Daniel Chen > Daniel's Quotes

“Old stories are like old friends, she used to say. You have to visit them from time to time.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords

“Time goes, you say? Ah, no! Alas, Time stays, we go.”
― Henry Austin Dobson

“The world doesn't make sense until you force it to.”
― Frank Miller

“Sleep is good, he said, and books are better.”
― George R. R. Martin

“Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders.”
― William Faulkner, Light in August

“It is just dawn, daylight: that gray and lonely suspension filled with the peaceful and tentative waking of birds. The air, inbreathed, is like spring water. He breathes deep and slow, feeling with each breath himself diffuse in the natural grayness, becoming one with loneliness and quiet that has never known fury or despair. "That was all I wanted," he thinks, in a quiet and slow amazement. "That was all, for thirty years. That didn't seem to be a whole lot to ask in thirty years.”
― William Faulkner, Light in August

“It is because so much happens. Too much happens. That's it. Man performs, engenders, so much more than he can or should have to bear. That's how he finds that he can bear anything. That's it. That's what is so terrible. That he can bear anything, anything.”
― William Faulkner, Light in August

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“It’s lovely loving, isn’t it? In fact, I find it almost better, because being loved sometimes embarrasses me, but loving is a gift.”
― Sheila Hancock

“Much of what was said did not matter, and that much of what mattered could not be said.”
― Katherine Boo, Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity

“Yea, all things live forever, though at times they sleep and are forgotten.”
― H. Rider Haggard, She

“The human face has limited space. If you fill it with laughter there will be no room for crying.”
― Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance

“The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering.”
― Ben Okri

“The problem with doing nothing is not knowing when you are finished.”
― Nelson De Mille

“I was thinking that if what distinguishes us as humans is our stupidity, what may redeem us is our grace.”
― Earl Lovelace

“The moment you put a deadline on your dream, it becomes a goal.”
― Harsha Bhogle, The Winning Way: Learnings from sport for managers

“During the dry years, the people forgot about the rich years, and when the wet years returned, they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“People like you to be something, preferably what they are.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was a light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach. His song in the Tower had been defiance rather than hope; for then he was thinking of himself. Now, for a moment, his own fate, and even his master’s, ceased to trouble him. He crawled back into the brambles and laid himself by Frodo’s side, and putting away all fear he cast himself into a deep untroubled sleep.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

“There is more beauty in truth, even if it is a dreadful beauty. The storytellers at the city gate twist life so that it looks sweet to the lazy and the stupid and the weak, and this only strengthens their infirmities and teaches nothing, cures nothing, nor does it let the heart soar.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don't we consider it his duty to escape?”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

“But in the end it's only a passing thing, this shadow; even darkness must pass.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

“Sam was the only member of the party who had not been over the river before. He had a strange feeling as the slow gurgling stream slipped by: his old life lay behind in the mists, dark adventure lay in front.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

“I'm not saying that everything is survivable. Just that everything except the last thing is.”
― John Green, Paper Towns

“I like shape very much. A novel has to have shape, and life doesn't have any. ”
― Jean Rhys, Smile Please: An Unfinished Autobiography

“Saruman believes it is only great power that can hold evil in check. But that is not what I have found. I have found that it is the small things, everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Simple acts of kindness and love.”
― Peter Jackson

“Well, I am going back into the open air, to see what the wind and sky are doing!”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

“I was talking aloud to myself. A habit of the old: they choose the wisest person present to speak to”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

“Together we will take the road that leads into the West,
And far away will find a land where both our hearts may rest.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

“The more you try to be interested in other people, the more you find out about yourself.”
― Thea Astley