Magdalena Golden > Magdalena's Quotes

“But better to get hurt by the truth than comforted with a lie.”
― Khaled Hosseini

“I'll tell them how I survive it. I'll tell them that on bad mornings, it feels impossible to take pleasure in things because I'm afraid it could be taken away. That's when I make a list in my head of every act of goodness I've seen someone do. It's like a game. Repetitive. Even a little tedious after more than twenty years.

But there are much worse games to play.”
― Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

“Indeed, what more could you want? A little garden to amble about in, and infinite space to dream in. At his feet, whatever could be grown and gathered; over his head, whatever could be studied and meditated upon; a few flowers on the ground and all the stars in the sky.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“There is a spectacle greater than the sea, and that is the sky; there is a spectacle greater than the sky, and that is the human soul.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“Let's not bring flame where light is enough.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“But his arms are there to comfort me, and eventually his lips. On the night I feel that thing again, the hunger that overtook me on the beach, I know this would have happened anyway. That what I need to survive is not Gale's fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that. So after, when he whispers, "You love me. Real or not real?" I tell him "Real.”
― Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou

“Love makes you want to be a better man—right, right. But maybe love, real love, also gives you permission to just be the man you are.”
― Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

“Friends see most of each other’s flaws. Spouses see every awful last bit.”
― Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

“It’s humbling, to become the very thing you once mocked.”
― Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

“Because you can't be as in love as we were and not have it invade your bone marrow. Our kind of love can go into remission, but it's always waiting to return. Like the world's sweetest cancer.”
― Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

“Yes, well, principles are sometimes the problem, if you ask me,' said Miles. 'Often what's needed is a bit of common sense.'
'Which is the name people usually give to their prejudices,' rejoined Kay.”
― J.K. Rowling, The Casual Vacancy

“Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“One repays a teacher badly if one always remains nothing but a pupil.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

“Yes, of course duct tape works in a near-vacuum. Duct tape works anywhere. Duct tape is magic and should be worshiped.”
― Andy Weir, The Martian

“It is a most wonderful comfort to sit alone beneath a lamp, book spread before you, and commune with someone from the past whom you have never met.”
― Yoshida Kenkō, A Cup of Sake Beneath the Cherry Trees

“There is a deep contradiction in failing to enjoy life and yet fearing death when faced with it.”
― Yoshida Kenkō, A Cup of Sake Beneath the Cherry Trees

“One morning after a beautiful fall of snow, I had reason to write a letter to an acquaintance, but I omitted to make any mention of the snow. I was delighted when she responded, 'Do you expect me to pay any attention to the words of someone so perverse that he fails to enquire how I find this snowy landscape? What deplorable insensitivity!”
― Yoshida Kenkō, A Cup of Sake Beneath the Cherry Trees

“Similarly, an unmatched set of bound books can be considered unattractive, but Bishop Kōyū impressed me deeply by saying that only a boring man will always want things to match; real quality lies in irregularity - another excellent remark.”
― Yoshida Kenkō, A Cup of Sake Beneath the Cherry Trees

“Helena's telling Sorcha that the media are OH! MY! GOD! totally ignoring what's going on in Rwanda, we're talking four years on from the genocide, with thousands of unarmed civilians being extrajudicially executed by government soldiers - 'It's like, HELLO?' - while almost 150,000 people detained in connection with the 1994 genocide are being held without, like, trial. She goes, 'I'm not even going to _stort_ on the thousands of refugees forcibly returned to Burundi. It's like, do NOT even go there.' Sorcha's saying that President Pasteur Bizimungu SO should be indicted for war crimes if half of what she's read on the Internet is true. She's there, 'It's like, OH! MY! GOD!' but I'm not really listening, roysh, I'm giving the old mince pies to Amanda, this total lasher who's, like, second year Orts.”
― Paul Howard, The Miseducation Years

“An Italian woman came out of the house, wiping her hands on her apron.
'Mr Greenleaf?' Tom asked hopefully.
The woman gave him a long, smiling answer in Italian and pointed downward toward the sea. 'Jew,' she seemed to keep saying. 'Jew.”
― Patricia Highsmith, The Talented Mr. Ripley

“She noticed then that Conor was watching her.
'Are you going for a swim?' he asked her.
'In a while. Why don't you go down and check if it's warm enough?'
'And if it's not warm enough?'
'We'll still go in. But at least we'll know.”
― Colm Tóibín, Nora Webster

“(...) a child is led into a laboratory and asked to face one of the walls. The experimenter then explains that he is going to set up an elaborate toy a few feet behind them. After setting up the toy, the experimenter explains that he has to leave the laboratory, and asks the child not to turn around and peek at the toy. The child is secretly filmed by hidden cameras for a few minutes, and then the experimenter returns and asks them whether they peeked. Almost all 3-year-olds do, and then half of them lie about it to the experimenter. By the time the children have reached the age of 5, all of them peek and all of them lie. The results provide compelling evidence that lying starts to emerge the moment we learn to speak. Perhaps surprisingly, when adults are shown films of their children denying that they peeked at the toy, they are unable to detect whether their darling offspring are lying or telling the truth.”
― Richard Wiseman, Quirkology: How We Discover the Big Truths in Small Things

“The two billion people who speak English these days live mainly in countries where they’ve learned English as a foreign language. There are only around 400 million mother-tongue speakers – chiefly living in the UK, Ireland, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the countries of the Caribbean. This means that for every one native speaker of English there are now five non-native speakers. The centre of gravity in the use of English has shifted, therefore. Once upon a time, it would have been possible to say, in terms of number of speakers, that the British ‘owned’ English. Then it was the turn of the Americans. Today, it’s the turn of those who have learned English as a foreign language, who form the vast majority of users. Everyone who has taken the trouble to learn English can be said to ‘own’ it now, and they all have a say in its future. So, if most of them say such things as informations and advices, it seems inevitable that one day some of these usages will become part of international standard English, and influence the way people speak in the ‘home’ countries. Those with a nostalgia for linguistic days of old may not like it, but it will not be possible to stop such international trends.”
― David Crystal, Making Sense of Grammar

“No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached.”
― Amy Tan

“This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals–sounds that say listen to this, it is important.”
― Gary Provost

“People think of education as something they can finish.”
― Isaac Asimov

“Oh! Well, Many happy returns of the day, Eeyore."
"And many happy returns to you, Pooh Bear."
"But it isn't my birthday."
"No, it's mine."
"But you said 'Many happy returns'--"
"Well, why not? You don't always want to be miserable on my birthday, do you?”
― Alan Alexander Milne, Winnie the Pooh (illustrated edition): Children's Classics

“my father always said, “early to bed and
early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy
and wise.”

it was lights out at 8 p.m. in our house
and we were up at dawn to the smell of
coffee, frying bacon and scrambled
eggs.

my father followed this general routine
for a lifetime and died young, broke,
and, I think, not too
wise.

taking note, I rejected his advice and it
became, for me, late to bed and late
to rise.

now, I’m not saying that I’ve conquered
the world but I’ve avoided
numberless early traffic jams, bypassed some
common pitfalls
and have met some strange, wonderful
people

one of whom
was
myself—someone my father
never
knew.”
― Charles Bukowski