Barbara Walker > Barbara's Quotes

“Hide not your talents, they for use were made,
What's a sundial in the shade?”
― Benjamin Franklin

“Love never fails. —I Corinthians 13:8a”
― Anonymous, Holy Bible: New International Version

“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.”
― Joseph Brodsky

“Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Alarms and Discursions

“You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching,
Love like you'll never be hurt,
Sing like there's nobody listening,
And live like it's heaven on earth.”
― William W. Purkey

“Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
― Steve Jobs

“I’m not waiting until my hair turns white to become patient and wise. Nope, I’m dyeing my hair tonight.”
― Jarod Kintz, This Book is Not for Sale

“What she was finding also was how one book led to another, doors kept opening wherever she turned and the days weren't long enough for the reading she wanted to do.”
― Alan Bennett, The Uncommon Reader

“The road that is built in hope is more pleasant to the traveler than the road built in despair, even though they both lead to the same destination.”
― Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Fall of Atlantis

“Joy is the best makeup.”
― Anne Lamott, Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith

“To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.”
― Federico García Lorca, Blood Wedding and Yerma

“Live not for Battles Won.
Live not for The-End-of-the-Song.
Live in the along.”
― Gwendolyn Brooks, Report from Part One

“People who claim that they're evil are usually no worse than the rest of us... It's people who claim that they're good, or any way better than the rest of us, that you have to be wary of.”
― Gregory Maguire, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

“Unexpected intrusions of beauty. This is what life is.”
― Saul Bellow, Herzog

“It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.”
― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

“Think you're escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home.”
― James Joyce, Ulysses

“Every person who comes into this world must make the decision as to what type of person they want to be. Establishing yourself once is not enough. It's an ongoing, constant effort to separate yourself from who you feel that you are, and from who you want to become.”
― Ali Warren, Where Hope Lives

“The time to make up your mind about people, is never.”
― Philip Barry, The Philadelphia Story: A Comedy in Three Acts

“We’re all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness—and call it love—true love.”
― Robert Fulghum, True Love

“He felt that there is a loose balance of good and evil, and that the art of living consists in getting the greatest good out of the greatest evil.”
― Machado de Assis, Iaiá Garcia

“In order to rise
From its own ashes
A phoenix
First
Must
Burn.”
― Octavia Butler, Parable of the Talents

“I trust that everything happens for a reason, even if we are not wise enough to see it.”
― Oprah Winfrey

“Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.”
― E.L. Doctorow

“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”
― Andre Gide, Autumn Leaves

“To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.”
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi

“One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.”
― Helen Keller, The Story of My Life

“Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own self.”
― Franz Kafka

“Living is a horizontal fall.”
― Jean Cocteau, Opium: The Illustrated Diary of His Cure

“Open a book this minute and start reading. Don’t move until you’ve reached page fifty. Until you’ve buried your thoughts in print. Cover yourself with words. Wash yourself away. Dissolve.”
― Carol Shields, The Republic of Love

“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