Jo > Jo's Quotes

“What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”
― Stephen King

“Books are the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries, hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent. What I wonder is why everybody doesn't carry a book around for those inevitable dead spots in life.”
― Stephen King

“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

“Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.”
― Stephen King

“I think that writers are made, not born or created out of dreams of childhood trauma—that becoming a writer (or a painter, actor, director, dancer, and so on) is a direct result of conscious will. Of course there has to be some talent involved, but talent is a dreadfully cheap commodity, cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work and study; a constant process of honing. Talent is a dull knife that will cut nothing unless it is wielded with great force—a force so great the knife is not really cutting at all but bludgeoning and breaking (and after two or three of these gargantuan swipes it may succeed in breaking itself…which may be what happened to such disparate writers as Ross Lockridge and Robert E. Howard). Discipline and constant work are the whetstones upon which the dull knife of talent is honed until it becomes sharp enough, hopefully, to cut through even the toughest meat and gristle. No writer, painter, or actor—no artist—is ever handed a sharp knife (although a few are handed almighty big ones; the name we give to the artist with the big knife is “genius”), and we hone with varying degrees of zeal and aptitude.”
― Stephen King, Danse Macabre

“And of course these days I feel like there is a nation of us - displaced southerners and children of the working class. We listen to Steve Earle, Mary J. Blige, and k.d. lang. We devour paperback novels and tell evil mean stories, value stubbornness above patience and a sense of humor more than a college education. We claim our heritage with a full appreciation of how often it has been disdained.
And let me promise you, you do not want to make us angry.”
― Dorothy Allison, Trash

“There seemed to be something tragic in a friendship so coloured by romance.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Hearts can break. Yes, hearts can break. Sometimes I think it would be better if we died when they did, but we don't.”
― Stephen King, Hearts in Atlantis

“I believe much trouble and blood would be saved if we opened our hearts more.”
― Chief Joseph

“The world is too fucking big. Sometimes, I can't even carry myself through all the love and fear.”
― Sherman Alexie, You Don't Have to Say You Love Me

“Listen. I don't know how or when

My grieving will end, but I'm always
Relearning how to be human again.”
― Sherman Alexie, You Don't Have to Say You Love Me

“Yep, my daddy was an undependable drunk. But he'd never missed any of my organized games, concerts, plays, or picnics. He may not have loved me perfectly, but he loved me as well as he could. (189)”
― Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“We all have to find our own ways to say goodbye. (161)”
― Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“There are family mysteries I cannot solve. There are family mysteries I am unwilling to solve.”
― Sherman Alexie, You Don't Have to Say You Love Me

“Those Montana Indians were so tough that white people were scared of them.
Can you imagine a place where white people are scared of Indians and not the other way around?
That's Montana.”
― Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“And the tombstone will never answer. Because the dead have only the voices we give to them.”
― Sherman Alexie, You Don't Have to Say You Love Me

“I hoped and prayed that they would someday forgive me for leaving them. I hoped and prayed that I would someday forgive myself for leaving them.”
― Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“it's so sad that when you see someone as they really are, it ruins them”
― Bojack Horseman

“Right now, I am in Fallujah. I am in Darfur. I am on Sixty-third and Park having dinner with Ellen Barkin and Ron Perelman... Right now, I'm on Lafayette and Astor waiting to hit you up for change so I can get high. I'm taking a walk through the Rose Garden with George Bush. I'm helping Donald Rumsfeld get a good night's sleep...I was in that cave with Osama, and on that plane with Mohamed Atta...And what I want you to know is that your work has barely begun. And what I want you to trust is the efficacy of divine love if practiced consciously. And what I need you to believe is that if you hate who I love, you do not know me at all. And make no mistake, "Who I Love" is every last one. I am every last one. People ask of me: Where are you? Where are you?...Verily I ask of you to ask yourself: Where are you? Where are you?”
― Stephen Adly Guirgis, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot

“Mothers are all slightly insane.”
― J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“When you're dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“Animals don't behave like men,' he said. 'If they have to fight, they fight; and if they have to kill they kill. But they don't sit down and set their wits to work to devise ways of spoiling other creatures' lives and hurting them. They have dignity and animality.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“You know how you let yourself think that everything will be all right if you can only get to a certain place or do a certain thing. But when you get there you find it's not that simple.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“He fought because he actually felt safer fighting than running.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down