Shawna Sommers > Shawna's Quotes

“I believe a strong woman may be stronger than a man, particularly if she happens to have love in her heart. I guess a loving woman is indestructible.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“He was born in fury and he lived in lightning. Tom came headlong into life. He was a giant in joy and enthusiasms. He didn't discover the world and its people, he created them. When he read his father's books, he was the first. He lived in a world shining and fresh and as uninspected as Eden on the sixth day. His mind plunged like a colt in a happy pasture, and when later the world put up fences, he plunged against the wire, and when the final stockade surrounded him, he plunged right through it and out. And as he was capable of giant joy, so did he harbor huge sorrow.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“Sometimes when she was alone, and she knew she was alone, she permitted her mind to play in a garden, and she smiled.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“When people kill themselves, they think they're ending the pain, but all they're doing is passing it on to those they leave behind.”
― Jeannette Walls

“Daydreaming does not enjoy tremendous prestige in our culture, which tends to regard it as unproductive thought. Writers perhaps appreciate its importance better than most, since a fair amount of what they call work consists of little more than daydreaming edited. Yet anyone who reads for pleasure should prize it too, for what is reading a good book but a daydream at second hand? Unlike any other form of thought, daydreaming is its own reward.”
― Michael Pollan, A Place of My Own: The Education of an Amateur Builder

“You don't even know where I'm going."
"I don't care. I'd like to go anywhere.”
― John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America

“The sad ones are those who waste their energy in trying to hold it back, for they can only feel bitterness in loss and no joy in gain.”
― John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America

“My wife married a man; I saw no reason why she should inherit a baby...I am very fortunate in having a wife who likes being a woman, which means that she likes men, not elderly babies.”
― John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America

“At the roadsides I never had a really good dinner or a really bad breakfast.”
― John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America

“And in my own life I am not willing to trade quality for quantity.”
― John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America

“Emotions, or feelings, have a function. They tell us something. They are a signal....Anger tells us that our boundaries have been violated. Much like a nation's radar defense system, angry feelings serve as an "early warning system" telling us we're in danger of being injured or controlled.”
― Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend

“Life is not a paragraph, and death is no parenthesis.

(This is a reference to an E.E. Cummings poem within the author's work)”
― Paula Hawkins, The Girl on the Train

“Hollowness: that I understand. I'm starting to believe that there isn't anything you can do to fix it. That's what I've taken from the therapy sessions: the holes in your life are permanent. You have to grow around them, like tree roots around concrete; you mold yourself through the gaps”
― Paula Hawkins, The Girl on the Train

“it’s possible to miss what you’ve never had, to mourn for it.”
― Paula Hawkins, The Girl on the Train

“When did you become so weak?” I don’t know. I don’t know where that strength went, I don’t remember losing it. I think that over time it got chipped away, bit by bit, by life, by the living of it.”
― Paula Hawkins, The Girl on the Train

“But then I think, this happens sometimes, doesn’t it? People you have a history with, they won’t let you go, and as hard as you might try, you can’t disentangle yourself, can’t set yourself free. Maybe after a while you just stop trying.”
― Paula Hawkins, The Girl on the Train

“Who's to say that once I run, I'll find that isn't enough? Who's to say I won't end up feeling exactly the way I do right now-not safe, but stifled? Maybe I'll want to run again, and again, and eventually I'll end up back on those old tracks, because there's nowhere left to go. Maybe. Maybe not. You have to take the risk, don't you”
― Paula Hawkins, The Girl on the Train

“I don’t believe in soul mates, but there’s an understanding between us that I just haven’t felt before, or at least, not for a long time. It comes from shared experience, from knowing how it feels to be broken. Hollowness: that I understand. I’m starting to believe that there isn’t anything you can do to fix it. That’s what I’ve taken from the therapy sessions: the holes in your life are permanent. You have to grow around them, like tree roots around concrete; you mould yourself through the gaps.”
― Paula Hawkins, The Girl on the Train

“We buy things we don't need with money we don't have to impress people we don't like.”
― Dave Ramsey, The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness

“If you will live like no one else, later you can live like no one else.”
― Dave Ramsey

“Act your wage.”
― Dave Ramsey

“If it doesn't make sense, it's usually not true.”
― Judge Judy Sheindlin

“I’ve sometimes regretted the women I’ve been.

There have been so many: daughter, sister, cop, tough broad, several kinds of whore, jilted lover, ideal wife, heroine, killer.

I’ll provide the truth of them all, inasmuch as I’m capable of telling the truth.

Keeping secrets, telling lies, they require the same skill. Both become a habit, almost an addiction, that’s hard to break even with the people closest to you, out of the business.

They say never trust a woman who tells you her age; if she can’t keep that secret, she can’t keep yours.

I’m fifty-nine.”
― Becky Masterman

“Remember, confrontation is about reconciliation and awareness, not judgement or anger.”
― Dale Partridge

“We lose ourselves in the things we love. We find ourselves there, too.”
― Kristin Martz

“Fear kills more dreams than failure ever will.”
― Dale Partridge, People Over Profit: Break the System, Live with Purpose, Be More Successful

“I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race - that rarely do I even simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant...I AM HAUNTED BY HUMANS.”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

“A SMALL PIECE OF TRUTH
I do not carry a sickle or scythe.
I only wear a hooded black robe when it's cold.
And I don't have those skull-like facial features you seem to enjoy pinning on me from a distance. You want to know what I truly look like? I'll help you out. Find yourself a mirror while I continue.”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

“Five hundred souls.
I carried them in my fingers, like suitcases. Or I'd throw them over my shoulder. It was only the the children I carried in my arms. ”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

“***HERE IS A SMALL FACT***
You are going to die.”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief