Antis > Antis's Quotes

“Perhaps the greatest faculty our minds possess is the ability to cope with pain. Classic thinking teaches us of the four doors of the mind, which everyone moves through according to their need.

First is the door of sleep. Sleep offers us a retreat from the world and all its pain. Sleep marks passing time, giving us distance from the things that have hurt us. When a person is wounded they will often fall unconscious. Similarly, someone who hears traumatic news will often swoon or faint. This is the mind's way of protecting itself from pain by stepping through the first door.

Second is the door of forgetting. Some wounds are too deep to heal, or too deep to heal quickly. In addition, many memories are simply painful, and there is no healing to be done. The saying 'time heals all wounds' is false. Time heals most wounds. The rest are hidden behind this door.

Third is the door of madness. There are times when the mind is dealt such a blow it hides itself in insanity. While this may not seem beneficial, it is. There are times when reality is nothing but pain, and to escape that pain the mind must leave reality behind.

Last is the door of death. The final resort. Nothing can hurt us after we are dead, or so we have been told.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

“Enjoy memories, yes, but don't be a slave to who you wish you once had been.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Tress of the Emerald Sea

“One of the great tragedies of life is knowing how many people in the world are made to soar, paint, sing, or steer—except they never get the chance to find out.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Tress of the Emerald Sea

“Even small actions have consequences. And while we can often choose our actions, we rarely get to choose our consequences.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Tress of the Emerald Sea

“That is one of the great mistakes people make: assuming that someone who does menial work does not like thinking. Physical labor is great for the mind, as it leaves all kinds of time to consider the world. Other work, like accounting or scribing, demands little of the body—but siphons energy from the mind.

If you wish to become a storyteller, here is a hint: sell your labor, but not your mind. Give me ten hours a day scrubbing a deck, and oh the stories I could imagine. Give me ten hours adding sums, and all you’ll have me imagining at the end is a warm bed and a thought-free evening.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Tress of the Emerald Sea

“In the land where everyone screams, everyone is also slightly deaf.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Tress of the Emerald Sea

“Memory is often our only connection to who we used to be. Memories are fossils, the bones left by dead versions of ourselves. More potently, our minds are a hungry audience, craving only the peaks and valleys of experience. The bland erodes, leaving behind the distinctive bits to be remembered again and again. Painful or passionate, surreal or sublime, we cherish those little rocks of peak experience, polishing them with the ever-smoothing touch of recycled proxy living. In so doing—like pagans praying to a sculpted mud figure—we make of our memories the gods which judge our current lives.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Tress of the Emerald Sea

“That was the cruelest irony: the more you did to save yourself, the less you became a person worth saving.”
― Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning

“We must discuss, then, the relationship between women and water. When men fall into the sea, they drown. When women meet the water, they transform. It becomes vital to ask: is this a metamorphosis, or a homecoming?”
― Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning

“How terrible, to navigate the world without a story to comfort you.”
― Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning

“There was an intimacy to all violence, she supposed. The better you knew someone, the more terribly you could hurt them.”
― Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning

“You don't have to take up a sword. Survival is bravery, too.”
― Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning

“One doesn’t need magic if one knows enough stories.”
― Heather Fawcett, Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries

“Perhaps it is always restful to be around someone who does not expect anything from you beyond what is in your nature.”
― Heather Fawcett, Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries

“...books became my best friends.”
― Heather Fawcett, Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries

“If I frightened my cat as I had Shadow, she'd ignore me for days, or possibly put a curse on me, but then cats have self-respect.”
― Heather Fawcett, Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries

“Nothing you can take from me was ever worth keeping.”
― Suzanne Collins, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

“People aren’t so bad, really,” she said. “It’s what the world does to them.”
― Suzanne Collins, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

“That is the thing with giving your heart. You never wait for someone to ask. You hold it out and hope they want it”
― Suzanne Collins, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

“What are lies but attempts to conceal some sort of weakness?”
― Suzanne Collins, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

“Before need, before love, came trust.”
― Suzanne Collins, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

“And try not to look down on people who had to choose between death and disgrace.”
― Suzanne Collins, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

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

“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 that they might do because of it, because of your words. That is your role, your gift.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“People see what they wish to see. And in most cases, what they are told that they see.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“Secrets have power. And that power diminishes when they are shared, so they are best kept and kept well. Sharing secrets, real secrets, important ones, with even one other person, will change them. Writing them down is worse, because who can tell how many eyes might see them inscribed on paper, no matter how careful you might be with it. So it's really best to keep your secrets when you have them, for their own good, as well as yours.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“Life takes us to unexpected places sometimes. The future is never set in stone, remember that.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“But dreams have ways of turning into nightmares.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“You're in the right place at the right time, and you care enough to do what needs to be done. Sometimes that's enough.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

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