Bea > Bea's Quotes

“And as far as I can see the world is too old for us to talk about it with our new words ― We will pass just as quietly through life (passing through, passing through) as the 10th century people of this valley only with a little more noise and a few bridges and dams and bombs that wont even last a million years ― The world being just what it is, moving and passing through, actually alright in the long view and nothing to complain about.”
― Jack Kerouac, Big Sur

“I am constantly trying to communicate something incommunicable, to explain something inexplicable, to tell about something I only feel in my bones and which can only be experienced in those bones. Basically it is nothing other than this fear we have so often talked about, but fear spread to everything, fear of the greatest as of the smallest, fear, paralyzing fear of pronouncing a word, although this fear may not only be fear but also a longing for something greater than all that is fearful.”
― Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena

“Query: How contrive not to waste one's time?
Answer: By being fully aware of it all the while.
Ways in which this can be done: By spending one's days on an uneasy chair in a dentist's waiting-room; by remaining on one's balcony all of a Sunday afternoon; by listening to lectures in a language on doesn't know; by traveling by the longest and least-convenient train routes, and of course standing all the way; by lining up at the box-office of theaters and then not buying a seat; and so forth.”
― Albert Camus

“Lying mouth to mouth, kiss to kiss in the pillow dark, loin to loin in unbelievable surrendering sweetness so distant from all our mental fearful abstractions it makes you wonder why men have termed God antisexual somehow (p. 148)”
― Jack Kerouac, Big Sur

“I privately say to you old friend (unto you, really, I'm afraid), please accept from me this unpretentious bouquet of early-blooming parenthesis: (((( )))). I suppose, most unflorally, I truly mean them to be taken, first off as bow-legged--buckle-legged--omens of my state of mind and body at this writing.”
― J.D. Salinger, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters & Seymour: An Introduction

“I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“And he took her in his arms and kissed her under the sunlit sky, and he cared not that they stood high upon the walls in the sight of many.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“There was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep on rolling under the stars.”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road: The Original Scroll

“I am not an angel," I asserted; "and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“It was written I should be loyal to the nightmare of my choice.”
― Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

“By the time it came to the edge of the Forest, the stream had grown up, so that it was almost a river, and, being grown-up, it did not run and jump and sparkle along as it used to do when it was younger, but moved more slowly. For it knew now where it was going, and it said to itself, “There is no hurry. We shall get there some day.” But all the little streams higher up in the Forest went this way and that, quickly, eagerly, having so much to find out before it was too late.”
― A.A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner

“A self is not something static, tied up in a pretty parcel and handed to the child, finished and complete. A self is always becoming.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, A Circle of Quiet

“You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.”
― Madeleine L'Engle

“The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been.”
― Madeleine L'Engle

“Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.”
― Madeleine L'Engle

“Part of doing something is listening. We are listening. To the sun. To the stars. To the wind.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, Swiftly Tilting Planet

“If an offense come out of the truth, better is it that the offense come than that the truth be concealed.”
― Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles

“It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

“A man's silence is wonderful to listen to.”
― thomas hardy

“Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.”
― Robert A. Heinlein

“I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

“Being a woman is a terribly difficult trade since it consists principally of dealings with men.”
― Joseph Conrad, Chance

“We live as we dream--alone....”
― Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

“Your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others.”
― Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

“Droll thing life is -- that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself -- that comes too late -- a crop of inextinguishable regrets.”
― Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

“Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh

“To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh

“People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh

“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child—our own two eyes. All is a miracle.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation

“The seed of suffering in you may be strong, but don't wait until you have no more suffering before allowing yourself to be happy.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation