Ruth > Ruth's Quotes

“Whatever it is you seek, you have to put in the time, the practice, the effort. You must give up a lot to get it. It has to be very important to you. And once you have attained it, it is your power. It can't be given away : it resides in you. It is literally the result of your discipline.”
― Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park

“They're both technicians. They have what I call 'thintelligence'. They see the immediate situation. They think narrowly and they call it 'being focused'. They don't see the surround. They don't see the consequences.”
― Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park

“Do you think I am an automaton? — a machine without feelings? and can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! — I have as much soul as you — and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh: it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal — as we are!”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I'm going up to my room now, where I may die.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, Howl’s Moving Castle

“Life breaks free. Life expands to new territories. Painfully, perhaps even dangerously. But life finds a way.”
― Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park

“Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

“Mr Nobley: "Ah here you are. Miss Erstwhile. You are infuriating and irritating, and yet I find myself looking for you. I would be grateful if you would send me away and make me swear to never return.”
― Shannon Hale, Austenland

“Sleep,” he says. “I'll fight the bad dreams off if they come to get you.” “With what?” “My bare hands, obviously.”
― Veronica Roth, Insurgent

“It's silly to let the bad things come out on top! The good, happy things are just as important. They just don't seem to last. You want to catch them at their best and keep them if you can.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, The Game

“It didn’t bother me. It excited my curiosity. And I believe there is no greater sin than to leave one’s curiosity unsatisfied.”
― Keigo Higashino, A Midsummer's Equation

“The world is full of mysteries. And the joy of uncovering even the slightest mystery is incomparable to any other joy you will ever know.”
― Keigo Higashino, A Midsummer's Equation

“I want you to value life. Yours and others. More than you ever have before.”
― Keigo Higashino, A Midsummer's Equation

“Pain is an event. It happens to you, and you deal with it in whatever way you can.”
― Hugh Laurie, The Gun Seller

“Just because it's a bad job doesn't mean I need to do it badly.”
― Hugh Laurie, The Gun Seller

“I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others. Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice, indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating, in F. W.

I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look, will be enough to decide whether I enter your father's house this evening or never.”
― Jane Austen, Persuasion

“Let us never underestimate the power of a well-written letter.”
― Jane Austen, Persuasion

“The last few hours were certainly very painful," replied Anne: "but when pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure. One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it, unless it has been all suffering, nothing but suffering-”
― Jane Austen, Persuasion

“The ability to imagine is the largest part of what you call intelligence. You think the ability to imagine is merely a useful step on the way to solving a problem or making something happen. But imagining it is what makes it happen.

This is the gift of your species and this is the danger, because you do not choose to control your imaginings. You imagine wonderful things and you imagine terrible things, and you take no responsibility for the choice. You say you have inside you both the power of good and the power of evil, the angel and the devil, but in truth you have just one thing inside you--the ability to imagine.”
― Michael Crichton, Sphere

“you want to understand how to swim, or do you want to jump in and start swimming? Only people who are afraid of the water want to understand it. Other people jump in and get wet.”
― Michael Crichton, Sphere

“Do you want to understand how to swim, or do you want to jump in and start swimming? Only people who are afraid of the water want to understand it. Other people jump in and get wet.”
― Michael Crichton, Sphere

“ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

“You can't alter the past. The only thing you can alter is the future. People write stories pretending you can alter the past, but it can't be done. All you can do to the past is remember it wrong or interpret it differently, and that's no good to us.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, The Time of the Ghost

“The relationship between teacher and student is based on illusion. The teacher is under the illusion that he is teaching something, and the student is under the illusion that he is being taught. What’s important is that this shared illusion makes both teacher and student happy. Nothing good is gained by facing the truth, after all. All we’re doing is playing at education.”
― Keigo Higashino, Malice

“Everyone has secrets. And everyone has the right to keep them. Even if they’re dead.”
― Keigo Higashino, Malice

“Can't you treat yourself with a bit more consideration?'
'Why should I?' Mordion said, hugging the duvet round himself.
'Because you're a person, of course!' Ann snapped at him. 'One person ought to treat another person properly even if the person's himself!”
― Diana Wynne Jones, Hexwood

“And suddenly, as if her head had cleared, she was quite sure that wonderful things did indeed exist. Even if they’re only in my own mind, she thought, they’re there and worth fighting for. I mustn’t give in.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, Hexwood

“They're trying to kill me," Yossarian told him calmly.
No one's trying to kill you," Clevinger cried.
Then why are they shooting at me?" Yossarian asked.
They're shooting at everyone," Clevinger answered. "They're trying to kill everyone."
And what difference does that make?”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“I wasn't actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.
"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“And it's a pity too that I've no right to open your letters. I hope you don't get many, or my conscience will give me no peace.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, Charmed Life