Klau > Klau's Quotes

“Once you have read a book you care about, some part of it is always with you.”
― Louis L'Amour, Matagorda/The First Fast Draw: Two Novels in One Volume

“Life is like a prism. What you see depends on how you turn the glass.”
― Jonathan Kellerman

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Decimos a los confusos, Conócete a ti mismo, como si conocerse a uno mismo no fuese la quinta y más dificultosa operación de las aritméticas humanas, decimos a los abúlicos, Querer es poder, como si las realidades atroces del mundo no se divirtiesen invirtiendo todos los días la posición relativa de los verbos, decimos a los indecisos, Empezar por el principio, como si ese principio fuese la punta siempre visible de un hilo mal enrollado del que basta tirar y seguir tirando para llegar a la otra punta, la del final,”
― José Saramago, La caverna

“He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

“You should date a girl who reads.
Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.”
― Rosemarie Urquico

“Don't feel bad for one moment about doing what brings you joy.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Thorns and Roses

“She was the heir of ash and fire, and she would bow to no one.”
― Sarah J. Maas, Heir of Fire

“Pity those who don't feel anything at all.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Thorns and Roses

“We're all a broken, in our own ways - In places no one might see.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Wings and Ruin

“A hand brushed my back. Then Rhys groaned, "If we're all here, either things went very, very wrong or very right." Cassian's broken laugh cracked out of him.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Wings and Ruin

“The friends they’d made were what mattered in the end. Not the enemies. Through love, all is possible.”
― Sarah J. Maas, House of Flame and Shadow

“I love you. I fell in love with you in the depths of my soul, and it’s my soul that will find yours again in the next life.”
― Sarah J. Maas, House of Flame and Shadow

“One of the bravest things to do is to accept the aid of others.”
― Jennifer L. Armentrout, A Shadow in the Ember

“I have never seen him sleep so deeply. Not even when he was just a babe. The slightest sound would wake him.”
Surprise rippled through me as the hand under mine remained relaxed and still.
“You knew him then?”
“I knew his parents. I called them my friends, and I call Ash one of my own,” he answered, head straightening. His gaze caught mine and held it.
“I think I will call you one of my own.”
I really had to be asleep.
“Why?”
“Because you’ve given him peace.”
― Jennifer L. Armentrout, A Shadow in the Ember

“I can’t…I love you. I do. Fates, I do. I fucking love you. How can I not? How can this not be love?” He screamed to the elms …“I love you, even if I cannot. I’m in love with you.”
― Jennifer L. Armentrout, A Fire in the Flesh

“Políticos egoístas, corruptos y con frecuencia imbéciles, que se aprovechan de una grave crisis bélica o generada por una gran enfermedad, que buscan aprovecharse de esas terribles circunstancias para, o bien llegar al poder, o bien mantenerse en él sin importarles lo más mínimo las consecuencias que su ambición personal pueda tener en la población que gobiernan —”
― Santiago Posteguillo, Roma soy yo: La verdadera historia de Julio César

“Rin was so tired of having to prove her humanity.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Dragon Republic

“If nothing lasted and the world did not exist, all that meant was that reality was not fixed. The illusion she lived in was fluid and mutable, and could be easily altered by someone willing to rewrite the script of reality.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Dragon Republic

“Jamás un hombre ha sido completamente él mismo, aunque la mayoría tenga la firme convicción de serlo algún día, unos entre brumas y otros con perfecta luminosidad, pero cada uno como mejor le sea posible. Todos cargan en sus espaldas hasta el final lo viscoso y las sobras de un mundo primario.”
― Hermann Hesse, Demian / Siddharta / El lobo estepario

“La mayoría de los mortales nunca llegamos a conocer nuestro verdadero destino; simplemente somos atropellados por él. Para cuando levantamos la cabeza y lo vemos alejarse por la carretera ya es tarde, y el resto del camino lo tenemos que hacer por la cuneta de que aquello que los soñadores llaman madurez.”
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, El laberinto de los espíritus

“Ambition is not a dirty word. Piss on compromise. Go for the throat.”
― Steven Erikson, Gardens of the Moon

“Every decision you make can change the world. The best life is the one the gods don't notice. You want to live free, boy, live quietly."
"I want to be a soldier. A hero."
"You'll grow out of it.”
― Steven Erikson, Gardens of the Moon

“Too many regrets. Lost chances—and with each one passing the less human we all became, and the deeper into the nightmare of power we all sank.”
― Steven Erikson, Gardens of the Moon

“De León. Ye live."
'"Sadly."
'"How?" he hissed.
'"God didn't want me. And the devil was afraid to open the door.”
― Jay Kristoff, Empire of the Vampire

“Y, ante los ojos de Dios y de sus siete Mártires, juro.
Que la oscuridad sepa mi nombre y se desespere.
Si arde, seré la llama.
Si sangra, seré la espada.
Si peca, seré el santo.
Y la plata”
― Jay Kristoff, Empire of the Damned

“I said it to the Flower, I'll say it again: There's a solace to be found in sadness. And I understand why ye’d think ye deserve that dark. Easier to find refuge in drink, in rage, to say hell with it all and push everyone away. Because ye think that cold is easier to live with than the pain that could come if ye let the warmth back in, only to be burned again.
But that's the fire that lets us know we're alive, Gabriel."
‘I shook my head, two pale shadows now rising at my back.
“‘You can't fix a broken blade, Phoebe."
“‘But don't ye see? We don't get broken. We’re made broken. We are not whole alone. But if we're blessed, if we're brave, we might find those few whose edges fit against our own. Like pieces of the same puzzle, or shards of the same shattered blade. Those people who, in their own broken way, make our broken edge complete.”
― Jay Kristoff, Empire of the Damned

“That's the way to wisdom, vampire. The wise man learns more from his enemies than the fool from his friends, but even the fool can learn if his friends are willing to call him one.

Surround yourself with folk who confront you. If you're not being challenged, you're not learning anything. If you're the smartest man in the room, you're in the wrong fucking room.”
― Jay Kristoff, Empire of the Damned

“I’d rather die for something that matters than live for nothing at all. And because a man survived long enough to have a grey beard and wrinkles means not that he’s actually lived. To live is to risk. To fear and to fail. A man must dance on the dragon’s teeth to steal the fire from its tongue. Most are burned alive in the attempt. But better to dance and fall than to never have danced at all. Pity not the man who dies too soon, but the one who lingers too long. For those men who pass peaceful in their beds, who slip one night soft into sleep and wake nevermore … can they be said to have been awake at all?”
― Jay Kristoff, Empire of the Damned