N.W. Moors > N.W.'s Quotes

“When it comes to life, we spin our own yarn, and where we end up is really, in fact, where we always intended to be.”
― Julia Glass, Three Junes

“I've found that there is always some beauty left -- in nature, sunshine, freedom, in yourself; these can all help you.”
― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

“Aye, it’s the heart of the craft, the love and sweat that you put into it. If you think about the old tales, the magic comes from inside the person who creates it. - Conn”
― N.W. Moors, The Black Swans

“Yes: I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Critic As Artist: With Some Remarks on the Importance of Doing Nothing and Discussing Everything

“Dance first. Think later. It's the natural order.”
― Samuel Beckett

“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“Patience is a conquering virtue.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer

“The soul is placed in the body like a rough diamond, and must be polished, or the luster of it will never appear.”
― Daniel Defoe

“What she had realized was that love was that moment when your heart was about to burst.”
― Stieg Larsson, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”
― Thomas Mann, Essays of Three Decades

“If there's a single lesson that life teaches us, it's that wishing doesn't make it so.”
― Lev Grossman, The Magicians

“Some people care too much. I think it's called love.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

“I don't know a better preparation for life than love of poetry and a good digestion”
― Zona Gale

“Quietness is an essential part of all awareness. In quiet times and sleepy times, a child can dwell in thoughts of his own, and in songs and stories of his own.”
― Margaret Wise Brown

“Books are always obviously having conversations with other books, and some times they're amiable and sometimes not.”
― China Miéville, The City & the City

“Every generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.”
― George Orwell

“I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It's just been too intelligent to come here.”
― Arthur C. Clarke

“He was too many things at once - a boy, a man, and everything in between - and the differing parts of himself seldom came into balance. She found him attractive in that way. Yet the perception saddened her: she herself wasn't too many things, but too few.”
― Stephen R. Donaldson, The Mirror of Her Dreams

“...they were just normal, and they were enjoying that elusive state of simply BEING...”
― Kristan Higgins, Good Luck with That

“Miss Manford's hands flapped ineffectually while she chanted, 'Bless my soul!' to a God who would have been deafened had he been foolish enough to listen.”
― Mary Balogh, The Double Wager

“When you read this, I shall be gone. I shall not tell you where I am going, because I do not intend ever to return.”
― Mary Balogh, The Double Wager

“Midway through my fortieth year, I reached a point where the balance of the past and all it contained seemed to outweigh the future, my mind so full of things said and not said, done and undone, I no longer understood how to move forward. I was tipped backward and wobbly, my balance was off, and this made sense to me. A life seemed so long, I couldn't see how anyone proceeded under the accumulated weight of it.”
― Jessica Francis Kane, Rules for Visiting

“Allegedly warmth, cheeriness, friendliness and strength are distinct from one another and your likability is largely determined by how much of each you project. The definition of warmth is how easily you convey you have something in common with another person.”
― Jessica Francis Kane, Rules for Visiting

“We live in a time when everyone gets a medal and all villains have heartbreaking backstories. No one thinks evil is intrinsic anymore, just someone making a really bad choice.”
― Jessica Francis Kane, Rules for Visiting

“Perhaps a best friend is someone who . . . holds the story of your life in mind. Sometimes in music a melodic line is so beautiful the notes feel inevitable; you can anticipate the next note through a long rest. Maybe that is friendship. A best friend holds your story in mind so notes don’t have to be repeated.”
― Jessica Francis Kane, Rules for Visiting

“Quite simply: Without friendship, you become Grendel. Many people don’t marry and many don’t have children. Some people might not know their mother or father, and a lot of people don’t have siblings. But any person who has lived for any length of time has had a friend. Except Grendel, and he became the first monster in English literature.”
― Jessica Francis Kane, Rules for Visiting

“Grimdark is often called hopeless, but in doing so people miss that it isn't apathetic - it is (for me) characterised by defiance in the absence of hope. Grimdark is often called nihilistic, but this misses the idea that you can accept a nihilistic truth and still choose to die for a principle you know is an emotional construct. A grimdark 'hero' has a tendency to go all in - to burn their bridges even when they don't need the warmth. They are in their way an allegory for hope in so much as having been shown there's no meaning in the world, they still cling to some elements of it. And in those choices they are revealed. The way it's painted by the disapproving you would think that grimdark fiction was the literature of surrender to the inevitable. When in truth it is the story of the battle against it - sharpened by the knowledge that there's no ultimate victory to be had.”
― Mark Lawrence

“Any institution that claims to keep women locked up for their own good should be watched very close, in my opinion.”
― Jen Williams, The Ninth Rain

“What if your brother is dying and you can't stop it. What do you do?"
...
"You help him find something that makes him feel that he still wants to be alive. Only thing to do.”
― Alice Hoffman, The Ice Queen