Kate > Kate's Quotes

“Squeeze! Squeeze! Squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me, and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-labourers' hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally, as much as to say,—Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill humour or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“We felt very nice and snug, the more so since it was so chilly out of doors; indeed out of bed-clothes too, seeing that there was no fire in the room. The more so, I say, because truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more. But if the tip of your nose or the crown of your head be slightly chilled, why then, indeed, in the general consciousness you feel delightfully and unmistakably warm. For this reason a sleeping apartment should never be furnished with a fire, which is one of the luxurious discomforts of the rich. For the height of this sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blanket between you and your snugness and the cold of the outer air. Then there you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“Well, then, however the old sea-captains may order me about--however they may thump and punch me about, I have the satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is one way or other served in much the same way--either in a physical or metaphysical point of view, that is; and so the universal thump is passed round, and all hands should rub each other's shoulder-blades, and be content.”
― Herman Melville, Moby Dick

“All men live enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life. And if you be a philosopher, though seated in the whale-boat, you would not at heart feel one whit more of terror, than though seated before your evening fire with a poker, and not a harpoon, by your side.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

“People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little.”
― Jean Jacques Rousseau

“Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.”
― H.G. Wells, The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman

“A desk is a dangerous place from which to watch the world.”
― John le Carré, The Honourable Schoolboy

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”
― St. Augustine

“‎Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.”
― Voltaire

“Contradict yourself. In order to live, you must remain broken up.”
― Wyndham Lewis

“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”
― C.S. Lewis

“I'd rather sing one wild song and burst my heart with it, than live a thousand years watching my digestion and being afraid of the wet.”
― Jack London, The Turtles of Tasman

“It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go...”
― Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

“I love mankind ... it's people I can't stand!!”
― Charles M. Schulz

“To die will be an awfully big adventure.”
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

“Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“Down on the lake rosy reflections of celestial vapor appeared, and I said, "God, I love you" and looked to the sky and really meant it. "I have fallen in love with you, God. Take care of us all, one way or the other." To the children and the innocent it's all the same.”
― Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums

“Things are so hard to figure out when you live from day to day in this feverish and silly world. ”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road: The Original Scroll

“The one thing that we yearn for in our living days, that makes us sigh and groan and undergo sweet nauseas of all kinds, is the remembrance of some lost bliss that was probably experienced in the womb and can only be reproduced (though we hate to admit it) in death. But who wants to die?”
― Jack Kerouac

“Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain.”
― Jack Kerouac

“He never went out without a book under his arm, and he often came back with two.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“For if there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.”
― Albert Camus, Summer in Algiers

“There is not love of life without despair about life.”
― Albert Camus, Lyrical and Critical Essays

“You're alive only once, as far as we know, and what could be worse than getting to the end of your life and realizing you hadn't lived it?”
― Edward Albee

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”
― William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

“Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer.”
― Joseph Campbell

“But a mermaid has no tears, and therefore she suffers so much more.”
― Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid