Donna > Donna's Quotes

“The outfield's billiard green: no bare patches, no flowers. The things that are painted white-the sightscreen, the pickets around the boundary-are so white it hurts. The hoses and the boundary line are white. The entire playing surface is perfectly flat and level. And in the middle of the ground, across that wide carpet of perfect grass, the holy of holies.
A turf wicket.”
― Jock Serong, The Rules of Backyard Cricket

“My first glimpse of the Adelaide Oval was given through the Victor Richardson Gates and up the ramp, and there it spread out before me, a green oasis. It was like another world opening up.”
― Barry Nicholls, You Only Get One Innings: Family, Mates and the Wisdom of Cricket

“You get a little moody sometimes but I think that's because you like to read. People that like to read are always a little fucked up.”
― Pat Conroy, The Prince of Tides

“It wasn’t just 1) the artwork and sleeve notes on the album sleeve. It wasn’t 2) the possibility of a hidden track, or a little message carved in the final groove. It wasn’t 3) the mahogany richness of the quality of sound. (But CD sound was clean, the reps argued. It had no surface noise. To which Frank replied, “Clean? What’s music got to do with clean? Where is the humanity in clean? Life has surface noise! Do you want to listen to furniture polish?”) It wasn’t even 4) the ritual of checking the record before carefully lowering the stylus. No, most of all it was about the journey. 5) The journey that an album made from one track to the next, with a hiatus in the middle, when you had to get up and flip the record over in order to finish. With vinyl, you couldn’t just sit there like a lemon. You had to get up off your arse and take part.”
― Rachel Joyce, The Music Shop

“A book, being a physical object, engenders a certain respect that zipping electrons cannot. Because you cannot turn a book off, because you have to hold it in your hands, because a book sits there, waiting for you, whether you think you want it or not, because of all these things, a book is a friend. It’s not just the content, but the physical being of a book that is there for you always and unconditionally.”
― Mo Willems

“The worst thing you can be is a liar. . . . Okay, fine, yes, the worst thing you can be is a Nazi, but then number two is liar. Nazi one, liar two.”
― Justin Halpern (Sh*t My Dad Says)

“Your penis betrayed you, son. Made you think stupid. It won't be the last time that happens.”
― Justin Halpern, Sh*t My Dad Says

“You worry too much. Eat some bacon...what? No, I got no idea if it'll make you feel better, I just made too much bacon.”
― Justin Halpern, Sh*t My Dad Says

“Do people your age know how to comb their fucking hair? It looks like two squirrels crawled on their head and started fucking.”
― Justin Halpern, Sh*t My Dad Says

“You go ahead. I'd rather not be shot out of a tube into a pool filled with a bunch of nine-year-olds' urine.”
― Justin Halpern, Sh*t My Dad Says

“Don't worry, Duffy. I like you. We'll kill you last.”
― Adrian McKinty, I Hear the Sirens in the Street

“The problem with Double Fantasy was the arrangement whereby they alternated John Lennon tracks with Yoko Ono tracks. You couldn’t escape Yoko for more than four minutes at a time.”
― Adrian McKinty, The Cold Cold Ground

“Johnnie Walker in the tea, Jim Beam in the coffee”
― Adrian McKinty, The Cold Cold Ground

“We may sit in our library and yet be in all quarters of the earth.”
― John Lubbock, The Pleasures of Life

“Never lend books, for no one ever returns them; the only books I have in my library are books that other folks have lent me.”
― Anatole France

“A library is like an island in the middle of a vast sea of ignorance, particularly if the library is very tall and the surrounding area has been flooded.”
― Daniel Handler

“I had found my religion: nothing seemed more important to me than a book. I saw the library as a temple.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, The Words: The Autobiography of Jean-Paul Sartre

“Because that's what Hermione does,' said Ron, shrugging. 'When in doubt, go to the library.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

“In a library, no empty shelf remains empty for long.”
― Alberto Manguel, The Library at Night

“Books are the ultimate Dumpees: put them down and they’ll wait for you forever; pay attention to them and they always love you back.”
― John Green, An Abundance of Katherines

“Books are a uniquely portable magic.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.”
― Charles W. Eliot

“Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book.”
― Jane Smiley, Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel

“Reader's Bill of Rights

1. The right to not read

2. The right to skip pages

3. The right to not finish

4. The right to reread

5. The right to read anything

6. The right to escapism

7. The right to read anywhere

8. The right to browse

9. The right to read out loud

10. The right to not defend your tastes”
― Daniel Pennac

“If you go home with somebody, and they don't have books, don't fuck 'em!”
― John Waters

“A good library will never be too neat, or too dusty, because somebody will always be in it, taking books off the shelves and staying up late reading them.”
― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid

“You ease a record from its cover. It's years since you've held one but you do this without thinking. Slide your fingers inside the sleeve, careful not to touch the vinyl. Draw it out. Hear the rustle of paper. Balance it in the span of your palm, the outer rim on your thumb, the label on the tip of your middle finger. As it brushes your wrist, feel the soft static kiss of it. Smooth as liquorice and twice as shiny. Light spills over it like water. Breathe in the new smell.”
― Rachel Joyce, The Music Shop

“Be you writer or reader, it is very pleasant to run away in a book.”
― Jean Craighead George, My Side of the Mountain

“We are not broken things, neither of us. We are cracked pottery mended with laquer and flakes of gold, whole as we are, complete unto each other. Complete and worthy and so very loved.”
― Mackenzi Lee, The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue

“God bless the book people for their boundless knowledge absorbed from having words instead of friends.”
― Mackenzi Lee, The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue