Mish > Mish's Quotes

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“You've got to find yourself first. Everything else'll follow.”
― Charles de Lint, Dreams Underfoot

“Stupid dreams. Even the good ones are bad, because they remind you how poorly reality measures up.”
― Neal Shusterman, Unwind

“What I mean by an educated taste is someone who has the same tastes that I have.”
― Edward Albee

“I don't think the world is the way we like to think it is. I don't think it's one solid world, but many, thousands upon thousands of them--as many as there are people--because each person perceives the world in his or her own way; each lives in his or her own world. Sometimes they connect, for a moment, or more rarely, for a lifetime, but mostly we are alone, each living in our own world, suffering our small deaths.”
― Charles de Lint, Dreams Underfoot

“What are all these?" Clary asked.
"Vials of holy water, blessed knives, steel and silver blades," Jace said, piling the weapons on the floor beside him, "electrum wire - not much use at the moment but it's always good to have spares - silver bullets, charms of protetion, crucifixes, stars of David-"
"Jesus," said Clary
"I doubt he'd fit."
"Jace." Clary was appalled.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Bones

“Did you ever think that in a past life Alec was an old woman with ninety cats who was always yelling at the neighborhood kids to get off her lawn? Because I do,”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Glass

“That's why when major badasses greet each other in movies, they don't say anything, they just nod. The nod means, 'I' am a badass, and I recognize that you, too, are a badass,' but they don't say anything because they're Wolverine and Magneto and it would mess up their vibe to explain.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Bones

“You should date a girl who reads.
Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.”
― Rosemarie Urquico

“I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but first impressions are often entirely wrong.”
― Lemony Snicket, The Bad Beginning

“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”
― C.S. Lewis

“A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition.”
― Henry Miller, The Books in My Life

“Books. Cats. Life is Good.”
― Edward Gorey

“You don't have anything
if you don't have the stories.”
― Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony

“I tried to be a better person for her– but it was to impress her, to get her to want me. But when I’m around you, I want to be better because… well, because it feels right. Because I want to. You make me want to become something greater than myself. I want to excel. You inspire me in every act, every word, every glance. I look at you, and you’re like… like light made into flesh. […] You have no clue how beautiful you are or how brightly you shine.”
― Richelle Mead, The Golden Lily

“Rose once told me about this poem she’d read. There was this line, ‘If your eyes weren’t open, you wouldn’t know the difference between dreaming and waking.’ You know what I’m afraid of? That someday, even with my eyes open, I still won’t know.”
― Richelle Mead

“Find you, love you, marry you, and live without shame.”
― Ian McEwan, Atonement

“Because I can't help doing it," he said with a shrug. "And hey, if I keep loving you, maybe you'll eventually crack and love me too. Hell, I'm pretty sure you're already half in love with me."

"I am not! And everything you just said is ridiculous. That's terrible logic."

Adrian returned to his crossword puzzle. "Well, you can think what you want, so long as you remember-no matter how ordinary things seem between us-I'm still here, still in love with you, and care about you more than any other guy, evil or otherwise, ever will."

"I don't think you're evil."

"See? Things are already looking promising.”
― Richelle Mead, The Indigo Spell

“You're not as much of a lost cause as she was. I mean, with her, I had to overcome her deep, epic love with a Russian warlord. You and I just have to overcome hundreds of years' worth of deeply ingrained prejudice and taboo between our two races. Easy.”
― Richelle Mead, The Indigo Spell

“It means 'Shadowhunters: Looking Better in Black Than the Widows of our Enemies Since 1234'.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Bones

“People aren't born good or bad. Maybe they're born with tendencies either way, but its the way you live your life that matters.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Glass

“One must always be careful of books," said Tessa, "and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Angel

“It's all right to love someone who doesn't love you back, as long as they're worth you loving them. As long as they deserve it.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Angel

“It was books that made me feel that perhaps I was not completely alone. They could be honest with me, and I with them.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince

“If no one in the entire world cared about you, did you really exist at all?”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Angel

“Becoming fearless isn't the point. That's impossible. It's learning how to control your fear, and how to be free from it.”
― Veronica Roth, Divergent

“Fear doesn't shut you down; it wakes you up”
― Veronica Roth, Divergent

“Wishes are false. Hope is true. Hope makes its own magic.”
― Laini Taylor, Daughter of Smoke & Bone

“I know that the whole point—the only point—is to
find the things that matter, and hold on to them, and fight for them, and refuse to
let them go.”
― Lauren Oliver, Delirium

“What a slut time is. She screws everybody.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars