Tracy > Tracy's Quotes

“For what can be imagined more beautiful than the sight of a perfectly just city rejoicing in justice alone.”
― Mark Helprin, Winter's Tale

“The shortest unit of time in the multiverse is the New York Second, defined as the period of time between the traffic lights turning green and the cab behind you honking.”
― Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies

“The Librarian was not familiar with love, which had always struck him as a bit ethereal and soppy, but kindness, on the other hand, was practical. You knew where you were with kindness, especially if you were holding a pie it had just given you.”
― Terry Pratchett, Unseen Academicals

“What fresh hell is this?”
― Dorothy Parker, The Portable Dorothy Parker

“Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn't matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough.”
― Richard P. Feynman

“The site was a palimpsest, as was all the city, written, erased, rewritten.”
― Teju Cole, Open City

“We owe ourselves our lives.”
― Teju Cole, Open City

“Do you think that I count the days? There is only one day left, always starting over: it is given to us at dawn and taken away from us at dusk.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre

“Not surprisingly, he began to sing, and because no one in the world could hear him, and he sang without inhibition, he sang well.”
― Mark Helprin, Winter's Tale

“I never said nothing..."
"I know you never! I could hear you not saying anything! You've got the loudest silences I ever did hear from anyone who wasn't dead!”
― Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies

“You couldn’t set out to be a good witch or a bad witch. It never worked for long. All you could try to be was a witch, as hard as you could.”
― Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies

“Wealthier countries have the luxury of entertaining fears the rest of the world cannot afford.”
― Eula Biss, On Immunity: An Inoculation

“A trust—in the sense of a valuable asset placed in the care of someone to whom it does not ultimately belong—captures, more or less, my understanding of what it is to have a child.”
― Eula Biss, On Immunity: An Inoculation

“The Patrician took a sip of his beer. “I have told this to few people, gentlemen, and I suspect I never will again, but one day when I was a young boy on holiday in Uberwald I was walking along the bank of a stream when I saw a mother otter with her cubs. A very endearing sight, I’m sure you will agree, and even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued and dragged on to a half-submerged log. As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split and I remember to this day the sweet pinkness of its roes as they spilled out, much to the delight of the baby otters, who scrambled over themselves to feed on the delicacy. One of nature’s wonders, gentlemen: mother and children dining on mother and children. And that’s when I first learned about evil. It is built into the nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior.”
― Terry Pratchett, Unseen Academicals

“The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue.”
― Dorothy Parker

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”
― Mae West

“In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.”
― Robert Frost

“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“AAaargwannawannaaaagongongonaargggaaaaBLOON!" which is the traditional sound of a very small child learning that with balloons, as with life itself, it is important to know when not to let go of the string. The whole point of balloons is to teach small children this.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“Now that’s what I call magic—seein’ all that, dealin’ with all that, and still goin’ on. It’s sittin’ up all night with some poor old man who’s leavin’ the world, taking away such pain as you can, comfortin’ their terror, seein’ ‘em safely on their way…and then cleanin’ ‘em up, layin’ ‘em out, making ‘em neat for the funeral, and helpin’ the weeping widow strip the bed and wash the sheets—which is, let me tell you, no errand for the fainthearted—and stayin’ up the next night to watch over the coffin before the funeral, and then going home and sitting down for five minutes before some shouting angry man comes bangin’ on your door ‘cuz his wife’s havin’ difficulty givin’ birth to their first child and the midwife’s at her wits’ end and then getting up and fetching your bag and going out again…We all do that, in our own way, and she does it better’n me, if I was to put my hand on my heart. That is the root and heart and soul and center of witchcraft, that is. The soul and center!”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“It's an unfair world, Child. Be glad you have friends.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“The R is the wrong way roond and you left the A and a Y out of Anybody,' said Jeannie, because it is a wife's job to stop her husband actually exploding with pride.

'Ach, wumman, I didna' ken which way the fat man wuz walkin',' said Rob, airly waving a hand. 'Ye canna trust the fat man. That's the kind of thing us nat'ral writin' folk knows about. One day he might walk this way, next day he might walk that way.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“You couldn't say: It's not my fault. You couldn't say: It's not my responsibility.
You could say: I will deal with this.
You didn't have to want to. But you had to do it.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“She collected silence like other people collected strings. But she had a way of saying nothing that said it all.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“Tiffany’s father didn’t cry but gave her a silver dollar and rather gruffly told her to be sure to write home every week, which is a man’s way of crying.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“Cherish your old apartments and pause for a moment when you pass them. Pay tribute, for they are the caretakers for your reinventions.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Colossus of New York

“The city knows you better than any living person because it has seen you when you are alone.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Colossus of New York

“New York City does not hold our former selves against us. Perhaps we can extend the same courtesy.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Colossus of New York

“Maybe we become New Yorkers the day we realize that New York will go on without us.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Colossus of New York