A.J. > A.J.'s Quotes

“No sight so sad as that of a naughty child," he began, "especially a naughty little girl. Do you know where the wicked go after death?"

"They go to hell," was my ready and orthodox answer.

"And what is hell? Can you tell me that?"

"A pit full of fire."

"And should you like to fall into that pit, and to be burning there for ever?"

"No, sir."

"What must you do to avoid it?"

I deliberated a moment: my answer, when it did come was objectionable: "I must keep in good health and not die.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I felt no shame in these activities, because I understood what almost no one else seemed to grasp: that there was only an infinitesimal difference, a difference so small that it barely existed except as a figment of the human imagination, between working in a tall green glass building on Park Avenue and collecting litter in a park. In fact, there may have been no difference at all.”
― Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad

“We have stopped natural selection from purifying the species because deep in our heart of hearts, we are all terrified that we won't make the cut.”
― Moxie Mezcal, Concrete Underground

“...the age of surveillance is only a symptom of the new hyper-narcissism that has infected our collective reality tunnels. We invite the surveillance cameras into our homes because they are proof that someone is paying attention to us.”
― Moxie Mezcal, Concrete Underground

“I want to end the human race. But not because I don't like it. I just have a better idea.”
― Marc Horne, Tokyo Zero

“You stand next to the sea and you're in touch with all your longings and all your losses.”
― Elizabeth Hay, Late Nights on Air

“You see the same plain landscape day after day, and then one day, perhaps it's the play of light or the time of year, you find it beautiful and other landscapes at fault. So it must be with fashion. Ordinary judgement falls into abeyance and something else, some bewitchment, takes over. How else to explain the appeal of garments that in a few years look so ridiculous?”
― Elizabeth Hay, A Student of Weather

“And then he only had eyes for the pie. Watch any man, he could be ninety years old and drooling spit, but at the sight of homemade pie every last one of his wits will spring to attention.”
― Elizabeth Hay, A Student of Weather

“Nothing is more dangerous to maidenly delicacy of speech than the run of a good library.”
― Robertson Davies, Tempest-Tost

“Money, it is often said, does not bring happiness; it must be added, however, that it makes it possible to support unhappiness with exemplary fortitude.”
― Robertson Davies, Tempest-tost

“Life, as he conceived of it, was a long decline from a glorious past, and if a reader approaches a newspaper in that spirit, he can find much to confirm him in his belief, particularly if he has never examined any short period of the past in day-to-day detail.”
― Robertson Davies, Leaven of Malice

“...there was practically one handwriting common to the whole school when it came to writing lines. It resembled the movements of a fly that had fallen into an ink-pot, and subsequently taken a little brisk exercise on a sheet of foolscap by way of restoring the circulation.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Politeness of Princes and Other School Stories

“If you could only tell them that living and spending isn't the same thing! But it's no good. If only they were educated to live instead of earn and spend, they could manage very happily...”
― D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover

“Some things can't be ravished. You can't ravish a tin of sardines. And so many women are like that: and men. But the earth...!”
― D.H. Lawrence

“Aunt Emily says grown-ups never really like playing. They do it to please us."

"They little know," Gerald answered, "how often we do it to please them.”
― E. Nesbit, The Enchanted Castle

“People is wise 'cause they get out in the world and live. Wisdom comes from experience - from knowin' each day is a gift and accepting it with gladness. You read a whole lot of books, and readin' sure has made you smart, but ain't no book in the world gonna make you wise.”
― Beth Hoffman

“Tell me a story, Pew.

What kind of story, child?
A story with a happy ending.
There’s no such thing in all the world.
As a happy ending?
As an ending.”
― Jeanette Winterson, Lighthousekeeping

“Names are still magic; even Sharon, Karen, Darren, and Warren are magic to somebody somewhere. In fairy stories, naming is knowledge. When I know your name, I can call your name, and when I call your name, you'll come to me.”
― Jeanette Winterson, Lighthousekeeping

“We are told not to privilege one story above another. All the stories must be told. Well, maybe that's true, maybe all stories are worth hearing, but not all stories are worth telling.”
― Jeanette Winterson, Lighthousekeeping

“The continuous narrative of existence is a lie. There is no continuous narrative, there are lit-up moments, and the rest is dark. When you look closely, the twenty-four hour day is framed into a moment; the still-life of the jerky amphetamine world. That woman-a pieta. Those men, rough angels with an unknown message. The children holding hands, spanning time. And in every still-life, there is a story, the story that tells you everything you need to know.”
― Jeanette Winterson, Lighthousekeeping

“Nothing can be forgotten. Nothing can be lost. The universe itself is one vast memory system. Look back and you will find the beginnings of the world.”
― Jeanette Winterson, Lighthousekeeping

“The first thing to do,' said Psmith, 'is to ascertain that such a place as Clapham Common really exists. One has heard of it, of course, but has its existence ever been proved? I think not.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, Psmith in the City

“...the insects here see you as a big slab of animated but not very well defended food. The ability to move, far from being a deterrent, serves as an unforgeable guarantee of freshness.”
― Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon

“Of course, the underlying structure of everything in England is posh. There is no in between with these people. You have to walk a mile to find a telephone booth, but when you find it, it is built as if the senseless dynamiting of pay phones had been a serious problem at some time in the past. And a British mailbox can presumably stop a German tank.”
― Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon

“Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs," I said. "We have a protractor.”
― Neal Stephenson, Anathem

“...he was fascinated by the mid-western/middle American phenomenon of recombinant cuisine. Rice Krispie Treats being a prototypical example in that they were made by repurposing other foods that had already been prepared (to wit, breakfast cereal and marshmallows). And of course, any recipe that called for a can of cream of mushroom soup fell into the same category. The unifying principle behind all recombinant cuisine seemed to be indifference, if not outright hostility, to the use of anything that a coastal foodie would define as an ingredient.”
― Neal Stephenson, Reamde

“The GPS unit became almost equally obstreperous, though, over Richard’s unauthorized route change, until they finally passed over some invisible cybernetic watershed between two possible ways of getting to their destination, and it changed its fickle little mind and began calmly telling him which way to proceed as if this had been its idea all along.”
― Neal Stephenson, Reamde

“Do I have to talk to insane people?"
"You're a librarian now. I'm afraid it's mandatory.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Woman Who Died a Lot

“What matters to you defines your mattering.”
― John Green, An Abundance of Katherines

“That's why those tapes we made are going to be so great one day, because they'll tell stories that time has swallowed up or distorted or whatever.”
― John Green, An Abundance of Katherines