Matt > Matt's Quotes

“That book taught me that by reading, I could live more intensely. It could give me back the sight I had lost. For that reason alone, a book that didn’t matter to anyone changed my life.”
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind

“Every new event—everything I did for the rest of my life—would only separate us more and more: days she was no longer a part of, an ever-growing distance between us. Every single day for the rest of my life, she would only be further away.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“It is not flesh and blood, but heart which makes us fathers and sons.”
― Friedrich von Schiller

“We have art in order not to die of the truth.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“As long as I am acting out of love, I feel I am doing best I know how.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“She couldn’t get free and she couldn’t pop missus on the back of her head with a cane, but she could take her silk. You do your rebellions any way you can.”
― Sue Monk Kidd, The Invention of Wings

“There’s no pain on earth that doesn’t crave a benevolent witness.”
― Sue Monk Kidd, The Invention of Wings

“God fills us with all sorts of yearnings that go against the grain of the world—but the fact those yearnings often come to nothing, well, I doubt that’s God’s doing.” She cut her eyes at me and smiled. “I think we know that’s men’s doing.”
― Sue Monk Kidd, The Invention of Wings

“Which maybe that’s what love was: liking someone how he was and doing things to help him get even better.”
― George Saunders, Tenth of December

“I’ve heard parents say all they want is “the best” for their children, but the best is subjective and anchored by how they know and learned the world.”
― Janet Mock, Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More

“Mom used to brag to her friends when I was in grade school about what a “good husband” I was going to make some woman one day, what with my unusual sensitivity, my love of conversation, and my ability to wax a mean kitchen floor.”
― Kenneth M. Walsh, Wasn't Tomorrow Wonderful? A Memoir

“we make a new rule of life … always to try to be a little kinder than is necessary?”
― R.J. Palacio, Wonder

“Sometimes one who thinks himself incomplete is merely young. —Italo Calvino”
― Kevin Brockmeier, A Few Seconds of Radiant Filmstrip: A Memoir of Seventh Grade

“When you’re a child, you think your family works in a straight line. Then you get older and find out where the curves are.”
― Brando Skyhorse, Take This Man. A Memoir

“Because a place can do many things against you, and if it’s your home or if it was your home at one time, you still love it. That’s how it works.”
― Cristina Henriquez, The Book of Unknown Americans

“Is this what school was like in the United States? It was like theater.”
― Cristina Henriquez, The Book of Unknown Americans

“The truth was that I didn’t know which I was. I wasn’t allowed to claim the thing I felt and I didn’t feel the thing I was supposed to claim.”
― Cristina Henriquez, The Book of Unknown Americans

“What if God wants us to be happy? What if there’s nothing else around the bend? What if all our unhappiness is in the past and from here on out we get an uncomplicated life? Some people get that, you know. Why shouldn’t it be us?”
― Cristina Henriquez, The Book of Unknown Americans

“But really, what else are you going to talk about in line at the liquor store? Childhood trauma seems like the natural choice, since it’s the reason why most of us are in line there to begin with.”
― Jenny Lawson, Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir

“I know some people here think we’re trying to take over, but we just want to be a part of it. We want to have our stake. This is our home, too.”
― Cristina Henriquez, The Book of Unknown Americans

“We're the unknown Americans, the ones no one even wants to know, because they've been told they're supposed to be scared of us and because maybe if they did take the time to get to know us, they might realize that we're not that bad, maybe even that we're a lot like them. And who would they hate then?”
― Cristina Henriquez, The Book of Unknown Americans

“Maybe it’s the instinct of every immigrant, born of necessity or of longing: Someplace else will be better than here. And the condition: if only I can get to that place.”
― Cristina Henriquez, The Book of Unknown Americans

“Pretty much everyone hates high school. It's a measure of your humanity, I suspect. If you enjoyed high school, you were probably a psychopath or a cheerleader. Or possibly both. Those things aren't mutually exclusive, you know. I've tried to block out the memory of my high school years, but no matter how hard you try, it's always with you, like an unwanted hitchhiker. Or herpes. I assume...”
― Jenny Lawson, Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir