Julie > Julie's Quotes

“Cats are connoisseurs of comfort.”
― James Herriot, James Herriot's Cat Stories

“Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.”
― James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

“We’re all seeking that special person who is right for us. But if you’ve been through enough relationships, you begin to suspect there’s no right person, just different flavors of wrong. Why is this? Because you yourself are wrong in some way, and you seek out partners who are wrong in some complementary way. But it takes a lot of living to grow fully into your own wrongness. And it isn’t until you finally run up against your deepest demons, your unsolvable problems—the ones that make you truly who you are—that we’re ready to find a lifelong mate. Only then do you finally know what you’re looking for. You’re looking for the wrong person. But not just any wrong person: it's got to be the right wrong person—someone you lovingly gaze upon and think, “This is the problem I want to have.”

I will find that special person who is wrong for me in just the right way.”
― Andrew Boyd, Daily Afflictions: The Agony of Being Connected to Everything in the Universe

“You're like a song that I heard when I was a little kid but forgot I knew until I heard it again.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Lament: The Faerie Queen's Deception

“Old Herriot may be limited in some respects, but by God, he can wrap a cat.”
― James Herriot, James Herriot's Cat Stories

“It is easier to live through someone else than to complete yourself. The freedom to lead and plan your own life is frightening if you have never faced it before. It is frightening when a woman finally realizes that there is no answer to the question 'who am I' except the voice inside herself.”
― Betty Friedan

“One's not half of two; two are halves of one.”
― E.E. Cummings

“Compassion hurts. When you feel connected to everything, you also feel responsible for everything. And you cannot turn away. Your destiny is bound with the destinies of others. You must either learn to carry the Universe or be crushed by it. You must grow strong enough to love the world, yet empty enough to sit down at the same table with its worst horrors.”
― Andrew Boyd, Daily Afflictions: The Agony of Being Connected to Everything in the Universe

“Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.”
― Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

“Adventures are all very well in their place, but there's a lot to be said for regular meals and freedom from pain.”
― Neil Gaiman, Stardust

“The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.”
― Maya Angelou, All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes

“If you are alone you belong entirely to yourself. If you are accompanied by even one companion you belong only half to yourself or even less in proportion to the thoughtlessness of his conduct and if you have more than one companion you will fall more deeply into the same plight.”
― Leonardo da Vinci

“As the years pass, I am coming more and more to understand that it is the common, everyday blessings of our common everyday lives for which we should be particularly grateful. They are the things that fill our lives with comfort and our hearts with gladness -- just the pure air to breathe and the strength to breath it; just warmth and shelter and home folks; just plain food that gives us strength; the bright sunshine on a cold day; and a cool breeze when the day is warm.”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Writings to Young Women from Laura Ingalls Wilder: On Wisdom & Virtues

“It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn't use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like "What about lunch?”
― A. A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

“If the person you are talking to doesn't appear to be listening, be patient. It may simply be that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

“I used to believe in forever, but forever's too good to be true”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

“Anyone who believes what a cat tells him deserves all he gets.”
― Neil Gaiman, Stardust

“And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“When a child first catches adults out -- when it first walks into his grave little head that adults do not always have divine intelligence, that their judgments are not always wise, their thinking true, their sentences just -- his world falls into panic desolation. The gods are fallen and all safety gone. And there is one sure thing about the fall of gods: they do not fall a little; they crash and shatter or sink deeply into green muck. It is a tedious job to build them up again; they never quite shine. And the child's world is never quite whole again. It is an aching kind of growing.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“I heard the universe laugh. One tragedy doesn't disqualify you, it said. There''s still a lifetime of mild irritation to look forward to.”
― Savannah Brown, The Truth About Keeping Secrets

“i have given you the power to turn me inside out, my dear—please do not use it”
― Savannah Brown, Graffiti

“I don't want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying. I don't want to live on in the hearts of my countrymen; I want to live on in my apartment.”
― Woody Allen, The Illustrated Woody Allen Reader

“Just because you love something doesn't mean it can't go on without you.”
― Savannah Brown, The Truth About Keeping Secrets

“because we'll someday ache
for any regular sunday in june
where the sun was a sure
thing and breath tasted like warm
grass and there was not a single
indication the cosmos would one
day shut like your eyes, tight
with pleasure.”
― Savannah Brown, Sweetdark

“I'd shut myself out for so long that I had forgotten how wonderful it felt to be included, to be seen, to be heard.”
― Savannah Brown, The Truth About Keeping Secrets

“I wonder if that is something that comes with age - a desire for self-betterment, to change the parts of myself that are largely undesirable. For now, I'm enjoying them. Not enjoying, maybe. I understand them. They get me what I want.

A stem without thorns is lesser. A stem without thorns gets eaten.”
― Savannah Brown, The Things We Don't See

“You know that feeling where, like, the world is spinning at a thousand miles an hour and there’s nothing you can do to stop it and then you start to feel like there’s nothing you can do about anything ever?”
― Savannah Brown, The Truth About Keeping Secrets