Sam > Sam's Quotes

“To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.”
― Elie Wiesel, Night

“Reader, do you think it is a terrible thing to hope when there is really no reason to hope at all? Or is it (as the soldier said about happiness) something that you might just as well do, since, in the end, it really makes no difference to anyone but you?”
― Kate DiCamillo, The Tale of Despereaux

“We think we want answers. But what we really want are the right answers. Human nature. We ask questions that we hope will give us the truth we want to hear. The problem is, you can't choose your truths. Truth has a habit of simply being the truth. The only real choice you have is whether to believe it or not.”
― C.J. Tudor, The Chalk Man

“While she cut the mushrooms, she cried more than she had at the grave, the most so far, because she found the saddest thing of all to be the simple truth of her capacity to move on.”
― Aimee Bender, Willful Creatures

“Writing isn't about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it's about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It's about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“please believe that things are good with me, and even when they're not, they will be soon enough. And i will always believe the same about you.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“The problem is that people think in black and white. They think they can have the good without the bad. But everything that's good for one person is probably bad for someone else. Life isn't like the Bible says it is. It isn't a choice between good and evil. It's about choosing which evils you can stand.”
― Krysten Ritter, Bonfire

“If you were a novel, you’d be an adventure of sadness and happiness and love lost in between.”
― Courtney Peppernell, Pillow Thoughts

“A Chinese proverb: Outside of sky there is sky, outside of people there are people. It is the idea of infinity and also that there will always be someone better than you.”
― Weike Wang, Chemistry

“Lionel said as much to me once, how so many of the same people who are quick to empathize with physical disabilities don't understand why someone with depression can't just get up and get on with their day like the rest of the world. It's like they need a receipt that proves someone is actually going through some shit before they care about them.”
― Brandy Colbert, Little & Lion

“What shapes us is not always our achievements but our omissions. Not lies; simply the truths we don’t tell.”
― C.J. Tudor, The Chalk Man

“The faithful often find themselves blindsided. They don't suspect anything because they can't imagine doing something so awful themselves.”
― Cate Holahan, Lies She Told

“I hurt myself deeply, though at the time I had no idea how deeply. I should have learned many things from that experience, but when I look back on it, all I gained was one single, undeniable fact. That ultimately I am a person who can do evil. I never consciously tried to hurt anyone, yet good intentions notwithstanding, when necessity demanded, I could become completely self-centred, even cruel. I was the kind of person who could, using some plausible excuse, inflict on a person I cared for a wound that would never heal.”
― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

“She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

“Nobody's perfect. Well, there was this one guy, but we killed him....”
― Christopher Moore, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal

“Did my mother ever get to see a cicada molting? Did she wish that she could do exact that? Shed her skin and be someone new? There were days when she seemed to transform into something quieter, darker. Her colors deeper but also muted. Both her truer self, and not. Or maybe it wasn't a transformation. Maybe it was a momentary reveal. A peeling back of the protective layers. A sharpening of a pencil, bringing the tip to its most focused point.”
― Emily X.R. Pan, The Astonishing Color of After

“In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.
"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“We never really talked much or even looked at each other, but it didn't matter because we were looking at the same sky together, which is maybe even more intimate than eye contact anyway. I mean, anybody can look at you. It's quite rare to find someone who sees the same world you see.”
― John Green, Turtles All the Way Down

“Why did she have to spend the rest of her life coming out over and over and over...? And once she did, would people always expect her to talk about it? It would always be a huge deal, she would always be subjected to questions, and she would always have to defend herself. Would it ever stop feeling like A Thing, a barrier, between her and everyone else?”
― Claire Kann, Let's Talk About Love

“The feeling that she had never really lived in this world caught her by surprise. It was a fact. She had never lived. Even as a child, as far back as she could remember, she had done nothing but endure. She had believed in her own inherent goodness, her humanity, and lived accordingly, never causing anyone harm. Her devotion to doing things the right way had been unflagging, all her successes had depended on it, and she would have gone on like that indefinitely. She didn't understand why, but faced with those decaying buildings and straggling grasses, she was nothing but a child who had never lived.”
― Han Kang, The Vegetarian

“I'm always amazed at how fast siblings can warp-speed into a state of rage. It's like they keep everything they were ever angry about growing up shoved into an overstuffed emotional closet, and at moments like these, it takes about two seconds to swing the door open and start an avalanche.”
― Katherine Center, How to Walk Away

“It is a common saying that women are delicate creatures, flowers, eggs, anything that may be crushed in a moment's carelessness. If I had ever believed it, I no longer did.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“When something was strange, everyone thought they had the right to come stomping in all over your life to figure out why.”
― Sayaka Murata, Convenience Store Woman

“Just... isn't giving up allowed sometimes? Isn't it okay to say, ‘This really hurts, so I’m going to stop trying’?”
“It sets a dangerous precedent.”
“For avoiding pain?”
“For avoiding life.”
― Rainbow Rowell, Fangirl

“Music comes out of silence and at the end it goes back to it. It's a journey. You see?”
― Rachel Joyce, The Music Shop

“You make sure you do something good with your life, you hear? Something that puts more beauty and more kindness into the world. And be a person of courage, my Kate. With a tender heart but a lot tougher hide.”
― Joy Jordan-Lake, A Tangled Mercy

“The only casting directors who’d be willing to call Tommy in on the basis of this headshot were the ones curious about what it was like to be murdered.”
― Greg Sestero, The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made

“Every great character, Iz, be it on page or screen, is multidimensional. The good guys aren't all good, the bad guys aren't all bad, and any character wholly one or the other shouldn't exist at all. Remember this when I describe the antics that follow, for though I am not a villain, I am not immune to villainy.”
― David Arnold, Mosquitoland

“It is definitely annoying that straight (and white, for that matter) is the default, and that the only people who have to think about their identity are the ones who don't fit that mold. Straight people really should have to come out, and the more awkward it is, the better. Awkwardness should be a requirement.”
― Becky Albertalli, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

“truth didn’t mean anything without someone to share it with; you could shout truth into the air forever, and spend your life doing it, if someone didn’t come and listen.”
― Naomi Novik, Uprooted