Tim > Tim's Quotes

“That is not the way it should be. Good leaders wait to be called and they give up their power when they are no longer needed. Selfish men and fools put themselves first and keep their power until someone throws them out. It is no good to have a way where selfish men and fools fight with each other to be leaders, while the good ones watch.”
― Kent Nerburn, Neither Wolf nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder

“But in his devotions was ever more devotion, and towards her it seemed there was ever less.”
― Mohsin Hamid, Exit West

“There is no such thing as an immutable truth, much as our hearts might yearn for it and our justice systems demand it; there are only the stories we tell ourselves.”
― Nancy Rommelmann, To the Bridge

“I hope instead she rages!”
― Nancy Rommelmann, To the Bridge

“Thoughtful disagreement is not a battle; its goal is not to convince the other party that he or she is wrong and you are right, but to find out what is true and what to do about it.”
― Ray Dalio, Principles: Life and Work

“You can't fight tribalism with a tribe. All you can do is read and think and listen. And if you're lucky, eventually will come that rousing, fleeting moment when you hear someone say the thing that makes you feel less alone.”
― Meghan Daum, The Problem with Everything: My Journey Through the New Culture Wars

“You learn nothing very profound about yourself simply by being bullied; but by bullying someone else you learn something you can never forget.”
― Sally Rooney, Normal People

“There isn't room in one marriage for two people who are hogging all the oxygen.”
― Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Fleishman Is in Trouble

“That was why you heard about people in their thirties and forties going to law school but never medical school. It wasn't just the time it would take to get licensed. It was the realization as you got older about how fallible you were in every aspect of your life.”
― Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Fleishman Is in Trouble

“Toby had heard from other doctors who worked with a poorer clientele that less fortunate people are more accepting of these things. Not the rich ones. Rich patients couldn't believe that money couldn't help, that their positions and club memberships and status couldn't help. They couldn't believe that nobody was coming to save them. But nobody was coming to save them.”
― Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Fleishman Is in Trouble

“The man wore a black suit rather than a tuxedo, which made him both stand out from and blend into the crowd, a sore thumb on a broken hand.”
― Snowden Wright, American Pop

“The black sheep in a family that consisted solely of black sheep...”
― Snowden Wright, American Pop

“Monty picked up the letters. They felt strangely light for being the weight of the whole world.”
― Snowden Wright, American Pop

“In that moment he realized that all the experience of thirty-two years in the NYPD and all the formal police training in the world was useless when the smile of someone you suddenly care about finds the bow that wraps your heart and undoes it.”
― James McBride, Deacon King Kong

“God was forever generous with His gifts: hope, love, truth, and the belief in the indestructability of the good in all people.”
― James McBride, Deacon King Kong

“A man who doesn't trust cannot be trusted”
― James McBride, Deacon King Kong

“You will die and this is an empty way to spend the days.”
― Nina MacLaughlin, Hammer Head: The Making of a Carpenter

“It feels like torture because in the back of our brains, what we know is these hours are our only ones. They are finite and will be finished.”
― Nina MacLaughlin, Hammer Head: The Making of a Carpenter

“She couldn't forgive us for knowing something she would rather forget.”
― Rosella Postorino, At the Wolf's Table

“We can hide all we want, but sooner or later death will track us down all the same.”
― Rosella Postorino, At the Wolf's Table

“One sees value in things that have strength, which life doesn't, in things that are indestructible, and life isn't -- to the point that someone might come along and ask you to sacrifice your life for something that has more strength. The homeland, for example.”
― Rosella Postorino, At the Wolf's Table

“My punishment had finally arrived. It wasn't poison, it wasn't death -- it was life.”
― Rosella Postorino, At the Wolf's Table

“The past doesn't go away, buy there's no need to dredge it up; you can try to let it rest, hold your peace. The one thing I've learned from life is survival.”
― Rosella Postorino, At the Wolf's Table

“The point wasn't whether or not I liked it. The point was it had to be done.”
― Ann Patchett, The Dutch House

“No anger could survive this, at least no anger I'd ever had.”
― Ann Patchett, The Dutch House

“everyone was drinking like they needed to forget some horrible thing they'd done”
― Wright Thompson, Pappyland: A Story of Family, Fine Bourbon, and the Things That Last

“our long history of trying to do the right thing while benefitting mightily from the wrong thing”
― Wright Thompson, Pappyland: A Story of Family, Fine Bourbon, and the Things That Last

“He could have broken her in two with one hand, but either she was already broken, or she wasn't going to break.”
― Nicole Krauss, To Be a Man

“We'd be who we were, and we could either come to grips with this fact and like the person we'd become, or live with regret and disappointment.”
― Robert Dugoni, The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell