dina > dina's Quotes

“Right now, we need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art. Developing written material to suit sales strategies in order to maximize corporate profit and advertising revenue is not the same thing as responsible book publishing or authorship.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, Late in the Day: Poems 2010–2014

“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”
― Neil Gaiman, Coraline

“We believe in the wrong things, that's what frustrates me the most. Not the lack of belief, but the belief in the wrong things. You want meaning? Well, the meanings are out there. We're just so damn good at reading them wrong.”
― David Levithan, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“I'm not their slave," the man mutters.
"I am," I say. "That's why I killed Cato... and he killed Thresh... and he killed Clove... and she tried to kill me. It just goes around and around, and who wins? Not us. Not the districts. Always the capitol. But I'm tired of being a piece in their games.”
― Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

“It takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart.”
― Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

“There are much worse games to play.”
― Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

“Are you, are you coming to the tree?
Wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me.
Strange things did happen here.
No stranger would let it be if we met up
At midnight in the hanging tree.”
― Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

“I think....you still have no idea. The effect you can have.”
― Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

“Closing my eyes doesn't help. Fire burns brighter in the darkness.”
― Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

“You should date a girl who reads.
Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.”
― Rosemarie Urquico

“Never trust a duck.”
― Will Herondale

“You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I'm grateful.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“If there's one thing I've learned, it's this: We all want everything to be okay. We don't even wish so much for fantastic or marvelous or outstanding. We will happily settle for okay, because most of the time, okay is enough.”
― David Levithan, Every Day

“You think fairy tales are only for girls? Here's a hint - ask yourself who wrote them. I assure you, it wasn't just the women. It's the great male fantasy - all it takes is one dance to know that she's the one. All it takes is the sound of her song from the tower, or a look at her sleeping face. And right away you know - this is the girl in your head, sleeping or dancing or singing in front of you. Yes, girls want their princes, but boys want their princesses just as much. And they don't want a very long courtships. They want to know immediately.”
― David Levithan, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“I wake up thinking of yesterday. The joy is in remembering; the pain is in knowing it was yesterday.”
― David Levithan, Every Day

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Good books don't give up all their secrets at once.”
― Stephen King

“Even in the Future the Story Begins with Once Upon a Time.”
― Marissa Meyer, Cinder

“Knowledge is dangerous. Once you know something, you can't get rid of it. You have to carry it. Always.”
― Samantha Shannon, The Bone Season

“I would never see him again. But as I watched the tunnel race before my eyes, I was certain of one thing: I did trust him. Now I had only to trust in myself.”
― Samantha Shannon, The Bone Season

“I don't know. I just want you with me.

I had never said those words aloud. Now that I could taste my freedom I wanted him to share it with me. But he couldn't change his life for me. And I couldn't sacrifice my life to be with him.”
― Samantha Shannon, The Bone Season

“No, Paige. I am trying to help you.”
“Go to hell.”
“I already exist on a level of hell.”
“Exist on one that isn't near mine.”
― Samantha Shannon, The Bone Season

“She feels in italics and thinks in CAPITALS.”
― Henry James

“Augustus Waters was a self-aggrandizing bastard. But we forgive him. We forgive him not because he had a heart as figuratively good as his literal one sucked, or because he knew more about how to hold a cigarette than any nonsmoker in history, or because he got eighteen years when he should've gotten more.'
'Seventeen,' Gus corrected.
'I'm assuming you've got some time, you interupting bastard.
'I'm telling you,' Isaac continued, 'Augustus Waters talked so much that he'd interupt you at his own funeral. And he was pretentious: Sweet Jesus Christ, that kid never took a piss without pondering the abundant metaphorical resonances of human waste production. And he was vain: I do not believe I have ever met a more physically attractive person who was more acutely aware of his own physical attractiveness.
'But I will say this: When the scientists of the future show up at my house with robot eyes and they tell me to try them on, I will tell the scientists to screw off, because I do not want to see a world without him.'
I was kind of crying by then.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“Nothing’s worse than a story without an end.”
― Samantha Shannon, The Bone Season

“I brought you back because I could not find the strength to fight her without you but for that same reason I will do everything in my power to see you safely to the Citadel.”
― Samantha Shannon, The Bone Season

“I do.” He was clearly amused by my disdain. “We have only been speaking for two minutes, Paige. Try not to waste all your sarcasm in one breath.”
― Samantha Shannon, The Bone Season

“We call these decadal harvests Bone Seasons. This is Bone Season XX.”
― Samantha Shannon, The Bone Season

“I looked up at the video camera and stared. Then raised my hand and gave it the middle finger.
“I thought you were going to give it the District Twelve salute,” Jamie said.”
― Michelle Hodkin, The Retribution of Mara Dyer

“Names?' the receptionist asked us.
“Jesus,” Jamie answered.
“Mary,” said Stella.
“Satan,” I said as I walked past her and pushed open the door to Ira Ginsberg’s office.”
― Michelle Hodkin, The Retribution of Mara Dyer