Tony > Tony's Quotes

“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there.

It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.”
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

“Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armour yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“And all the books you've read have been read by other people. And all the songs you've loved have been heard by other people. And that girl that's pretty to you is pretty to other people. and that if you looked at these facts when you were happy, you would feel great because you are describing 'unity.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“The mind self-edits. The mind airbrushes. It's a different thing to be inside a body than outside. From outside, you can look, inspect, compare. From inside there is no comparison.”
― Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex

“I am very interested and fascinated how everyone loves each other, but no one really likes each other.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“Why is it that when one man builds a wall, the next man immediately needs to know what's on the other side?”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“Was there ever a war where only one side bled?”
― George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings

“Perhaps that is the secret. It is not what we do, so much as why we do it.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings

“Sweet smells are sometimes used to cover foul ones.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings

“I just need to know that someone out there listens and understands and doesn't try to sleep with someone even if they could have. I need to know these people exist.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“The greatest fools are ofttimes more clever than the men who laugh at them.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords

“My sister has mistaken me for a mushroom. She keeps me in the dark and feeds me shit.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords

“Only lies offend me, never honest counsel.”
― George R.R. Martin , A Storm of Swords

“Wouldn’t that be an incredibly stupid thing to do? To say ‘I never want to smoke again’, then spend the rest of your life saying ‘I’d love a cigarette.’ That’s what smokers who use the Willpower Method do. No wonder they feel so miserable. They spend the rest of their lives desperately moping for something that they desperately hope they will never have.”
― Allen Carr, Allen Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking: Be a Happy Non-smoker for the Rest of Your Life

“If you really wanted to mess me up, you should have got to me earlier.”
― Nick Hornby, High Fidelity

“It's not what you like but what you are like that's important.”
― Nick Hornby, High Fidelity

“my friends don't seem to be friends at all but people whose phone numbers I haven't lost.”
― Nick Hornby, High Fidelity

“You know how you finish a bag of chips and you hate yourself? You know you’ve done nothing good for yourself. That’s the same feeling, and you know it is, after some digital binge. You feel wasted and hollow and diminished.”
― Dave Eggers, The Circle

“Better to be at the bottom of a ladder you want to climb than in the middle of some ladder you don’t, right?”
― Dave Eggers, The Circle

“You sit at a desk twelve hours a day and you have nothing to show for it except some numbers that won't exist or be remembered in a week. You're leaving no evidence you lived. There's no proof.”
― Dave Eggers, The Circle

“Every time my brain parks the car neatly in the driveway, my mouth drives through the back of the garage.”
― Dave Eggers, The Circle

“He was doing quite well until the last sentence, but if you bare your arse to a vengeful unicorn, the number of possible outcomes dwindles to one.”
― David Mitchell, The Bone Clocks

“... Modesty is Vanity's craftier stepbrother.”
― David Mitchell, The Bone Clocks

“You can hide memories, but you can't erase the history that produced them.”
― Haruki Murakami, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

“Humans often fail to see what is close to them and obvious to others.”
― Graeme Simsion, The Rosie Project

“How can you tell if someone is a vegan? Just wait ten minutes and they’ll tell you.”
― Graeme Simsion, The Rosie Project

“I diagnosed brain overload and set up a spreadsheet to analyze the situation.”
― Graeme Simsion, The Rosie Project

“And we danced, on the brink of an unknown future, to an echo from a vanished past.”
― John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids

“A writer never forgets the first time he accepted a few coins or a word of praise in exchange for a story. He will never forget the sweet poison of vanity in his blood and the belief that, if he succeeds in not letting anyone discover his lack of talent, the dream of literature will provide him with a roof over his head, a hot meal at the end of the day, and what he covets the most: his name printed on a miserable piece of paper that surely will outlive him. A writer is condemned to remember that moment, because from then on he is doomed and his soul has a price.”
― Carlos Ruiz Zafon, The Angel's Game