Amanda > Amanda's Quotes

“A child needs your love most when he deserves it least”
― Erma Bombeck

“Alas,we who wanted kindness, could not be kind ourselves.”
― Bertolt Brecht

“Now it is a strange thing, but things that are good to have and days that are good to spend are soon told about, and not much to listen to; while things that are uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome, may make a good tale, and take a deal of telling anyway.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again

“Bilbo almost stopped breathing, and went stiff himself. He was desperate. He must get away, out of this horrible darkness, while he had any strength left. He must fight. He must stab the foul thing, put its eyes out, kill it. It meant to kill him. No, not a fair fight. He was invisible now. Gollum had no sword. Gollum had not actually threatened to kill him, or tried yet. And he was miserable, alone, lost. A sudden understanding, a pity mixed with horror, welled up in Bilbo’s heart: a glimpse of endless unmarked days without light or hope of betterment, hard stone, cold fish, sneaking and whispering.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again

“What do you want to be when you grow up?"

"Kind," said the boy.”
― Charlie Mackesy, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

“What is the bravest thing you've ever said? asked the boy.
'Help,' said the horse.
'Asking for help isn't giving up,' said the horse. 'It's refusing to give up.”
― Charlie Mackesy, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

“Sometimes I think you believe in me more than I do," said the boy
"You'll catch up," said the horse.”
― Charlie Mackesy, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

“Don't measure how valuable you are by the way you are treated.”
― Charlie Mackesy, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

“I may be a burglar...but I'm an honest one, I hope, more or less.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again

“I am like a burglar that can't get away, but must go on miserably burgling the same house day after day.

—Bilbo Baggins”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again

“There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something (or so Thorin said to the young dwarves). You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

“Then the prophecies of the old songs have turned out to be true, after a fashion!” said Bilbo. “Of course!” said Gandalf. “And why should not they prove true? Surely you don’t disbelieve the prophecies, because you had a hand in bringing them about yourself?”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

“It was a terrible battle. The most dreadful of all Bilbo’s experiences, and the one which at the time he hated most—which is to say it was the one he was most proud of, and most fond of recalling long afterwards, although he was quite unimportant in it. Actually I may say he put on his ring early in the business, and vanished from sight, if not from all danger. A magic ring of that sort is not a complete protection in a goblin charge, nor does it stop flying arrows and wild spears; but it does help in getting out of the way, and it prevents your head from being specially chosen for a sweeping stroke by a goblin swordsman.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit: Or There and Back Again

“Sometimes," said the horse
"Sometimes what?" asked the boy.
"Sometimes just getting up and carrying on is brave and magnificent.”
― Charlie Mackesy, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse / A Poem for Every Night of the Year / A Poem for Every Day of the Year

“I will not be like a bird bred in a cage, I thought, too dull to fly even when the door stands open.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“A picnic. Picture a forest, a country road, a meadow. Cars drive off the country road into the meadow, a group of young people get out carrying bottles, baskets of food, transistor radios, and cameras. They light fires, pitch tents, turn on the music. In the morning they leave. The animals, birds, and insects that watched in horror through the long night creep out from their hiding places. And what do they see? Old spark plugs and old filters strewn around... Rags, burnt-out bulbs, and a monkey wrench left behind... And of course, the usual mess—apple cores, candy wrappers, charred remains of the campfire, cans, bottles, somebody’s handkerchief, somebody’s penknife, torn newspapers, coins, faded flowers picked in another meadow.”
― Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky, Roadside Picnic

“HAPPINESS FOR EVERYBODY, FREE, AND NO ONE WILL GO AWAY UNSATISFIED!”
― Arkady Strugatsky, Roadside Picnic

“You need money so you don’t have to think about money.”
― Arkady Strugatsky, Roadside Picnic

“Pigs can always find mud.”
― Arkady Strugatsky, Roadside Picnic

“Scared, the eggheads. And maybe that's how it should be. They should be even more scared than the rest of us ordinary folks put together. Because we merely don't understand a thing, but they at least understand how much they don't understand. They gaze into this bottomless pit and know that they will inevitably have to climb down - their hearts are racing, but they know that they'll have to do it - except they do not know how or what awaits them at the bottom or, more important, whether they'll be able to get back out.”
― Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky