Viv > Viv's Quotes

“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

“He would talk to them of stories and books, and explain to them how stories wanted to be told and books wanted to be read, and how everything that they ever needed to know about life and the land of which he wrote, or about any land or realm that they could imagine, was contained in books. And some of the children understood, and some did not.”
― John Connolly, The Book of Lost Things

“It's enough for me to be sure that you and I exist at this moment.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

“This life is filled with threats and danger, David. We face those that we have to face, and there will be times when we must make the choice to act for the greater good, even at risk to ourselves, but we do not lay down our lives needlessly. Each of us has only one life to live, and one life to give. There is no glory in throwing it away where there is no hope.”
― John Connolly, The Book of Lost Things

“Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I'm not living.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

“I like to see people reunited, I like to see people run to each other, I like the kissing and the crying, I like the impatience, the stories that the mouth can't tell fast enough, the ears that aren't big enough, the eyes that can't take in all of the change, I like the hugging, the bringing together, the end of missing someone.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

“The story so far:
In the beginning the Universe was created.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer”
― Douglas Adams

“Courage is a heart word. The root of the word courage is cor - the Latin word for heart. In one of its earliest forms, the word courage meant "To speak one's mind by telling all one's heart." Over time, this definition has changed, and today, we typically associate courage with heroic and brave deeds. But in my opinion, this definition fails to recognize the inner strength and level of commitment required for us to actually speak honestly and openly about who we are and about our experiences -- good and bad. Speaking from our hearts is what I think of as "ordinary courage.”
― Brené Brown, I Thought It Was Just Me: Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame

“[A]nd both of them remained floating in an empty universe where the only everyday and eternal reality was love.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

“The thought was this: that all my life had been murk and depths, but I was not a part of that dark water. I was a creature within it.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“Little by little I began to listen better: to the sap moving in the plants, to the blood in my veins. I learned to understand my own intention, to prune and to add, to feel where the power gathered and speak the right words to draw it to its height. That was the moment I lived for, when it all came clear at last and the spell could sing with its pure note, for me and me alone.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“He does not mean that it does not hurt. He does not mean that we are not frightened. Only that: we are here. This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what it means to be alive.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“I will not be like a bird bred in a cage, I thought, too dull to fly even when the door stands open. I stepped into those woods and my life began.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“Do we really want to travel in hermetically sealed popemobiles through the rural provinces of France, Mexico and the Far East, eating only in Hard Rock Cafes and McDonalds? Or do we want to eat without fear, tearing into the local stew, the humble taqueria's mystery meat, the sincerely offered gift of a lightly grilled fish head? I know what I want. I want it all. I want to try everything once.”
― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

“Skills can be taught. Character you either have or you don't have.”
― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

“I've long believed that good food, good eating, is all about risk. Whether we're talking about unpasteurized Stilton, raw oysters or working for organized crime 'associates,' food, for me, has always been an adventure”
― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

“Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans ... are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit.”
― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential : Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

“I think of how keenly I've been wrong. I think of all the gods I have made out of feeble men.”
― Raven Leilani, Luster

“I’m an open book,” I say, thinking of all the men who have found it illegible.”
― Raven Leilani, Luster

“I am inclined to pray, but on principle, I don't. God is not for women. He is for the fruit. He makes you want and he makes you wicked, and while you sleep, he plants a seed in your womb that will be born to die.”
― Raven Leilani, Luster

“She says that telling a love story is something one person does. Being in love takes both of them. Putting her on a pedestal is just a different way of being alone.”
― Charles Yu, Interior Chinatown

“But didn't they know? I wasn't brave. I was a girl who was scared of the dark. A girl so scared of being hurt she would always leave first. I'd never been brave.”
― Jaquira Díaz, Ordinary Girls

“I had been old and stern for so long, carved with regrets and years like a monolith. But that was only a shape I had been poured into. I did not have to keep it.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“I felt the currents move. The grains of sand whispered against each other. His wings were lifting. The darkness around us shimmered with clouds of his gilded blood. Beneath my feet were the bones of a thousand years. I thought: I cannot bear this world a moment longer.

Then, child, make another.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“I stepped into those woods and my life began.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“All my life I have been moving forward, and now I am here. I have a mortal’s voice, let me have the rest. I lift the brimming bowl to my lips and drink.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“I thought I cannot bear this world a moment longer.
Then, child, make another.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“You can love someone so much...But you can never love people as much as you can miss them.”
― John Green