Lara Searcy > Lara's Quotes

“When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young.”
― Maya Angelou

“You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope...I have loved none but you.”
― Jane Austen, Persuasion

“I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others. Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice, indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating, in F. W.

I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look, will be enough to decide whether I enter your father's house this evening or never.”
― Jane Austen, Persuasion

“I cannot let you burn me up, nor can I resist you. No mere human can stand in a fire and not be consumed.”
― A.S. Byatt, Possession

“I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.”
― Haim G. Ginott, Teacher and Child: A Book for Parents and Teachers

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
― Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles"

“You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching,
Love like you'll never be hurt,
Sing like there's nobody listening,
And live like it's heaven on earth.”
― William W. Purkey

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.”
― Mark Twain

“The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.”
― Mark Twain

“Why blame the dark for being dark? It is far more helpful to ask why the light isn’t as bright as it could be.”
― Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith

“God has spoken, and everything else is commentary.”
― Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith

“Love Wins”
― Rob Bell

“You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”
― Dr. Seuss

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

“And always John, who is my own Gilbert Blythe, my real life Mr. Darcy, and the love of my life.”
― Lindsay Eland

“I have never heard a more eloquent silence.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak

“Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“Love her, love her, love her! If she favours you, love her. If she wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to pieces – and as it gets older and stronger, it will tear deeper – love her, love her, love her!”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“The unqualified truth is, that when I loved Estella with the love of a man, I loved her simply because I found her irresistible. Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be. Once for all; I love her none the less because I knew it, and it had no more influence in restraining me, than if I had devoutly believed her to be human perfection.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“It is the nature of man to rise to greatness if greatness is expected of him.”
― John Steinbeck

“Afterwards, when it's all over, you meet God. What do you say to God?”
― Yann Martel, Beatrice and Virgil

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“You have been the last dream of my soul.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“I love your daughter fondly, dearly, disninterestedly, devotedly. If ever there were love in the world, I love her.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“REMEMBER HOW STRONG WE ARE IN OUR HAPPINESS, AND HOW WEAK HE IS IN IS MISERY!”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“The novels we read allow us to encounter possible persons, versions of ourselves hat we would never see, never permit ourselves to see, never permit ourselves to become, in places we can never go and might not care to, while assuring that we get to return home again”
― Thomas C. Foster, How to Read Novels Like a Professor: A Jaunty Exploration of the World's Favorite Literary Form

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.”
― Heraclitus

“She would defend herself, saying that love, no matter what else it might be, was a natural talent. She would say: You are either born knowing how, or you never know.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera