Olya > Olya's Quotes

“There’s no such thing as ruining your life. Life’s a pretty resilient thing, it turns out.”
― Sophie Kinsella, The Undomestic Goddess

“Everyone always thinks of ghosts as being invisible or like air but they take up so much space in a room, you’ve no idea.”
― Jami Attenberg, Saint Mazie

“Sometimes blessings are indiscriminate.”
― Jami Attenberg, Saint Mazie

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.”
― James Baldwin

“You cannot find peace by avoiding life.”
― Michael Cunningham, The Hours

“Words: with them you can do and undo as you please.”
― Elena Ferrante, The Story of a New Name

“she was explaining to me that I had won nothing, that in the world there is nothing to win, that her life was full of varied and foolish adventures as much as mine, and that time simply slipped away without any meaning, and it was good just to see each other every so often to hear the mad sound of the brain of one echo in the mad sound of the brain of the other.”
― Elena Ferrante, The Story of a New Name

“Reading and writing are closed-room activities, which literally take you away from the gaze of others. The greater risk is that they also remove others from your gaze.”
― Elena Ferrante, Fragments: Elena Ferrante on Writing, Reading, and Anonymity

“..what a terrible thing a dissatisfied mind is.”
― Elena Ferrante

“Customer: Do you have any medical textbooks?
Bookseller: Sorry, no. They go out of date so quickly we don't stock them, but I can order one in for you.
Customer: I'm not worried about it being in date.
Bookseller: Does your university not request you have a specific edition?
Customer: Oh, I'm not a medical student. I just want to learn how to do stitches.
Bookseller: ... Right.
Customer: Do you have a book on sewing instead?”
― Jen Campbell, Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops

“It's just that... without the memories it's all meaningless.”
― Lois Lowry, The Giver

“The community of the Giver had achieved at such great price. A community without danger or pain. But also, a community without music, color or art. And books.”
― Lois Lowry, The Giver

“I have discovered that most people have no one to talk to, no one, that is, who really wants to listen. When it does at last dawn on a man that you really want to hear about his business, the look that comes over his face is something to see.”
― Walker Percy, The Moviegoer

“Losing hope is not so bad. There's something worse: losing hope and hiding it from yourself.”
― Walker Percy, The Moviegoer