Kristen > Kristen's Quotes

“It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.”
― William Shakespeare

“We know what we are, but not what we may be.”
― William Shakespeare

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
― William Shakespear, Hamlet

“I pray you, do not fall in love with me, for I am falser than vows made in wine.”
― William Shakespeare, As You Like It

“If you never saw the stars, candles were enough.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Dream Thieves

“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“If You Forget Me

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.”
― Pablo Neruda

“A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth.”
― Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried

“But in a story, which is a kind of dreaming, the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return to the world.”
― Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried

“But this too is true: stories can save us.”
― Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried

“It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.”
― William Ernest Henley, Echoes of Life and Death

“I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my eyes and all is born again.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
― T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets

“Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.”
― T.S. Eliot

“to live in this world

you must be able
to do three things
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go”
― Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems, Volume One

“may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.”
― E.E. Cummings

“and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you”
― E.E. Cummings

“since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a far better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
--the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for eachother: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis”
― E.E. Cummings

“twice I have lived forever in a smile”
― E.E. Cummings

“You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching,
Love like you'll never be hurt,
Sing like there's nobody listening,
And live like it's heaven on earth.”
― William W. Purkey

“How lucky I am to have known somebody and something that saying goodbye to is so damned awful.”
― Evans G. Valens, The Other Side of the Mountain: The Story of Jill Kinmont

“Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”
― Carter Crocker

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night

“Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently.”
― Maya Angelou

“Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever.”
― Lance Armstrong Sally Jenkins, Every Second Counts

“Risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.”
― Leo F. Buscaglia

“When someone tells me "no," it doesn't mean I can't do it, it simply means I can't do it with them.”
― Karen E. Quinones Miller

“Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.”
― T.S. Eliot

“Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
But you are eternity and you are the mirror.”
― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

“may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old

may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even if it's sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young

and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there's never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile”
― E.E. Cummings, E.E. Cummings: Complete Poems 1904-1962