Renate > Renate's Quotes

“Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It's a way of understanding it.”
― Lloyd Alexander

“In the world I am
Always a stranger
I do not understand its language
It does not understand my silence”
― Bei Dao

“I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground

“In Ireland, you go to someone's house, and she asks you if you want a cup of tea. You say no, thank you, you're really just fine. She asks if you're sure. You say of course you're sure, really, you don't need a thing. Except they pronounce it ting. You don't need a ting. Well, she says then, I was going to get myself some anyway, so it would be no trouble. Ah, you say, well, if you were going to get yourself some, I wouldn't mind a spot of tea, at that, so long as it's no trouble and I can give you a hand in the kitchen. Then you go through the whole thing all over again until you both end up in the kitchen drinking tea and chatting.

In America, someone asks you if you want a cup of tea, you say no, and then you don't get any damned tea.

I liked the Irish way better.”
― C.E. Murphy, Urban Shaman

“Honestly, if you're given the choice between Armageddon or tea, you don't say 'what kind of tea?”
― Neil Gaiman

“There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.”
― Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady

“If you are cold, tea will warm you;
if you are too heated, it will cool you;
If you are depressed, it will cheer you;
If you are excited, it will calm you.”
― William Ewart Gladstone

“Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea! How did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea.”
― Sydney Smith, A Memoir of the Rev. Sydney Smith; 2 volume set

“There are those who love to get dirty and fix things. They drink coffee at dawn, beer after work. And those who stay clean, just appreciate things. At breakfast they have milk and juice at night. There are those who do both, they drink tea.”
― Gary Snyder

“Who would then deny that when I am sipping tea in my tearoom I am swallowing the whole universe with it and that this very moment of my lifting the bowl to my lips is eternity itself transcending time and space?”
― Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, Zen and Japanese Culture

“Some people will tell you there is a great deal of poetry and fine sentiment in a chest of tea.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Letters and Social Aims

“Tea ... is a religion of the art of life.”
― Kakuzō Okakura, The Book of Tea

“Surely a pretty woman never looks prettier than when making tea.”
― Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Lady Audley's Secret

“Tea is the magic key to the vault where my brain is kept.”
― Frances Hardinge

“But indeed I would rather have nothing but tea.”
― Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

“My dear if you could give me a cup of tea to clear my muddle of a head I should better understand your affairs.”
― Charles Dickens, Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy

“I am in no way interested in immortality, but only in the taste of tea.”
― Lu T'ung

“A simple cup of tea is far from a simple matter.”
― Mary Lou Heiss, The Story of Tea: A Cultural History and Drinking Guide

“There are few nicer things than sitting up in bed, drinking strong tea, and reading.”
― Alan Clark

“Tea. I find that both settles the stomach and concentrates the mind. Wonderful drink, tea.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Bones

“Come oh come ye tea-thirsty restless ones -- the kettle boils, bubbles and sings, musically.”
― Rabindranath Tagore, Collected Poems and Plays of Rabindranath Tagore

“For me starting the day without a pot of tea would be a day forever out of kilter.”
― Bill Drummond, $20,000: A Book

“a hardened and shameless tea-drinker, who has, for twenty years, diluted his meals with only the infusion of this fascinating plant; whose kettle has scarcely time to cool; who with tea amuses the evening, with tea solaces the midnight, and, with tea, welcomes the morning.”
― Samuel Johnson

“In the liquid amber within the ivory porcelain, the initiated may touch the sweet reticence of Confucius, the piquancy of Laotse, and the ethereal aroma of Sakyamuni himself.”
― Kakuzo Okakura, The Book of Tea

“She's a pot-of-tea-before-I-say-boo-to-you woman. There's always a pile of warm teabags in the sink when I come down, like what a horse would leave behind.”
― Roddy Doyle

“Laugh loudly, laugh often, and most important, laugh at yourself.”
― Chelsea Handler, Lies That Chelsea Handler Told Me

“All Moanday, Tearday, Wailsday, Thumpsday, Frightday, Shatterday.”
― James Joyce

“From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them, and that is eternity.”
― Edvard Munch