Virginia > Virginia's Quotes

“The characters in my novels are my own unrealized possibilities. That is why I am equally fond of them all and equally horrified by them. Each one has crossed a border that I myself have circumvented. It is that crossed border which attracts me most. For beyond that border begins the secret the novel asks about.”
― Milan Kundera

“Every moment happens twice: inside and outside, and they are two different histories.”
― Zadie Smith, White Teeth

“Sometimes, I feel the past and the future pressing so hard on either side that there's no room for the present at all.”
― Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited

“The important thing in writing is the capacity to astonish. Not shock—shock is a worn-out word—but astonish.”
― Terry Southern

“Perhaps the future belongs to magic, and it's we women who control magic.”
― J. G. Ballard, Rushing to Paradise

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”
― E.E. Cummings

“There are no wrong turnings. Only paths we had not known we were meant to walk.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, Tigana

“We need, in love, to practice only this: letting each other go. For holding on comes easily; we do not need to learn it.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Translations from the Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke

“I can’t write without a reader. It’s precisely like a kiss—you can’t do it alone.”
― John Cheever

“A man must dream a long time in order to act with grandeur, and dreaming is nursed in darkness.”
― Jean Genet

“It was only a phrase that went from mouth to mouth and was never quite swallowed.”
― Ismail Kadare, Broken April

“Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant filled with odd little waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don't always like.”
― Lemony Snicket

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

“May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.”
― George Carlin

“Ideas aren't magical; the only tricky part is holding on to one long enough to get it written down. ”
― Lynn Abbey