Toby Neal > Toby's Quotes

“I stood still, vision blurring, and in that moment, I heard my heart break. It was a small, clean sound, like the snapping of a flower's stem.”
― Diana Gabaldon, Dragonfly in Amber

“When the day shall come that we do part," he said softly, and turned to look at me, "if my last words are not 'I love you'-ye'll ken it was because I didna have time.”
― Diana Gabaldon

“Perfect is a dream that you wake up from and spend forever trying to remember.”
― Joseph Eastwood

“Everything has to do with everything else—you know that by now. So begin at the beginning, and it will lead to the end.”
― Toby Neal, Blood Orchids

“There are always people talking about it. We’re dying. Suicide is a way to take control of that.”
― Toby Neal, Twisted Vine

“The house was done in a classic island style, and Lei couldn’t help but like the wide, deep roofline that sheltered a porch that ran the length and breadth of the house. The lanai was dotted with Adirondack chairs in”
― Toby Neal, Broken Ferns

“The problem with getting older is you meant to bring sexy back, but then you got sidetracked, and wound up napping instead.”
― Russell Blake

“Experience: Mistakes you have survived.”
― Russell Blake, Night of the Assassin

“He’s so different from me, dark to my light, rough to my smooth, hard to my soft—but the sum total of us is perfect.”
― Toby Neal, Somewhere in the City

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“Sometimes you're trying so hard to get your life together and still it's not enough, everything is falling apart. What to do, you're asking. Just keep going through hell for yourself, not for everyone else. Richer with that wisdom, I will build my happiness from nothing. I will rise from the dust. And I will do it on my own. I will live for myself and I won’t look at the others.”
― Asper Blurry, Train to the Edge of the Moon

“I write to discover what I know.”
― Flannery O'Connor

“Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”
― E.L. Doctorow, Writers At Work: The Paris Review Interviews, 2nd Series

“Pop trips over some vegetation and lets go. I’m roaring down the slanting, bumpy dirt path, trying to dodge the rocks and shrieking with delighted terror. I’m heading into the stand of Java plum trees at the end of our clearing when I lose balance and crash into a lantana bush. I’m winded and scratched as I try to crawl out of the prickly bush. My bike lies in the path, tires spinning, already getting smeared with red Kauai dirt. Pop runs over and picks me up to see if I’m okay. My knees have hit something and are scraped, lantana thorns tangle my hair, but I’m panting with excitement. “Let’s do it again!”
― Toby Neal, Freckled: A Memoir of Growing Up Wild in Hawaii

“severe astigmatism, which is a malformation of the lens of your eye. You’ll have to get new glasses every six months until the degeneration slows down after puberty.”
― T.W. Neal, Freckled: A Memoir of Growing Up Wild in Hawaii

“To victims of bullying: the best revenge is a well-lived life. To kids bullied in school for any reason: red-haired, poor, black, white, Asian, Mexican, Guatemalan, Micronesian, zitty, chubby, four-eyed, dorky, dweeby, ditzy, and a million others: you might need to retreat, but never give up. Persevere, and someday you’ll look back and see how your wounds made you stronger. Your life is what you make it in the long run—don’t let a bully win by stealing your future.”
― Toby Neal, Freckled: A Memoir of Growing Up Wild in Hawaii

“If you permit your thoughts to dwell on evil, you yourself will become ugly. Look only for the good in everything so you absorb the quality of beauty.”
― T.W. Neal, Freckled: A Memoir of Growing Up Wild in Hawaii

“I’m crying, and it’s not nice little girl crying. Powerful, terrible feelings take me over and explode out of my body, feelings I’ve always been scared to let out because they’re so strong. The crying is huge and snotty and loud. I hit everything around me, grabbing a tree and banging my head on it, kicking bushes that lash back at me. The pain feels good, soothing the bone-deep grief and fiery burning rage as all the things that are wrong with my world erupt all at once.”
― T.W. Neal, Freckled: A Memoir of Growing Up Wild in Hawaii

“Happiness bubbles inside me, so strong that I’m afraid of how I’ll feel when it’s over.”
― T.W. Neal, Freckled: A Memoir of Growing Up Wild in Hawaii

“As long as I can read, I can get through anything.”
― T.W. Neal, Freckled: A Memoir of Growing Up Wild in Hawaii

“Death is powerful. No one is immune. And it’s the living who must make their peace with it, because the dead don’t give a shit.”
― Liliana Hart, Dirty Rotten Scoundrel

“Reading continues to be my best escape, a magic carpet of adventure ready to take me away any time I open those big stiff covers with their delightful musty library smell.”
― T.W. Neal, Freckled: A Memoir of Growing Up Wild in Hawaii