GraceAnne > GraceAnne's Quotes

“Living as a couple never means that each gets half. You must take turns at giving more than getting. It’s not the same as a bow to the other whether to dine out rather than in, or which one gets massaged that evening with oil of calendula; there are seasons in the life of a couple that function, I think, a little like a night watch. One stands guard, often for a long time, providing the serenity in which the other can work at something. Usually that something is sinewy and full of spines. One goes inside the dark place while the other one stays outside, holding up the moon.”
― Marlena De Blasi, A Thousand Days in Venice

“There is no such thing as a soulmate…and who would want there to be? I don’t want half of a shared soul. I want my own damn soul.”

Ely in Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss List Rachel Cohn and David Levithan”
― Rachel Cohn, Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“Buffy Summers: (to Spike) "I could NEVER be your girl!”
― Buffy the Vampire Slayer writers

“Anne Lamott’s priest friend Tom, how to get through:
"Left foot, right foot, left foot, breathe," he said. "Right foot, left foot, right foot, breathe."
Salon April 25, 2003”
― Anne Lamott

“Peace is joy at rest. Joy is peace on its feet.”
― Anne Lamott

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
― Mary Oliver

“A well-chosen book saves you from everything, including yourself.”
― Daniel Pennac, The Rights of the Reader

“He was a big talker, someone who liked words for words' sake, the sound of them, the way you can pile them up in your mouth and make a poem if you speill them out the right way.
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― Frances O'Roark Dowell, Shooting the Moon

“the calling of the teacher. There is no craft more privileged. To awaken in another human being powers, dreams beyond one’s own; to induce in others a love for that which one loves; to make of one’s inward present their future; that is a threefold adventure like no other.”
― George Steiner, Lessons of the Masters

“Some people are born empty. All manner of good deeds and patience and loving kindness can't even begin to fill them up.”
― Marlena De Blasi, That Summer in Sicily: A Love Story

“Gale is mine. I am his. Anything else is unthinkable.”
― Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire

“People who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader and the Imagination

“This is. And thou art. There is no safety. There is no end. The word must be heard in silence. There must be darkness to see the stars. The dance is always danced above the hollow place, above the terrible abyss.”
― Ursula K. LeGuin, The Farthest Shore

“When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep.”
― Ursula K. LeGuin, The Left Hand of Darkness

“Time and trouble will tame an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, Clouds of Witness

“Summer night--
even the stars
are whispering to each other.”
― Kobayashi Issa

“Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.”
― Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

“Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.”
― Voltaire

“I can’t write without a reader. It’s precisely like a kiss—you can’t do it alone.”
― John Cheever

“In order to rise
From its own ashes
A phoenix
First
Must
Burn.”
― Octavia Butler, Parable of the Talents

“Tonight’s December thirty-first,
Something is about to burst.
The clock is crouching, dark and small,
Like a time bomb in the hall.
Hark, it's midnight, children dear.
Duck! Here comes another year!”
― Ogden Nash, Collected Verse from 1929 On

“My brother has his sword, King Robert has his warhammer and I have my mind...and a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone if it is to keep its edge. That's why I read so much Jon Snow.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“The truth is like a lion; you don’t have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself.”
― Augustine of Hippo

“When you are growing up there are two institutional places that affect you most powerfully: the church, which belongs to God, and the public library, which belongs to you. The public library is a great equalizer.”
― Keith Richards

“I have drunken deep of joy,
And I will taste no other wine tonight.”
― Percy Bysshe Shelley

“We don’t need a list of rights and wrongs, tables of dos and don’ts: we need books, time, and silence. Thou shalt not is soon forgotten, but Once upon a time lasts forever.”
― Philip Pullman

“Books are the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries, hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent. What I wonder is why everybody doesn't carry a book around for those inevitable dead spots in life.”
― Stephen King

“Peter Lake had no illusions about mortality. He knew that it made everyone perfectly equal, and that the treasures of the earth were movement, courage, laughter, and love. The wealthy could not buy these things. On the contrary, they were for the taking.”
― Mark Helprin, Winter's Tale

“Walking. I am listening to a deeper way. Suddenly all my ancestors are behind me. Be still, they say. Watch and listen. You are the result of the love of thousands.”
― Linda Hogan