max > max's Quotes

“Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“Never let anyone make you feel ordinary.”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

“You do not know how fast you have been running, how hard you have been working, how truly exhausted you are, until somewhat stands behind you and says, “It’s OK, you can fall down now. I’ll catch you.”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

“Don't ignore half of me so you can fit me into a box. Don't do that.”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

“I’m under absolutely no obligation to make sense to you.”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

“I spent half my time loving her and the other half hiding how much I loved her.”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

“Please never forget that the sun rises and sets with your smile. At least to me it does. You’re the only thing on this planet worth worshipping.”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

“When you're given an opportunity to change your life, be ready to do whatever it takes to make it happen. The world doesn't give things, you take things.”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

“But if you have to go, then go. Go if it hurts. Go if it's time. Just go knowing you were loved, that I will never forget you, that you will live in everything Connor and I do. Go knowing I love you purely, Harry, that you were an amazing father. Go knowing I told you all my secrets. Because you were my best friend.”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

“You have to find a job that makes your heart feel big instead of one that makes it feel small.”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

“...do yourself a favor and learn to grab life by the balls, dear. Don’t be so tied up in trying to do the right thing when the smart thing is so painfully clear.”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

“Evelyn looks at me with purpose. "Do you understand what I'm telling you? When you're given an opportunity to change your life, be ready to do whatever it takes to make it happen. The world doesn't give things, you take things. If you learn one thing from me, it should probably be that.”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

“No one is just a victim or a victor. Everyone is somewhere in between. People who go around casting themselves as one or the other are not only kidding themselves, but they’re also painfully unoriginal.”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

“And it will be the tragedy of my life that I cannot love you enough to make you mine. That you cannot be loved enough to be anyone’s.”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

“I'm bisexual. Don't ignore half of me so you can fit me into a box.”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

“you can’t tell a single thing about a person’s true character if you both want the same thing. That’s like a dog and a cat getting along because they both want to kill the mouse.”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

“Why have I spent so long settling for less when I know damn well the world expects more?”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
― Mary Oliver

“You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.”
― Mary Oliver

“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.”
― Mary Oliver

“Instructions for living a life.
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.”
― Mary Oliver

“to live in this world

you must be able
to do three things
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go”
― Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems, Volume One

“Listen--are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?”
― Mary Oliver

“You must not ever stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life.”
― Mary Oliver, Wild Geese

“I believe in kindness. Also in mischief. Also in singing, especially when singing is not necessarily prescribed.”
― Mary Oliver

“When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it is over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.”
― Mary Oliver

“Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.”
― Mary Oliver

“I want to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.”
― Mary Oliver, Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays

“How I go to the wood

Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single
friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore
unsuitable.

I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds
or hugging the old black oak tree. I have my way of
praying, as you no doubt have yours.

Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit
on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds,
until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost
unhearable sound of the roses singing.

If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love
you very much.”
― Mary Oliver, Swan: Poems and Prose Poems

“The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.”
― Mary Oliver