Amanda > Amanda's Quotes

“Only old Benjamin professed to remember every detail of his long life and to know that things never had been, nor ever could be much better or much worse--hunger, hardship, and disappointment being, so he said, the unalterable law of life.”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

“I wish you had sincerity enough to tell me whether Catherine would suffer greatly from his loss: the fear that she would restrains me. And there you see the distinction between our feelings: had he been in my place and I in his, though I hated him with a hatred that turned my life to gall, I never would have raised a hand against him. You may look incredulous, if you please! I never would have banished him from her society as long as she desired his. The moment her regard ceased, I could have torn his heart out, and drunk his blood! But, till then - if you don't believe me, you don't know me - till then, I would have died by inches before I touched a single hair of his head!”
― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

“He wanted all to lie in an ecstasy of peace; I wanted all to sparkle and dance in a glorious jubilee. I said his heaven would be only half alive; and he said mine would be drunk: I said I should fall asleep in his; and he said he could not breathe in mine.”
― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

“Terror made me cruel . . .”
― Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights

“May she wake in torment!" he cried, with frightful vehemence, stamping his foot, and groaning in a sudden paroxysm of ungovernable passion. "Why, she's a liar to the end! Where is she? Not there—not in heaven—not perished—where? Oh! you said you cared nothing for my sufferings! And I pray one prayer—I repeat it till my tongue stiffens—May she wake in torment!" he cried, with frightful vehemence, stamping his foot, and groaning in a sudden paroxysm of ungovernable passion. "Why, she's a liar to the end! Where is she? Not there—not in heaven—not perished—where? Oh! you said you cared nothing for my sufferings! And I pray one prayer—I repeat it till my tongue stiffens—Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living; you said I killed you—haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!”
― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

“Treachery and violence are spears pointed at both ends; they wound those who resort to them worse than their enemies.”
― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

“A person who has not done one half his day's work by ten o'clock, runs a chance of leaving the other half undone.”
― Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights

“Honest people don't hide their deeds.”
― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

“All my life I've thought I needed someone to complete me, now I know I need to belong to myself.”
― Sue Monk Kidd, The Mermaid Chair

“At forty-two, I had never done anything that took my own breath away, and I suppose now that was part of the problem--my chronic inability to astonish myself. I promise you, no one judges me more harshly than I do myself; I caused a brilliant wreckage. Some say I fell from grace; they're being kind. I didn't fall. I dove.”
― Sue Monk Kidd, The Mermaid Chair

“I didn't know then what I wanted, but the ache for it was palpable.”
― Sue Monk Kidd, The Mermaid Chair

“Gazing into the mirror, I saw myself as I was-a black silhouette in the room, a woman whose darkness had completely leaked through.”
― Sue Monk Kidd, The Mermaid Chair

“You can go other places, all right - you can live on the other side of the world, but you can't ever leave home”
― Sue Monk Kidd, The Mermaid Chair

“Maybe that's what it all comes down to. Love, not as a surge of passion, but as a choice to commit to something, someone, no matter what obstacles or temptations stand in the way. And maybe making that choice, again and again, day in and day out, year after year, says more about love than never having a choice to make at all.”
― Emily Giffin, Love the One You're With

“...love is the sum of our choices, the strength of our commitments, the ties that bind us together.”
― Emily Giffin, Love the One You're With

“You can't quantify love, and if you try, you can end up focusing on misleading factors. Stuff that really has more to do with personality-the fact that some people are simply more expressive or emotional or needy in a relationship. But beyond such smokescreens, the answer is there. Love is seldom-almost never-an even proposition.”
― Emily Giffin, Baby Proof

“But I am learning that perfection isn't what matters. In fact, it's the very thing that can destroy you if you let it.”
― Emily Giffin, Something Borrowed

“You can love someone you mistrust.”
― Emily Giffin, Baby Proof

“Love as a verb. Love as a commitment. ”
― Emily Giffin, Love the One You're With

“He was uncomplicated and upbeat and easy. At one point, I might have thought these traits made him a simpleton, but now I think they just translate to happiness.”
― Emily Giffin, Baby Proof

“I think of how each person in a marriage owes it to the other to find individual happiness, even in a shared life. That this is the only way to grow together, instead of apart.”
― Emily Giffin, Heart of the Matter

“Buried beneath disappointment and fear, anger and pride, I just might find it in my heart to forgive.”
― Emily Giffin, Heart of the Matter

“But I have learned that you can't just create your own timetable and will it to come true.”
― Emily Giffin, Something Borrowed

“One way isn't better than the other; they're just different.”
― Emily Giffin, Love the One You're With

“An oncology ward is a battlefield, and there are definite hierarchies of command. The patients, they're the ones doing the tour of duty. The doctors breeze in and out like conquering heroes, but they need to read your child's chart to remember where they've left off from the previous visit. It is the nurses who are the seasoned sergeants -- the ones who are there when your baby is shaking with such a high fever she needs to be bathed in ice, the ones who can teach you how to flush a central venous catheter, or suggest which patient floor might still have Popsicles left to be stolen, or tell you which dry cleaners know how to remove the stains of blood and chemotherapies from clothing. The nurses know the name of your daughter's stuffed walrus and show her how to make tissue paper flowers to twine around her IV stand. The doctors may be mapping out the war games, but it is the nurses who make the conflict bearable.”
― Jodi Picoult, My Sister's Keeper