Verna > Verna's Quotes

“It is the absence of facts that frightens people: the gap you open, into which they pour their fears, fantasies, desires.”
― Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall

“The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.”
― Anna Quindlen

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”
― Mae West

“Don’t walk in front of me… I may not follow
Don’t walk behind me… I may not lead
Walk beside me… just be my friend”
― Albert Camus

“Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Everything you can imagine is real.”
― Pablo Picasso

“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”
― Pablo Picasso

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

“Relearn astonishment.”
― Elias Canetti

“There is no sinner like a young saint.”
― Aphra Behn

“I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow; but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.”
― Agatha Christie

“Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.”
― Guillaume Apollinaire

“Joy came always after pain.”
― Guillaume Apollinaire

“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.”
― Dalai Lama XIV

“Happiness [is] only real when shared”
― Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

“The worst part of success is trying to find someone who is happy for you.”
― Bette Midler

“When you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.”
― William Saroyan

“Between memory and reality there are awkward discrepancies...”
― Eileen Chang

“For to know a man's library is, in some measure, to know his mind.”
― Geraldine Brooks, March

“Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Song of Ice and Fire, 5-Book Boxed Set: A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows, A Dance with Dragons

“Don't you think it's better to be extremely happy for a short while, even if you lose it, than to be just okay for your whole life?”
― Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife

“Life is mostly froth and bubble,
Two things stand like stone.
Kindness in another's trouble,
Courage in your own.”
― Adam Lindsay Gordon

“Do you think that I count the days? There is only one day left, always starting over: it is given to us at dawn and taken away from us at dusk.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre

“I have possessed that heart, that noble soul, in whose presence I seemed to be more than I really was, because I was all that I could be.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 6: Fables & Reflections

“There's so much to be grateful for, words are poor things.”
― Marilynne Robinson, Home

“That luminous part of you that exists beyond personality–your soul, if you will–is as bright and shining as any that has ever been....Clear away everything that keeps you separate from this secret luminous place. Believe it exists, come to know it better, nurture it, share its fruits tirelessly.”
― George Saunders

“What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?”
― George Eliot