Asad > Asad's Quotes

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

“The second thing you have to do to be a writer is to keep on writing. Don't listen to people who tell you that very few people get published and you won't be one of them. Don't listen to your friend who says you are better that Tolkien and don't have to try any more. Keep writing, keep faith in the idea that you have unique stories to tell, and tell them. I meet far too many people who are going to be writers 'someday.' When they are out of high school, when they've finished college, after the wedding, when the kids are older, after I retire . . . That is such a trap You will never have any more free time than you do right now. So, whether you are 12 or 70, you should sit down today and start being a writer if that is what you want to do. You might have to write on a notebook while your kids are playing on the swings or write in your car on your coffee break. That's okay. I think we've all 'been there, done that.' It all starts with the writing. ”
― Robin Hobb

“When you cut pieces out of the truth to avoid looking like a fool you end up looking like a moron instead.”
― Robin Hobb, Assassin's Apprentice

“Tomorrow owes you the sum of your yesterdays. No more than that. And no less.”
― Robin Hobb, The Mad Ship

“For the weakest has but to try his strength to find it, and then he shall be strong.”
― Robin Hobb, Ship of Magic

“What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy?”
― Ursula K. LeGuin

“A man who trusts everyone is a fool and a man who trusts no one is a fool. We are all fools if we live long enough.”
― Robert Jordan, Winter's Heart

“To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.”
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi

“Hindus, in their capacity for love, are indeed hairless Christians, just as Muslims, in the way they see God in everything, are bearded Hindus, and Christians, in their devotion to God, are hat wearing Muslims.”
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi

“What a slut time is. She screws everybody.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“Some infinities are bigger than other infinities.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“The world is not a wish-granting factory.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“Like most misery, it started with apparent happiness.”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

“Life can only be understood backward; the trouble is, it has to be lived forward.”
― Zia Haider Rahman, In the Light of What We Know

“An exile, said Zafar, is a refugee with a library.”
― Zia Haider Rahman, In the Light of What We Know

“All translations are made up" opined Vikram, "Languages are different for a reason. You can't move ideas between them without losing something”
― G. Willow Wilson, Alif the Unseen

“Wonder and awe have gone out of your religions. You are prepared to accept the irrational, but not the transcendent.”
― G. Willow Wilson, Alif the Unseen

“Look at all the Eastern writers who've written great Western literature. Kazuo Ishiguro. You'd never guess that The Remains of the Day or Never Let Me Go were written by a Japanese guy. But I can't think of anyone who's ever done the reverse-- any Westerner who's written great Eastern literature. Well, maybe if we count Lawrence Durrell - does the Alexandria Quartet qualify as Eastern literature?"
"There is a very simple test," said Vikram. "Is it about bored, tired people having sex?"
"Yes," said the convert, surprised.
"Then it's western.”
― G. Willow Wilson, Alif the Unseen

“Conscience. Conscience is the ultimate measure of a man.”
― G. Willow Wilson, Alif the Unseen

“Metaphors are dangerous. Calling something by a false name changes it, and metaphor is just a fancy way of calling something by a false name.”
― G. Willow Wilson, Alif the Unseen

“I was afraid you'd turn into one of those literary types who say books can change the world when they're feeling good about themselves and it's only a book when anybody challenges them.”
― G. Willow Wilson, Alif the Unseen

“Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.”
― E.L. Doctorow

“I am a lover and have not found my thing to love.”
― Sherwood Anderson

“Write what should not be forgotten.”
― Isabel Allende

“In her experience, light skin and money made almost anything easier. She wanted her grandchildren to come into the world with an advantage.”
― Isabel Allende, Island Beneath the Sea

“The convert will understand. How do they translate ºyw in your English interpretation?” “Atom,” said the convert. “You don’t find that strange, considering atoms were unknown in the sixth century?” The convert chewed her lip. “I never thought of that,” she said. “You’re right. There’s no way atom is the original meaning of that word.” “Ah.” Vikram held up two fingers in a sign of benediction. He looked, Alif thought, like some demonic caricature of a saint. “But it is. In the twentieth century, atom became the original meaning of ºyw, because an atom was the tiniest object known to man. Then man split the atom. Today, the original meaning might be hadron. But why stop there? Tomorrow, it might be quark. In a hundred years, some vanishingly small object so foreign to the human mind that only Adam remembers its name. Each of those will be the original meaning of ºyw.” Alif snorted. “That’s impossible. ºyw must refer to some fundamental thing. It’s attached to an object.” “Yes it is. The smallest indivisible particle. That is the meaning packaged in the word. No part of it lifts out—it does not mean smallest, nor indivisible, nor particle, but all those things at once. Thus, in man’s infancy, ºyw was a grain of sand. Then a mote of dust. Then a cell. Then a molecule. Then an atom. And so on. Man’s knowledge of the universe may grow, but ºyw does not change.” “That’s . . .” The convert trailed off, looking lost. “Miraculous. Indeed.”
― G. Willow Wilson, Alif the Unseen

“Truly speaking, it is not instruction, but provocation, that I can receive from another soul. What he announces, I must find true in me, or reject; and on his word, or as his second, be he who he may, I can accept nothing.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Portable Emerson

“He was forever dwelling on his failures. He held them up to the light and examined them in minute detail, like necklaces that had tangled in a drawer.”
― Elliott Holt

“Leave the dishes.
Let the celery rot in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator
and an earthen scum harden on the kitchen floor.
Leave the black crumbs in the bottom of the toaster.
Throw the cracked bowl out and don't patch the cup.
Don't patch anything. Don't mend. Buy safety pins.
Don't even sew on a button.
Let the wind have its way, then the earth
that invades as dust and then the dead
foaming up in gray rolls underneath the couch.
Talk to them. Tell them they are welcome.
Don't keep all the pieces of the puzzles
or the doll's tiny shoes in pairs, don't worry
who uses whose toothbrush or if anything
matches, at all.
Except one word to another. Or a thought.
Pursue the authentic-decide first
what is authentic,
then go after it with all your heart.
Your heart, that place
you don't even think of cleaning out.
That closet stuffed with savage mementos.
Don't sort the paper clips from screws from saved baby teeth
or worry if we're all eating cereal for dinner
again. Don't answer the telephone, ever,
or weep over anything at all that breaks.
Pink molds will grow within those sealed cartons
in the refrigerator. Accept new forms of life
and talk to the dead
who drift in though the screened windows, who collect
patiently on the tops of food jars and books.
Recycle the mail, don't read it, don't read anything
except what destroys
the insulation between yourself and your experience
or what pulls down or what strikes at or what shatters
this ruse you call necessity.”
― Louise Erdrich, Original Fire

“This was another of our fears: that Life wouldn't turn out to be like Literature.”
― Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending