Elizabeth Mock > Elizabeth's Quotes

“Stories are for joining the past to the future. Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can't remember how you got from where you were to where you are. Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story.”
― Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried

“I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.”
― Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets

“In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
― George Orwell

“But in a story, which is a kind of dreaming, the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return to the world.”
― Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried

“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”
― Neil Gaiman, Coraline

“Every generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.”
― George Orwell

“We read to know we're not alone.”
― William Nicholson, Shadowlands: A Play

“A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth.”
― Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried

“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”
― C.S. Lewis

“Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“The thing about a story is that you dream it as you tell it, hoping that others might then dream along with you, and in this way memory and imagination and language combine to make spirits in the head. There is the illusion of aliveness.”
― Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried

“Information is not understanding,” Tobias replied, his light-hearted tone replaced with sobriety. “You can give information, but you can never give understanding.”
― Elizabeth C. Mock, Shatter

“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”
― George Orwell

“And in the end, of course, a true war story is never about war. It's about sunlight. It's about the special way that dawn spreads out on a river when you know you must cross the river and march into the mountains and do things you are afraid to do. It's about love and memory. It's about sorrow. It's about sisters who never write back and people who never listen.”
― Tim O'Brien

“They carried all they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried.”
― Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried

“Wisest is she who knows she does not know.”
― Jostein Gaarder, Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy

“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art.... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“The most subversive people are those who ask questions.”
― Jostein Gaarder, Sophie’s World

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“You're talking like the choices others made were the only choices someone could make given the choices you made." Mireya paused. "I think."

"That's quite a mouthful."

“But it's what you're thinking. Yes, you made specific choices, bad ones too. But the choices others make, they make them. You don't. Just because you made the wrong choices, doesn't mean you deserved everything bad that happens to you. Don't you see?"

"Not all the consequences are bad, Mireya," Faela said her voice soft.”
― Elizabeth C. Mock, Shatter

“Rafaela, we all hurt people." Tobias’ voice was sharp. "That’s universal. We’re all broken and those shards will cut those around us.”
― Elizabeth C. Mock, Shatter

“You say cute. I say plague-carrying, sticky-fingered dirt monsters,” Sheridan said slapping Eve on the shoulder as she passed her to leave the room.”
― Elizabeth C. Mock, Shatter

“People prefer opinions to truth. They try to bend the world to fit their assumptions, instead of changing their assumptions to fit the world. -Mireya”
― Elizabeth C. Mock, Render

“People like to accept answers that align with their own suspicions. They like answers that they don’t have to really consider before accepting, because they’re more concerned with the cares that are directly in front of them.”
― Elizabeth C. Mock, Render

“Life is dynamic and always changing. Sometimes, you’ve got to be able to adapt your instructions to those changes in order to complete your mission.”
― Elizabeth C. Mock, Render

“Kade usually found humor in the absurdities in life, because life itself was absurd.”
― Elizabeth C. Mock, Render

“The Deoraghan celebrated anything that could be celebrated, because they never knew what tomorrow held. Caleb had never met any other people who categorically refused to live life with regrets. They loved passionately. They fought fervently. They laughed often. They drank even more often.”
― Elizabeth C. Mock, Render

“The world forgets. We always forget. We say that we won’t forget, but we do. We go about our lives, and the daily petty details wipe our memories of the things we should never forget.”
― Elizabeth C. Mock, Render

“This is what happens, when things are not quite a fairy tale.
You go into the woods to find your story. If you are brave, if you are fortunate, you walk out of them to find your life.”
― Kat Howard, Roses and Rot