David > David's Quotes

“Optimumque est, ut volgo dixere, aliena insania frui. And the best plan is, as the popular saying was, to profit by the folly of others. Pliny the Elder, Historia Naturalis”
― Robert Galbraith, The Cuckoo's Calling

“How easy it was to capitalize on a person’s own bent for self-destruction; how simple to nudge them into non-being, then to stand back and shrug and agree that it had been the inevitable result of a chaotic, catastrophic life.”
― Robert Galbraith, The Cuckoo's Calling

“I am become a name.”
― Robert Galbraith, The Cuckoo's Calling

“The tears that heal are also the tears that scald and scourge.”
― Stephen King, The Shining

“But Olwë answered: ‘We renounce no friendship. But it may be the part of a friend to rebuke a friend’s folly.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion

“These rapid scribbles, the pixels arranged by fingers henceforth forever still, acquired the macabre aspect of husks.”
― J.K. Rowling, The Casual Vacancy

“The mistake ninety-nine percent of humanity made, as far as Fats could see, was being ashamed of what they were; lying about it, trying to be somebody else. Honesty was Fats’ currency, his weapon and defense. It frightened people when you were honest; it shocked them.”
― J.K. Rowling, The Casual Vacancy

“But who could bear to know which stars were already dead, she thought, blinking up at the night sky; could anybody stand to know that they all were?”
― J.K. Rowling, The Casual Vacancy

“the power to cause pain is the only power that matters, the power to kill and destroy, because if you can't kill then you are always subject to those who can, and nothing and one will ever save you.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game

“I carry the seeds of death within me and plant them wherever I linger long enough to love.”
― Orson Scott Card, Speaker for the Dead

“No human being, when you understand his desires, is worthless. No one’s life is nothing. Even the most evil of men and women, if you understand their hearts, had some generous act that redeems them, at least a little, from their sins.”
― Orson Scott Card, Speaker for the Dead

“Twisted and perverse are the ways of the human mind," Jane intoned. "Pinocchio was such a dolt to try to become a real boy. He was much better off with a wooden head.”
― Orson Scott Card, Speaker for the Dead

“Telling the story of who she was, and then realizing that she was no longer the same person. That she had made a mistake, and the mistake had changed her, and now she would not make the mistake again because she had become someone else, someone less afraid, someone more compassionate.”
― Orson Scott Card, Speaker for the Dead

“I think we’ve taken a step toward something truly magnificent. But humankind almost never forgives true greatness.”
― Orson Scott Card, Speaker for the Dead

“And that's as sure as we ever are of anything. We believe it enough to act as though it's true. When we'r'e that sure, we call it knowledge. Facts. We bet our lives on it.”
― Orson Scott Card, Speaker for the Dead

“As long as you keep getting born, it's all right to die sometimes”
― Orson Scott Card, Speaker for the Dead

“And that's the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too.”
― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

“All those pathetic lonely people fooling one another into their clumsy games of afterlife and cosmic relevance just to avoid noticing the nauseating sadness of their real lives.”
― Edgar Cantero, The Supernatural Enhancements

“Like so many unhappinesses, this one had begun with silence in the place of honest open talk.”
― Ira Levin, Rosemary's Baby

“They had loved each other, but never slept together. Valentine had been pleased to hear it when Miro told her, though he said it with angry regret. Valentine had long ago observed that in a society that expected chastity and fidelity, like Lusitania, the adolescents who controlled and channeled their youthful passions were the ones who grew up to be both strong and civilized. Adolescents in such a community who were either too weak to control themselves or too contemptuous of society’s norms to try usually ended up being either sheep or wolves—either mindless members of the herd or predators who took what they could and gave nothing.”
― Orson Scott Card, Xenocide

“When you have wisdom that another person knows that he needs, you give it freely. But when the other person doesn't yet know that he needs your wisdom you keep it to yourself. Food only looks good to a hungry man.”
― Orson Scott Card, Xenocide

“This is why whoever is not afraid of the devil can tear out his hair and win the entire world.”
― Jacob Grimm, The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm: The Complete First Edition

“Don’t adventures ever have an end? I suppose not. Someone else always has to carry on the story.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

“Changing the world is good for those who want their names in books. But being happy, that is for those who write their names in the lives of others, and hold the hearts of others as the treasure most dear.”
― Orson Scott Card, Children of the Mind

“How I wish you could have kept on living such a life of joy. But no one can. Language comes to us, and with it lies and threats, cruelty and disappointment. You walk, and those steps lead you outside the shelter of your home. To keep the joy of childhood you would have to die as a child, or live as one, never becoming a man, never growing.”
― Orson Scott Card, Children of the Mind