Emily > Emily's Quotes

“What a terrible mistake to let go of something wonderful for something real.”
― Miranda July, No One Belongs Here More Than You

“If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I'm neurotic as hell. I'll be flying back and forth between one mutually exclusive thing and another for the rest of my days.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

“While it is always possible to wake a person who's sleeping, no amount of noise will wake a person who is pretending to be asleep.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals

“I can't count the times that upon telling someone I am vegetarian, he or she responded by pointing out an inconsistency in my lifestyle or trying to find a flaw in an argument I never made. (I have often felt that my vegetarianism matters more to such people than it does to me.)”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals

“Inelegantly, and without my consent, time passed.”
― Miranda July, No One Belongs Here More Than You

“Do you have doubts about life? Are you unsure if it's worth the trouble? Look at the sky: that is for you. Look at each person's face as you pass on the street: those faces are for you. And the street itself, and the ground under the street and the ball of fire underneath the ground: all these things are for you. They are as much for you as they are for other people. Remember this when you wake up in the morning and think you have nothing. Stand up and face the east. Now praise the sky and praise the light within each person under the sky. It's okay to be unsure. But praise, praise, praise.”
― Miranda July, No One Belongs Here More Than You

“Even if it meant that she had failed, she was glad. And if what she'd wanted had been impossible from the start, still there was a certain lonely comfort in the fact that she'd known it was impossible and had gone ahead and done it anyway.”
― Donna Tartt, The Little Friend

“It is odd how, when you have a secret belief of your own which you do not wish to acknowledge, the voicing of it by someone else will rouse you to a fury of denial.”
― Agatha Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

“A culture with cats is richer and more humane than one deprived of their unique companionship.”
― George R.R. Martin, Tuf Voyaging

“Gone mad is what they say, and sometimes Run mad, as if mad is a different direction, like west; as if mad is a different house you could step into, or a separate country entirely. But when you go mad you don't go any other place, you stay where you are. And somebody else comes in.”
― Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace

“If we were all on trial for our thoughts, we would all be hanged.”
― Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace

“So many things are possible just as long as you don't know they're impossible.”
― Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

“I may not have been sure about what really did interest me, but I was absolutely sure about what didn't.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“And in that moment, I swear we were infinite.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“So, I guess we are who we are for alot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even if we don't have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel okay about them.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“I am very interested and fascinated how everyone loves each other, but no one really likes each other.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“It's strange because sometimes, I read a book, and I think I am the people in the book.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“but whatever came, she had resolved never again to belong to another than herself.”
― Kate Chopin, The Awakening

“The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body.The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life's most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

“Don’t try to make life a mathematics problem with yourself in the center and everything coming out equal. When you’re good, bad things can still happen. And if you’re bad, you can still be lucky.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible

“Silence has many advantages. When you do not speak, other people presume you to be deaf or feeble-minded and promptly make a show of their own limitations.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible

“Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I've ever known.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

“It's all mirror, mirror on the wall because beauty is power the same way money is power the same way a gun is power.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters