Carla Stafford > Carla's Quotes

“It is the peculiar nature of the world to go on spinning no matter what sort of heartbreak is happening.”
― Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees

“With freedom, flowers, books, and the moon, who could not be perfectly happy?”
― Oscar Wilde, De Profundis

“I think there should be tribunals for social cruelty as there are for physical assault. Calculated cuts in the first degree. Snobicide or its reverse.”
― Peter Heller, The Painter

“Well, I think that’s sort of like Eve biting the apple. You were talking about Genesis. I think it’s like that, the crow is like the serpent. He is giving the horse the awareness of choice. And with a full knowledge of choice comes a foreknowledge of death.”
― Peter Heller, The Painter

“Most of us are never seen, not clearly, and when we are we likely jump and run.”
― Peter Heller, The Painter

“There are so many fragile things, after all. People break so easily, and so do dreams and hearts.”
― Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders

“Anni, amori e bicchieri di vino, nun se contano mai.”’ ‘“Years, lovers and glasses of wine; these things must not be counted.”
― Anthony Capella, The Food of Love

“Nothing is ever finished and done with in this world. You may think a seed was finished and done with when it falls like a dead thing into the earth; but when it puts forth leaves and flowers next spring you see your mistake.”
― Elizabeth Goudge, The Little White Horse

“Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier 'til this terrible disease came. I can't fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that – everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer. I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been. V.”
― Virginia Woolf

“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

“the only people who still have all the answers are those who have never been faced with the questions”
― Jojo Moyes, The Ship of Brides

“To fare on - fusing the self that wakes and the self that dreams.”
― Nancy Horan

“ENTER THIS DESERTED HOUSE
But please walk softly as you do.
Frogs dwell here and crickets too.
Ain't no ceiling, only blue
Jays dwell here and sunbeams too.
Floors are flowers - take a few.
Ferns grow here and daisies too.
Whoosh, swoosh - too-whit, too-woo,
Bats dwell here and hoot owls too.
Ha-ha-ha,hee-hee,hoo-hoooo,
Gnomes dwell here and goblins too.
And my child, I thought you knew
I dwell here...and so do you.”
― Shel Silverstein, Where the Sidewalk Ends

“Hate can be a deeply stimulating emotion. The world becomes easier to understand and much less terrifying if you divide everything and everyone into friends and enemies, we and they, good and evil. The easiest way to unite a group isn't through love, because love is hard, It makes demands. Hate is simple. So the first thing that happens in a conflict is that we choose a side, because that's easier than trying to hold two thoughts in our heads at the same time. The second thing that happens is that we seek out facts that confirm what we want to believe - comforting facts, ones that permit life to go on as normal. The third is that we dehumanize our enemy.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“All adults have days when we feel completely drained. When we no longer know quite what we spend so much time fighting for, when reality and everyday worries overwhelm us and we wonder how much longer we’re going to be able to carry on. The wonderful thing is that we can all live through far more days like that without breaking than we think. The terrible thing is that we never know exactly how many.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“Never trust people who don't have something in their lives that they love beyond all reason.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“Everyone has a thousand wishes before a tragedy, but just one afterward.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“Another morning comes. It always does. Time always moves at the same rate, only feelings have different speeds. Every day can mark a whole lifetime or a single heartbeat, depending on who you spend it with. *”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“Religion is something between you and other people; it’s full of interpretations and theories and opinions. But faith . . . that’s just between you and God.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“The love a parent feels for a child is strange. There is a starting point to our love for everyone else, but not this person. This one we have always loved, we loved them before they even existed. No matter how well prepared they are, all moms and dads experience a moment of total shock, when the tidal wave of feelings first washed through them, knocking them off their feet. It's incomprehensible because there's nothing to compare it to. It's like trying to describe sand between your toes or snowflakes on your tongue to someone who's lived their whole life in a dark room. It sends the soul flying.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book.”
― Jane Smiley, Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel