M.K. > M.K.'s Quotes

“We read to know we're not alone.”
― William Nicholson, Shadowlands: A Play

“Better to fight for something than live for nothing.”
― George S. Patton

“You are imperfect, permanently and inevitably flawed. And you are beautiful.”
― Amy Bloom

“One day the great European War will come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans (1888).”
― Otto von Bismarck

“Writing a novel creates a window to a new way of looking at the world. Reading one means looking through that window.”
― Mark Rubinstein

“When you love someone, you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand. We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity - in freedom, in the sense that the dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern.

The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping, even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now. Relationships must be like islands, one must accept them for what they are here and now, within their limits - islands, surrounded and interrupted by the sea, and continually visited and abandoned by the tides.”
― Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea

“Once the first draft is done, the really tough work begins.”
― Mark Rubinstein

“Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can't build on it; it's only good for wallowing in.”
― Katherine Mansfield

“Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets.”
― Arthur Miller, The Ride Down Mt. Morgan

“We all do things we desperately wish we could undo. Those regrets just become part of who we are, along with everything else. To spend time trying to change that, well, it's like chasing clouds.”
― Libba Bray

“Divorce is a process, not an event. It takes months to unfold, a barrage of emotional ups and downs as denial is replaced by grief, grief by anger, and anger gradually eases into acceptance.”
― M. K. Tod, Time and Regret

“The concept of barroom shoot-outs and duels in the sun have no part in our tradition either, possibly because we have had so few barrooms and so little sun. (It is awkward to reach efficiently for a six-gun while wearing a parka and two pairs of mittens.)”
― Pierre Berton, Klondike: The Last Great Gold Rush, 1896-1899

“A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”
― Thomas Mann, Essays of Three Decades

“The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.”
― Coco Chanel

“Curiouser and curiouser!” Cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English).”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass

“I am here to live out loud.”
― Emila Zola

“What is so marvelous about living today is that it is possible to extend, like a flower, spreading petals in all directions.”
― Carolyn Kizer

“How marvelous books are, crossing worlds and centuries, defeating ignorance and, finally, cruel time itself.”
― Gore Vidal, Julian

“The love of learning, the sequestered nooks,
And all the sweet serenity of books”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Reading has shaped me, guided me, reflected me, and helped me understand and connect with, and this is not hyperbole, HUMANITY.”
― Annie Spence, Dear Fahrenheit 451: Love and Heartbreak in the Stacks

“The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.”
― Mark Twain

“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.”
― Groucho Marx