Holly Genovese > Holly's Quotes

“A good swimming pool could do that—make the rest of the world seem impossibly insignificant, as far away as the surface of the moon.”
― Emma Straub, The Vacationers

“She’d read all of Jane Austen that year—Austen was good, but when you told people you liked Pride and Prejudice, they expected you to be all sunshine and wedding veils, and Sylvia preferred the rainy moors. The Brontës weren’t afraid to let someone die of consumption, which Sylvia respected.”
― Emma Straub, The Vacationers

“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

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

“I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”
― James Baldwin

“The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc. So people who don't know what the hell they're doing or who on earth they are can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self: Tall. Decaf. Cappuccino." - Joe Fox”
― Nora Ephron

“One is astonished in the study of history at the recurrence of the idea that evil must be forgotten, distorted, skimmed over. The difficulty, of course, with this philosophy is that history loses its value as an incentive and example; it paints perfect men and noble nations, but it does not tell the truth.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880

“One reads the truer deeper facts of Reconstruction with a great despair. It is at once so simple and human, and yet so futile. There is no villain, no idiot, no saint. There are just men; men who crave ease and power, men who know want and hunger, men who have crawled. They all dream and strive with ecstasy of fear and strain of effort, balked of hope and hate. Yet the rich world is wide enough for all, wants all, needs all. So slight a gesture, a word, might set the strife in order, not with full content, but with growing dawn of fulfillment. Instead roars the crash of hell...”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880

“XVII. THE PROPAGANDA OF HISTORY

How the facts of American history have in the last half century have been falsified because the nation was ashamed. The South was ashamed because it fought to perpetuate human slavery. The North was ashamed because it had to call in the black men to save the Union, abolish slavery and establish democracy.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880

“All men know that by sheer weight of physical force, the mass of men must in the last resort become the arbiters of human action. But reason, skill, wealth, machines and power may for long periods enable the few to control the many. But to what end? The current theory of democracy is that dictatorship is a stopgap pending the work of universal education, equitable income, and strong character. But always the temptation is to use the stopgap for narrower ends, because intelligence, thrift and goodness seem so impossibly distant for most men. We rule by junta; we turn Fascist, because we do not believe in men; yet the basis of fact in this disbelief is incredibly narrow. We know perfectly well that most human beings have never had a decent human chance to be full men. Most of us may be convinced that even with opportunity the number of utter human failures would be vast; and yet remember that this assumption kept the ancestors of present white America long in slavery and degradation.

It is then one's moral duty to see that every human being, to the extent of his capacity, escapes ignorance, poverty and crime. With this high ideal held unswervingly in view, monarchy, oligarchy, dictatorships may rule; but the end will be the rule of All, if mayhap All or Most qualify. The only unforgivable sin is dictatorship for the benefit of Fools, Voluptuaries, gilded Satraps, Prostitutes and Idiots. The rule of the famished, unlettered, stinking mob is better than this and the only inevitable, logical and justifiable return. To escape from ultimate democracy is as impossible as it is for ignorant poverty and crime to rule forever.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880

“If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain.”
― Emily Dickinson

“Forever is composed of nows.”
― Emily Dickinson

“That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet.”
― Emily Dickinson

“If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry.”
― Emily Dickinson

“A little Madness in the Spring Is wholesome even for the King.”
― Emily Dickinson

“I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in my life. And I am horribly limited.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

“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

“Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing.”
― sylvia plath

“I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)”
― Sylvia Plath

“let me live, love, and say it well in good sentences”
― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

“Is there no way out of the mind?”
― Sylvia Plath

“Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
and I eat men like air.”
― Sylvia Plath, Ariel: The Restored Edition

“I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.”
― Herman Melville, Moby Dick

“She thought of the library, so shining white and new; the rows and rows of unread books; the bliss of unhurried sojourns there and of going out to a restaurant, alone, to eat.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown

“Isn't it mysterious to begin a new journal like this? I can run my fingers through the fresh clean pages but I cannot guess what the writing on them will be.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy in Spite of Herself

“Betsy returned to her chair, took off her coat and hat, opened her book and forgot the world again.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown

“The next morning, of course, Betsy made a list. Lists were always her comfort. For years she had made lists of books she must read, good habits she must acquire, things she must do to make herself prettier—like brushing her hair a hundred strokes at night, and manicuring her fingernails, and doing calisthenics before an open window in the morning. (That one hadn’t lasted long.)
It was fun making this list, sitting in bed with her breakfast tray on her lap…hot chocolate, crisp hard rolls, and a pat of butter. Hanni had brought it to her after closing the windows and pushing back the velvet draperies. Betsy felt like a heroine in one of her own stories; their maids always awakened them that way.

1. Learn the darn money.
2. Study German. (You’ve forgotten all you knew.)
3. Buy a map and learn the city—from end to end, as you told Papa you would.
4. Read the history of Bavaria. You must have it for background.
5. Go to the opera. (You didn’t stay in Madeira because Munich is such a center for music and art???)
6. Go to the art galleries. (Same reason.)
7. Write!

Full of enthusiasm, she planned a schedule. First, each morning, she would have her bath, and then write until noon. After the midday dinner she would go out and learn the city. She would go to the galleries, museums, and churches. She would have coffee out—for atmosphere.
“Then I’ll come home and study German and read Bavarian history. And after supper…” she tried not to remember the look of that dining room…“I’ll write my diary-letter, except when I go to the opera or concerts.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and the Great World / Betsy's Wedding

“I like good strong words that mean something…”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

“There can be no love without justice.”
― Bell Hooks, All About Love: New Visions