Denise > Denise's Quotes

“I am like a falling star who has finally found her place next to another in a lovely constellation, where we will sparkle in the heavens forever.”
― Amy Tan

“Love all, trust a few,
Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy
Rather in power than use; and keep thy friend
Under thy own life's key: be check'd for silence,
But never tax'd for speech.”
― William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well

“All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.”
― William Shakespeare, As You Like It

“Time is
Too Slow for those who Wait,
Too Swift for those who Fear,
Too Long for those who Grieve,
Too Short for those who Rejoice;
But for those who Love,
Time is not.”
― Henry van Dyke, Music and Other Poems

“The earth has its music for those who will listen”
― Reginald Vincent Holmes, Fireside Fancies

“Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring barque,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.”
― William Shakespeare, Great Sonnets

“I cannot imagine a world in which one can read Jane Austen only once.”
― Laurie Viera Rigler, Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict

“I don't know these stories as well as they know me, I've discovered.”
― Joan Gould

“Generally speaking, books don't cause much harm. Except when you read them, that is. Then they cause all kinds of problems.”
― Pseudonymous Bosch, The Name of This Book Is Secret

“Books can also provoke emotions. And emotions sometimes are even more troublesome than ideas. Emotions have led people to do all sorts of things they later regret-like, oh, throwing a book at someone else.”
― Pseudonymous Bosch, The Name of This Book Is Secret

“Only bad books have good endings.
If a book is any good, it's ending is always bad - because you don't want the book to end.”
― Pseudonymous Bosch, The Name of This Book Is Secret

“I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”
― E. B. White

“Anything worth having involves some measure of pain and work. Because of this, you will treasure it more.”
― Roselle Lim, Natalie Tan's Book of Luck & Fortune

“The way to free ourselves of shadow possession is to awaken our heroic potential.”
― Carol S. Pearson, Awakening the Heroes Within: Twelve Archetypes to Help Us Find Ourselves and Transform Our World

“If you are not aware of the story pattern you are living, the story plays you.”
― Carol S. Pearson, What Stories Are You Living?

“There’s an old saying about stories, and how there are always three versions of them: yours, mine, and the truth.”
― Emily Henry, Great Big Beautiful Life

“There are all kinds of reasons for a woman to want to disappear. Always have been.”
― Emily Henry, Great Big Beautiful Life

“I welcome her to this great big beautiful life.”
― Emily Henry, Great Big Beautiful Life

“It’s important that I play this cool. Fact: I have never played it cool in my life.”
― Emily Henry, Great Big Beautiful Life

“She chokes up again, but she forces herself onward. “Your dad understood you.” Her voice squeaks, and her shoulders lift in a slight shrug. “He understood the things you love. He understood your sense of humor. He had access to pieces of you I couldn’t get to, and I was okay with that, mostly. But when he died—god, Alice, I haven’t been able to figure out how to be what you need. He always knew the right thing to say to you. He always knew how to cheer you up, or how to talk you down. “And I want to be a good parent to you, but I can’t be him.” “I don’t need you to be him,” I promise tearily. “You deserve to have him,” she says. “You don’t know how many times I’ve wished it had been me instead.” “Mom.” My heart cracks, shatters. I wrap my arms around her again. “Don’t say that.”
― Emily Henry, Great Big Beautiful Life

“I think she loves me because I’m her daughter. But I’ve never felt sure she loves me because I’m me. Does that make sense?”
― Emily Henry, Great Big Beautiful Life

“Do you want to have kids?” I ask. “Sometimes,” he says. “When I’m feeling optimistic.” I bump sideways into him, the skin of our arms sticking slightly from the heat. “Does that happen often?” He looks down his shoulder at me with a slight smirk. “Not often, no.” “So the rest of the time,” I say, “when you’re not feeling optimistic, what do you think?” “The rest of the time …” Another long exhale, his eyes straight ahead as we go back to ambling down the block. “The rest of the time, I think, what if the polar ice caps keep melting? What if medical care keeps getting more expensive, and social security runs out, and housing prices keep rising while minimum wage doesn’t, and what if they resent me for bringing them into all of this? “What if they just hate me? Not because of the state of the world, but just because they hate me. Or what if they’re sick? What if they join a cult, and I can’t convince them to come home? What if they start a cult? What if they get into some heinous shit, and I can’t love them anymore—or worse, I keep loving them even though I can’t change anything? “What if there’s another world war? Or what if … what if everything else goes right, but at the end of my life, they’re sitting in hospice with me …” His voice thickens uncharacteristically, wavering just the slightest bit. “And there are things they wish they could say to me, or hear from me, but I don’t remember who I am, let alone who they are. What if they have to care for me, for years, after I’ve stopped calling them by their nicknames or telling them I love them?”
― Emily Henry, Great Big Beautiful Life

“Not only does he pause, he actually turns toward me and makes eye contact. Huge progress for us. Friendship bracelets incoming, surely.”
― Emily Henry, Great Big Beautiful Life

“It's not dissimilar to why I started writing, or why I still do it. Not just the pursuit of some clinical truth, but the need to understand a person, make sense of what's at their very core, closest to their heart.”
― Emily Henry, Great Big Beautiful Life

“His huge shoulders lift in a shrug. “It’s true. How many of your favorite shows got canceled? How many of the best albums barely sold when they came out? I mean, It’s a Wonderful Life was a box office flop in its time. If everyone who worked on that movie had known, could see how things were going to pan out in the short term, would they have even bothered to make it? And then the world would’ve lost out on something beautiful. Just because something doesn’t make money or win awards doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value. Or doesn’t deserve to exist. The job is alchemy. You take a hunk of rock and you try to turn it into gold, and the gold isn’t even really the point.”
― Emily Henry, Great Big Beautiful Life

“From before my first breath, there were two distinct Margaret Iveses. There was me, and then there was the other one, the one who belonged to the public. Who got written about. Who people loved at times and hated at others, and no matter where I stood with the public, I understood that it wasn’t really me.”
― Emily Henry, Great Big Beautiful Life

“collecting other people’s stories, learning from their mistakes, it is a gift too.”
― Emily Henry, Great Big Beautiful Life