mitch > mitch's Quotes

“I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unnerving ease. It begins in your mind, always ... so you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don't, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.”
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi

“Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.”
― Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein

“The best discoveries always happened to the people who weren't looking for them.”
― Morgan Matson, Amy & Roger's Epic Detour

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

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim. What I’ve learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders one’s reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one’s master, condemning oneself from then on to faking the sort of reality that person’s view requires to be faked…The man who lies to the world, is the world’s slave from then on…There are no white lies, there is only the blackest of destruction, and a white lie is the blackest of all.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

“Don't fuck with an English major. They keep lots of useless crap trapped in their heads. Once in a while they let some of it out and it bites you square on the ass.”
― P.C. Cast, Divine By Mistake

“She wanted something to happen - something, anything: she did not know what.”
― Kate Chopin

“When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“The world is your bookmark.”
― joelbooks

“Holy crap, I’m scared.”

“Holy crap, you’re human. You should be scared.”
― James Dashner, The Maze Runner

“sometimes you don't look very hard for things you don't believe will or can happen.”
― James Dashner, The Maze Runner

“A blank canvas...has unlimited possibilities.”
― Stephanie Perkins, Isla and the Happily Ever After

“You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.”
― William Faulkner

“Ending a novel is almost like putting a child to sleep—it can't be done abruptly.”
― Colm Tóibín

“There is no reason why the same man should like the same books at eighteen and at forty-eight”
― Ezra Pound

“I would rather walk with a friend in the dark, than alone in the light.”
― Helen Keller

“If you don't like someone's story, write your own.”
― Chinua Achebe

“If you look for perfection, you'll never be content.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson

“Blue. My name's Blue Sargent.'
'Blair?'
'Blue.'
'Blaize?'
Blue sighed. 'Jane.”
― Maggie Stiefvater

“‎Though nobody can go back and make a new beginning... Anyone can start over and make a new ending.”
― Chico Xavier

“Revenge is like politics, one thing always leads to another until bad has become worse, and worse has become worst.”
― Jonas Jonasson, The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared

“There are undoubtedly advantages to being dead, said Julius.”
― Jonas Jonasson, The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared

“She generally gave herself very good advice, (though she very seldom followed it).”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass

“You're only young once, they say, but doesn't it go on for a long time? More years than you can bear.”
― Hilary Mantel, An Experiment in Love

“A tiger doesn't proclaim his tigritude, he pounces”
― Wole Soyinka

“And in that moment, I swear we were infinite.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“So, I guess we are who we are for alot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even if we don't have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel okay about them.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“Once on a yellow piece of paper with green lines
he wrote a poem
And he called it "Chops"
because that was the name of his dog

And that's what it was all about
And his teacher gave him an A
and a gold star
And his mother hung it on the kitchen door
and read it to his aunts
That was the year Father Tracy
took all the kids to the zoo

And he let them sing on the bus
And his little sister was born
with tiny toenails and no hair
And his mother and father kissed a lot
And the girl around the corner sent him a
Valentine signed with a row of X's

and he had to ask his father what the X's meant
And his father always tucked him in bed at night
And was always there to do it

Once on a piece of white paper with blue lines
he wrote a poem
And he called it "Autumn"

because that was the name of the season
And that's what it was all about
And his teacher gave him an A
and asked him to write more clearly
And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door
because of its new paint

And the kids told him
that Father Tracy smoked cigars
And left butts on the pews
And sometimes they would burn holes
That was the year his sister got glasses
with thick lenses and black frames
And the girl around the corner laughed

when he asked her to go see Santa Claus
And the kids told him why
his mother and father kissed a lot
And his father never tucked him in bed at night
And his father got mad
when he cried for him to do it.


Once on a paper torn from his notebook
he wrote a poem
And he called it "Innocence: A Question"
because that was the question about his girl
And that's what it was all about
And his professor gave him an A

and a strange steady look
And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door
because he never showed her
That was the year that Father Tracy died
And he forgot how the end
of the Apostle's Creed went

And he caught his sister
making out on the back porch
And his mother and father never kissed
or even talked
And the girl around the corner
wore too much makeup
That made him cough when he kissed her

but he kissed her anyway
because that was the thing to do
And at three a.m. he tucked himself into bed
his father snoring soundly

That's why on the back of a brown paper bag
he tried another poem

And he called it "Absolutely Nothing"
Because that's what it was really all about
And he gave himself an A
and a slash on each damned wrist
And he hung it on the bathroom door
because this time he didn't think

he could reach the kitchen.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower