Jes > Jes's Quotes

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“To die, - To sleep, - To sleep!
Perchance to dream: - ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“When the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies.”
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

“You - you alone will have the stars as no one else has them...In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night...You - only you - will have stars that can laugh.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, El Principito

“All grown-ups were once children... but only few of them remember it.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

“And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows) you will be content that you have known me. You will always be my friend. You will want to laugh with me. And you will sometimes open your window, so, for that pleasure . . . And your friends will be properly astonished to see you laughing as you look up at the sky! Then you will say to them, 'Yes, the stars always make me laugh!' And they will think you are crazy. It will be a very shabby trick that I shall have played on you...”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

“It is better to be looked over than overlooked.”
― Mae West

“Many people die with their music still in them. Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live. Before they know it time runs out.”
― Oliver Wendall Holmes

“Splendid to arrive alone in a foreign country and feel the assault of difference. Here they are all along, busy with living; they don't talk or look like me. The rhythm of their day is entirely different; I am foreign. ”
― Frances Mayes, Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy

“Although he's slight, he has that wiry strength that seems to come more from will than muscle.”
― Frances Mayes, Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy

“Like fanning through a deck of cards, my mind flashes on the thousand chances, trivial to profound, that converged to re-create this place. Any arbitrary turning along the way and I would be elsewhere; I would be different. Where did the expression "a place in the sun" first come from? My rational thought process cling always to the idea of free will, random event; my blood, however, streams easily along a current of fate. ”
― Frances Mayes, Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy

“Caretake this moment. Immerse yourself in its particulars. Respond to this person, this challenge, this deed. Quit evasions. Stop giving yourself needless trouble. It is time to really live; to fully inhabit the situation you happen to be in now.”
― Epictetus

“I don't know anything with certainty, but seeing the stars makes me dream.”
― Vincent Van Gogh

“There are no ambitions noble enough to justify breaking someone's heart. ”
― Colleen McCullough, The Thorn Birds

“Human minds are more full of mysteries than any written book and more changeable than the cloud shapes in the air.”
― Louisa May Alcott, The Abbot's Ghost: A Christmas Story

“I've neither beauty, money, nor rank, yet every foolish boy mistakes my frank interest for something warmer, and makes me miserable. It is my misfortune. Think of me what you will, but beware of me in time, for against my will I may do you harm.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Behind a Mask: The Unknown Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott

“To love someone is to catch your breath whenever he walks in the room.”
― Margaret George, Mary Queen of Scotland and The Isles

“I had forgotten what it was like, to be drawn to a person...I'd forgotten how your blood flows toward a person when they move, so that all at once you know what the pull of gravity feels like. and you know that this is something strong and important, something that you need for life, this woman moving through the room. ”
― Jane Hamilton, A Map of the World

“I have since wondered if a person can know how deep a thing goes without getting outside of it, without taking it apart, without, in fact, ruining it.”
― Jane Hamilton, A Map of the World

“I should be at peace. I have understood. Don't some say that peace comes when you understand? I have understood. I should be at peace. Who said that peace derives from the contemplation of order, order understood, enjoyed, realized without residuum, in joy and truimph, the end of effort? All is clear, limpid; the eye rests on the whole and on the parts and sees how the parts have conspired to make the whole; it perceives the center where the lymph flows, the breath, the root of the whys...”
― Umberto Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum

“Genuinely social people never ceased to amaze him. Their brains seemed to generate an inexhaustible fund of things to say, naturally, with no effort, out of nothing at all.”
― Lev Grossman, The Magician King

“And now that Wells had heard him laugh, he wondered whether the so-called Elephant Man had not in fact been smiling at him from the moment he stepped into the room, a warm, friendly smile intended to sooth the discomfort his appearance produced in his guests, a smile no one would ever see.
As he left the room, he felt a tear roll down his cheek.”
― Felix J. Palma, The Map of Time

“He was back at the point of departure, at the place that filled writers with dread and excitement, for this was where they must decide which new story to tackle of the many floating in the air, which plot to bind themselves to for a lengthy period; and they had to choose carefully, study each option calmly...because there were dangerous stories, stories that resisted being inhabited, and stories that pulled you apart while you were writing them...At that moment, before reverently committing the first word to paper, he could write anything he wanted, and this fired his blood with a powerful sense of freedom, as wonderful as it was fleeting, for he knew it would vanish the moment he chose one story and sacrificed all the others.”
― Felix J. Palma

“He had learned from experience that what he succeeded in putting down on paper was only ever a pale reflection of what he had imagined, and so he had come to accept that this would only be half as good as the original, half as acceptable as the flawless, unachievable novel that had acted as a guide, and which he imagined pulsating mockingly behind each book like some ghostly presence.”
― Felix J. Palma, The Map of Time - Street Smart

“The finest of pleasures are always the unexpected ones.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“Someone needs to tell those tales. When the battles are fought and won and lost, when the pirates find their treasures and the dragons eat their foes for breakfast with a nice cup of Lapsang souchong, someone needs to tell their bits of overlapping narrative. There's magic in that. It's in the listener, and for each and every ear it will be different, and it will affect them in ways they can never predict. From the mundane to the profound. You may tell a tale that takes up residence in someone's soul, becomes their blood and self and purpose. That tale will move them and drive them and who knows what they might do because of it, because of your words. That is your role, your gift. Your sister may be able to see the future, but you yourself can shape it, boy. Do not forget that... there are many kinds of magic, after all.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“We lead strange lives, chasing our dreams around from place to place.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“Is magic not enough to live for?" Widget asks.
"Magic," the man in the grey suit repeats, turning the word into a laugh. "This is not magic. This is the way the world is, only very few people take the time to stop and note it. Look around you," he says, waving a hand at the surrounding tables. "Not a one of them even has an inkling of the things that are possible in this world, and what's worse is that none of them would listen if you attempted to enlighten them. They want to believe that magic is nothing but clever deception, because to think it real would keep them up at night, afraid of their own existence."
"But some people can be enlightened," Widget says.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus