’d just had a baby.’

What I felt like saying was, ‘I’ve produced my third child and my sixth novel since I last saw you. Aren’t either of those things more important, more interesting, than my size?’ But no – my waist looked smaller! Forget the kid and the book: finally, something to celebrate!

I’ve got two daughters who will have to make their way in this skinny-obsessed world, and it worries me, because I don’t want them to be empty-headed, self-obsessed, emaciated clones; I’d rather they were independent, interesting, idealistic, kind, opinionated, original, funny – a thousand things, before ‘thin’. And frankly, I’d rather they didn’t give a gust of stinking chihuahua flatulence whether the woman standing next to them has fleshier knees than they do. Let my girls be Hermiones, rather than Pansy Parkinsons.”
― J.K. Rowling

“Sorrow is better than fear. Fear is a journey, a terrible journey. But, sorrow is at least an arriving. ”
― Alan Paton

“The sun doesn't just hang on one family's tree”
― Anchee Min, Empress Orchid

“Whatever it is you're seeking won't come in the form you're expecting.”
― Haruki Marukami

“The best index to a person's character is how he treats people who can't do him any good, and how he treats people who can't fight back.”
― Abigail Van Buren

“I woke up thinking a very pleasant thought. There is lots left in the world to read.”
― Nicholson Baker, The Anthologist

“people who have no hold over their process of thinking ara likely to be ruined by liberty of thought.”
― Allama Iqbal

“let this be our beautiful departure from stagnation; let our minds come alive; enter another dimension; go beyond the stars eagerly struggling to find that... which our naked eyes did not know existed; rise like a falcon born to soar and not be alone but be present amongst others.”
― Muhammad Iqbal