Cynthia Shannon > Cynthia's Quotes

“That's the problem with living in New York. You've got no New York to run away to.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“Champagne, if you are seeking the truth, is better than a lie detector.”
― Graham Greene

“We are each the love of someone's life.”
― Andrew Sean Greer, The Confessions of Max Tivoli

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein

“There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”
― W. Somerset Maugham

“The more you leave out, the more you highlight what you leave in.”
― Henry Green

“Don't ever think I fell for you, or fell over you. I didn't fall in love, I rose in it.”
― Toni Morrison, Jazz

“A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down. If it is a good book nothing can hurt him. If it is a bad book nothing can help him.”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay

“Activism is acting on your values—practical activism means being smart about it.”
― Julia Turshen, Feed the Resistance: Recipes + Ideas for Getting Involved

“Our lives aren't meant to be fast and functional, like my weekday life had become. Our lives were created to be vibrant--enriched with the foods that make us feel like we’re truly living, to the very fullest.”
― Sarah Copeland, Every Day Is Saturday: Recipes and Strategies for Easy Cooking, Every Day of the Week

“The pull of our roots can be such a strong force, no matter how far or wide we may roam.”
― Lauren McDuffie, Smoke, Roots, Mountain, Harvest: Recipes and Stories Inspired by My Appalachian Home

“Cookies are the cornerstone of pastry. But for many of us, they are also at the core of our memories, connecting our palate to our person. Cookies wait for us after school, anxious for little ones to emerge from a bus and race through the door. They fit themselves snugly in boxes, happy to be passed out to neighbors on cold Christmas mornings; trays of them line long tables, mourning the loss of the dearly departed. While fancy cakes and tarts walk the red carpet, their toasted meringue piles, spun sugar, and chocolate curls boasting of rich rewards that often fail to sustain, cookies simply whisper knowingly. Instead of pomp and flash, they offer us warm blankets and cozy slippers. They slip us our favorite book, they know the lines to our favorite movies. They laugh at our jokes, they stay in for the night. They are good friends, they are kind words. They are not jealous, conceited, or proud. They evoke a giving spirit, a generous nature. They beg to be shared, and rejoice in connection. Cookies are home.”
― Sarah Kieffer, 100 Cookies: The Baking Book for Every Kitchen, with Classic Cookies, Novel Treats, Brownies, Bars, and More

“THOMASINA: ....the enemy who burned the great library of Alexandria without so much as a fine for all that is overdue. Oh, Septimus! -- can you bear it? All the lost plays of the Athenians! Two hundred at least by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides -- thousands of poems -- Aristotle's own library!....How can we sleep for grief?

SEPTIMUS: By counting our stock. Seven plays from Aeschylus, seven from Sophocles, nineteen from Euripides, my lady! You should no more grieve for the rest than for a buckle lost from your first shoe, or for your lesson book which will be lost when you are old. We shed as we pick up, like travellers who must carry everything in their arms, and what we let fall will be picked up by those behind. The procession is very long and life is very short. We die on the march. But there is nothing outside the march so nothing can be lost to it. The missing plays of Sophocles will turn up piece by piece, or be written again in another language. Ancient cures for diseases will reveal themselves once more. Mathematical discoveries glimpsed and lost to view will have their time again. You do not suppose, my lady, that if all of Archimedes had been hiding in the great library of Alexandria, we would be at a loss for a corkscrew?”
― Tom Stoppard, Arcadia