MountainGoat > MountainGoat's Quotes

“Reading lets us live in someone else’s shoes. Literature builds bridges; it makes our world larger, not smaller.”
― R.F. Kuang, Yellowface

“But the best revenge is to thrive.”
― R.F. Kuang, Yellowface

“Social media is such a tiny, insular space. Once you close your screen, no one gives a fuck.”
― Rebecca F. Kuang, Yellowface

“Maybe it was Highlander Syndrome—I’ve read about that before, the way members of marginalized groups feel threatened if someone else like them starts finding success.”
― R.F. Kuang, Yellowface

“Life is so short. Why do we build up these walls?”
― R.F. Kuang, Yellowface

“The truth is fluid, there is always another way to spin the story.”
― R.F. Kuang, Yellowface

“Every generation should have the chance to be better and freer than the one before it.”
― Shankari Chandran, Song of the Sun God

“Nikki, I'm not valuable because I'm employed. And I'm not valuable because others value me. I'm valuable because I value myself.”
― Shankari Chandran

“At the end of the day, whether one returns to the past or travels to the future, the present doesn't change.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before the Coffee Gets Cold

“It takes courage to say what has to be said.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before the Coffee Gets Cold

“She wanted to do things without having to worry what others thought.
She simply lived for her freedom.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before the Coffee Gets Cold

“. . . as the future hasn't happened yet, I guess that's up to you. . .”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before the Coffee Gets Cold

“I’ll mourn how I mourn. Everyone’s different.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before the Coffee Gets Cold

“Hard is trying to rebuild yourself, piece by piece, with no instruction book, and no clue as to where all the important bits are supposed to go.”
― Nick Hornby, A Long Way Down

“Everyone knows how to talk, and no one knows what to say.”
― Nick Hornby, A Long Way Down

“Human beings are millions of things in one day.”
― Nick Hornby, A Long Way Down

“There's nothing you can't fuck up if you try hard enough.”
― Nick Hornby, A Long Way Down

“It is easy to mourn the lives we aren't living. Easy to wish we'd developed other other talents, said yes to different offers. Easy to wish we'd worked harder, loved better, handled our finances more astutely, been more popular, stayed in the band, gone to Australia, said yes to the coffee or done more bloody yoga.
It takes no effort to miss the friends we didn't make and the work we didn't do the people we didn't do and the people we didn't marry and the children we didn't have. It is not difficult to see yourself through the lens of other people, and to wish you were all the different kaleidoscopic versions of you they wanted you to be. It is easy to regret, and keep regretting, ad infinitum, until our time runs out.
But it is not lives we regret not living that are the real problem. It is the regret itself. It's the regret that makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and other people's worst enemy.
We can't tell if any of those other versions would of been better or worse. Those lives are happening, it is true, but you are happening as well, and that is the happening we have to focus on.”
― Matt Haig, The Midnight Library

“The only way to learn is to live.”
― Matt Haig, The Midnight Library

“If you aim to be something you are not, you will always fail. Aim to be you. Aim to look and act and think like you. Aim to be the truest version of you. Embrace that you-ness. Endorse it. Love it. Work hard at it. And don't give a second thought when people mock it or ridicule it. Most gossip is envy in disguise.”
― Matt Haig, The Midnight Library

“Never underestimate the big importance of small things”
― Matt Haig, The Midnight Library

“Sometimes just to say your own truth out loud is enough to find others like you.”
― Matt Haig, The Midnight Library

“Of course, we can't visit every place or meet every person or do every job, yet most of what we'd feel in any life is still available. We don't have to play every game to know what winning feels like. We don't have to hear every piece of music in the world to understand music. We don't have to have tried every variety of grape from every vineyard to know the pleasure of wine. Love and laughter and fear and pain are universal currencies. We just have to close our eyes and savour the taste of the drink in front of us and listen to the song as it plays. We are as completely and utterly alive as we are in any other life and have access to the same emotional spectrum.”
― Matt Haig, The Midnight Library

“Whenever you feel afraid, just remember. Courage is the root of change - and change is what we're chemically designed to do. So when you wake up tomorrow, make this pledge. No more holding yourself back. No more subscribing to others' opinions of what you can and cannot achieve. And no more allowing anyone to pigeonhole you into useless categories of sex, race, economic status, and religion. Do not allow your talents to lie dormant, ladies. Design your own future. When you go home today, ask yourself what YOU will change. And then get started.”
― Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry

“(On religion) "I think it lets us off the hook. I think it teaches us that nothing is really our fault; that something or someone else is pulling the strings; the ultimately, we're not to blame for the way things are; that to improve things, we should pray. But the truth is, we are very much responsible for the badness in the world. And we have the power to fix it.”
― Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry

“Your days are numbered. Use them to throw open the windows of your soul to the sun,”
― Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry

“And as humans, we’re by-products of our upbringings, victims of our lackluster educational systems, and choosers of our behaviors. In short, the reduction of women to something less than men, and the elevation of men to something more than women, is not biological: it’s cultural. And it starts with two words: pink and blue. Everything skyrockets out of control from there.” Speaking”
― Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry