Cat > Cat's Quotes

“Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.”
― Voltaire

“So do we pass the ghosts that haunt us later in our lives; they sit undramatically by the roadside like poor beggars, and we see them only from the corners of our eyes, if we see them at all. The idea that they have been waiting there for us rarely crosses our minds. Yet they do wait, and when we have passed, they gather up their bundles of memory and fall in behind, treading in our footsteps and catching up, little by little.”
― Stephen King, Dark Tower Set

“Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.”
― Narcotics Anonymous

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”
― Voltaire

“Even on the most solemn occasions I got away without wearing socks and hid that lack of civilization in high boots”
― Albert Einstein

“The stars looked down at me from infinite space. We are tiny, they said, but you are insignificant.”
― Shane Maloney

“You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia

“A scientist can pretend that his work isn't himself, it's merely the impersonal truth. An artist can't hide behind the truth. He can't hide anywhere.”
― Ursula K. LeGuin, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia

“The thing about working with time, instead of against it, he thought, is that it is not wasted. Even pain counts.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia

“The idea is like grass. It craves light, likes crowds, thrives on crossbreeding, grows better for being stepped on.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia

“This concern, feebly called 'love of nature', seemed to Shevek to be something much broader than love. There are souls, he thought, whose umbilicus has never been cut. They never got weaned from the universe. They do not understand death as an enemy; they look forward to rotting and turning into humus.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia

“There's more beauty in truth, even if it is dreadful beauty.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“Do you take pride in your hurt? Does it make you seem large and tragic? ...Well, think about it. Maybe you're playing a part on a great stage with only yourself as audience.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“People like you to be something, preferably what they are.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“Perhaps the less we have, the more we are required to brag.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“If you expect nothing from somebody you are never disappointed.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

“I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my eyes and all is born again.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

“The trouble was, I had been inadequate all along, I simply hadn't thought about it.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

“Maybe you don't go to hell for the things you do. Maybe you go to hell for the things you don't do. The things you don't finish.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Lullaby

“Happiness [is] only real when shared”
― Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

“That's what was great about him. He tried. Not many do.”
― Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

“Sifting through an urn of cremated remains you cannot tell if a person had successes, failures, grandchildren, felonies. “For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
― Caitlin Doughty, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory

“I've found that there is always some beauty left -- in nature, sunshine, freedom, in yourself; these can all help you.”
― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

“People can tell you to keep your mouth shut, but that doesn't stop you from having your own opinion.”
― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

“Sometimes I think illness sits inside every woman, waiting for the right moment to bloom. I have known so many sick women all my life. Women with chronic pain, with ever-gestating diseases. Women with conditions. Men, sure, they have bone snaps, they have backaches, they have a surgery or two, yank out a tonsil, insert a shiny plastic hip. Women get consumed.”
― Gillian Flynn, Sharp Objects

“It's like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

“Call a jack a jack. Call a spade a spade. But always call a whore a lady. Their lives are hard enough, and it never hurts to be polite.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

“Bones mend. Regret stays with you forever.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

“I'm sorry. I didn't know you were coming or I'd have cleaned up a little more. My life, I mean, not just the apartment.”
― Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife