maeaw > maeaw's Quotes

“There is no such thing as a good influence. Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtures are not real to him. His sins, if there are such thing as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of someone else's music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Nothing happens until something moves.”
― Albert Einstein

“We came to see Jace. Is he alright?"
"I don't know," Magnus said. "Does he normally just lie on the floor like that without moving?”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Ashes

“Each person who ever was or is or will be has a song. It isn't a song that anybody else wrote. It has its own melody, it has its own words. Very few people get to sing their song. Most of us fear that we cannot do it justice with our voices, or that our words are too foolish or too honest, or too odd. So people live their song instead.”
― Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys

“Black as night, sweet as sin.”
― Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys

“I am frightened of nothing."
"Nothing?"
"Nothing."
"Are you extremely frightened of nothing?"
"Absolutely terrified of it."
"I have nothing in my pockets. Would you like to see it?"
"No, I most definitely would not.”
― Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys

“The important thing about songs is that they're just like stories. They don't mean a damn unless there's people listenin' to them.”
― Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys

“Anyone who calls you "little lady" has already excluded you from the set of people worth listening to.”
― Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys

“It begins, as most things begin, with a song. In the beginning, after all, were the words, and they came with a tune. That was how the world was made, how the void was divided, how the lands and the stars and the dreams and the little gods and the animals, how all of them came into the world. They were sung.
The great beasts were sung into existence, after the Singer had done with the planets and the hills and the trees and the oceans and the lesser beasts. The cliffs that bound existence were sung, and the hunting grounds, and the dark.
Songs remain. They last. The right song can turn an emperor into a laughingstock, can bring down dynasties. A song can last long after the events and the people in it are dust and dreams and gone. That's the power of songs.”
― Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys

“There was something odd for him about not feeling lonely. The very fact that he had ceased to be lonely caused him to fear the possibility of becoming lonely again.”
― Haruki Murakami, Tony Takitani

“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“To define is to limit.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“I am too fond of reading books to care to write them.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“I am tired of myself tonight. I should like to be somebody else.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“What fire does not destroy, it hardens”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Was his memory failing or had he so disciplined it in the repression of unpleasant facts that he had damaged his sense of the truth?”
― John Cheever, The Swimmer