Scott > Scott's Quotes

“People aim for the stars, and they end up like goldfish in a bowl. I wonder if it wouldn't be simpler just to teach children right from the start that life is absurd.”
― Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog

“What makes the strength of a soldier isn't the energy he uses trying to intimidate the other guy by sending him a whole lot of signals, it's the strength he's able to concentrate within himself, by staying centered.”
― Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog

“Do you know that it is in your company that I have had my finest thoughts?”
― Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog

“If you have but one friend, make sure you choose her well.”
― Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog

“The world is dark, and light is precious.
Come closer, dear reader.
You must trust me.
I am telling you a story.”
― Kate DiCamillo, The Tale of Despereaux

“You think when you wake up in the mornin yesterday don't count. But yesterday is all that does count. What else is there? Your life is made out of the days it’s made out of. Nothin else.”
― Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men

“You keep runnin that mouth and I'm goin to take you back there and screw you.”
― Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men

“If there's one thing on this planet you don't look like it's a bunch of good luck walkin around.”
― Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men

“Do you have any notion of how goddamned crazy you are?”
― Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men

“There is no God and we are his prophets.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

“When you die it's the same as if everybody else did too.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

“If trouble comes when you least expect it then maybe the thing to do is to always expect it.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

“Don't let the cat out or the concierge in: this is the first principle of socialist ladies.”
― Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog

“I don't want whatever I want. Nobody does. Not really. What kind of fun would it be if I just got everything I ever wanted just like that, and it didn't mean anything? What then?”
― Neil Gaiman, Coraline

“What's your name,' Coraline asked the cat. 'Look, I'm Coraline. Okay?'
'Cats don't have names,' it said.
'No?' said Coraline.
'No,' said the cat. 'Now you people have names. That's because you don't know who you are. We know who we are, so we don't need names.”
― Neil Gaiman, Coraline

“CORALINE'S STORY
THERE WAS A GIRL HER NAME WAS APPLE. SHE USED TO DANCE A LOT. SHE DANCED AND DANCED UNTIL HER FEET TURND INTO SOSSAJES. THE END.”
― Neil Gaiman, Coraline

“Our only kiss was like an accident- a beautiful gasoline rainbow.”
― Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones

“Because horror on Earth is real and it is every day. It is like a flower or like the sun; it cannot be contained.”
― Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones

“I live my own life and nurse my own wounds. It's not the best way to live. But it's the way I am.”
― Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex

“The essential matrimonial facts: that to be happy you have to find variety in repetition; that to go forward you have to come back to where you begin.”
― Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex

“We stood silent. After a moment I said, "Real Geniuses never think they're geniuses."
"Who says?"
"Me."
"Because why?"
"Because genius is nine-tenths perspiration. Haven't you ever heard that? As soon as you think you're a genius, you slack off. You think everything you do is so great and everything.”
― Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex

“But in the end it wasn't up to me. The bigs things never are. Birth, I mean, and death. And love. And what love bequeaths to us before we're born.”
― Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex

“Planning is for the world's great cities, for Paris, London, and Rome, for cities dedicated, at some level, to culture. Detroit, on the other hand, was an American city and therefore dedicated to money, and so design had given way to expediency.”
― Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex

“Historical fact: People stopped being people in 1913. That was the year Henry Ford put his cars on rollers and made his workers adopt the speed of the assembly line. At first, workers rebelled. They quit in droves, unable to accustom their bodies to the new pace of the age. Since then, however, the adaptation has been passed down: we've all inherited it to some degree, so that we plug right into joy-sticks and remotes, to repetitive motions of a hundred kinds.”
― Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex

“The real point is that you cannot harbor malice toward others and then cry foul when someone displays intolerance against you. Prejudice tolerated is intolerance encouraged. Rise up in righteousness when you witness the words and deeds of hate, but only if you are willing to rise up against them all, including your own. Otherwise suffer the slings and arrows of disrespect silently.”
― Harvey Fierstein