David > David's Quotes

“My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“Her smile brings a smile to my lips every time. Knowing that sometimes, I'm the one who caused that makes me even happier.”
― Lindsay Paige, Sweetness

“It is upon the rubble of ancient history that today stands”
― Jan Ellison, A Small Indiscretion

“People like to say love is unconditional, but it's not, and even if it was unconditional, it's still never free. There's always an expectation attached. They always want something in return. Like they want you to be happy or whatever, and that makes you automatically responsible for their happiness because they won't be happy unless you are. You're supposed to be who they think you're supposed to be and to feel how they think you're supposed to feel because they love you, and when you can't give them what they want, they feel shitty, so you feel shitty, and everybody feels shitty. I just don't want that responsibility.”
― Katja Millay, The Sea of Tranquility

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“I predict future happiness for Americans, if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“There’s something disturbing about recalling a warm memory and feeling utterly cold.”
― Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

“Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl.

Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men – friends, coworkers, strangers – giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn’t really love chili dogs that much – no one loves chili dogs that much! And the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be. Oh, and if you’re not a Cool Girl, I beg you not to believe that your man doesn’t want the Cool Girl. It may be a slightly different version – maybe he’s a vegetarian, so Cool Girl loves seitan and is great with dogs; or maybe he’s a hipster artist, so Cool Girl is a tattooed, bespectacled nerd who loves comics. There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain. (How do you know you’re not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: “I like strong women.” If he says that to you, he will at some point fuck someone else. Because “I like strong women” is code for “I hate strong women.”)”
― Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

“The Seven Social Sins are:

Wealth without work.
Pleasure without conscience.
Knowledge without character.
Commerce without morality.
Science without humanity.
Worship without sacrifice.
Politics without principle.


From a sermon given by Frederick Lewis Donaldson in Westminster Abbey, London, on March 20, 1925.”
― Frederick Lewis Donaldson

“There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

“Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian.”
― Robert Orben

“I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow; but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.”
― Agatha Christie

“The thing about relationships is that it's a two-party system. Both sides have to be willing to compromise, be that shoulder to lean or cry on. Both sides have to be strong for the other. Both parties should be carrying the whole weight on their shoulders together.”
― Lindsay Paige, Always

“People who have never been through any sort of shit always assume that they know how you should react to having your life destroyed. And the people who have been through shit think you're supposed to deal with it the exact same way they did. As if there's a playbook for surviving hell.”
― Katja Millay

“Sometimes it's easier to pretend nothing is wrong than to face the fact that everything is wrong, but you're powerless to do anything about it.”
― Katja Millay, The Sea of Tranquility

“Maybe I don't blame myself for what happened, but when they tell you that something was completely and utterly random, they're also telling you something else. That nothing you do matters. It doesn't matter if you do everything right, if you dress the right way and act the right way and follow the rules, because evil will find you anyway. Evil's resourceful that way.”
― Katja Millay, The Sea of Tranquility

“I live in a world without magic or miracles. A place where there are no clairvoyants or shapeshifters, no angels or superhuman boys to save you. A place where people die, music disintegrates, and things suck. I am pressed so hard against the earth by the weight of reality that some days I wonder how I am still able to lift my feet and to walk.”
― Katja Millay, The Sea of Tranquility

“I suppose that unrequited love is the hardest kind to shed because it is not really love at all. It is a half-love, and we are forever stomping around trying to get ahold of the other half.”
― Jan Ellison, A Small Indiscretion

“Unrequited love is the best kind of all. But I can tell you with certainty, Robbie, that the other kind of love, the kind I received from your father for more than two decades, is far more necessary.”
― Jan Ellison, A Small Indiscretion

“Denial, as any addict in recovery will tell you, is not defined as knowing something and pretending you don’t; it is failing to see it at all.”
― Jan Ellison, A Small Indiscretion

“Perhaps blame is the way the universe organizes itself around tragedy and loss. Without blame, suffering is random, and that kind of randomness leads to madness.”
― Jan Ellison, A Small Indiscretion

“All of it was rushing together, making a psychedelic mess of my heart.”
― Jan Ellison, A Small Indiscretion

“Daylight won’t protect you from anything. Bad things happen all the time; they don’t wait until after dinner”
― Katja Millay, The Sea of Tranquility

“I wished my mother was here tonight, which is stupid, because it’s an impossible wish.” He shrugs and turns to me, drowning the smile that cracks me every time.
“It’s not stupid to want to see her again.”
“It wasn’t so much that I wanted to see her again,” he says, looking at me with the depth of more than seventeen years in his eyes. “I wanted her to see you.”
― Katja Millay, The Sea of Tranquility

“There are so many things that can break you if there's nothing to hold you together.”
― Katja Millay, The Sea of Tranquility

“People who go around advertising their birthdays are douchebags. It's a fact. You can look it up on Wikipedia.”
― Katja Millay, The Sea of Tranquility

“When you look at her what do you feel?... Joy, fear, frustration, longing, friendship, anger, need, despair, love, lust?"
"Yes."
"Yes, what?"
"All of it.”
― Katja Millay, The Sea of Tranquility

“When I look at her now, I think, for just one second, that God doesn't hate me so much after all.”
― Katja Millay, The Sea of Tranquility

“I haven’t started counting yet. I wonder if it’s just me or if it’s like that for everybody; that every time someone dies you start counting how much time has passed since they’ve been gone. First you count it in minutes, then in hours. You count in days, then weeks, then months. Then one day you realize that you aren’t counting anymore, and you don’t even know when you stopped. That’s the moment they’re gone.”
― Katja Millay, The Sea of Tranquility

“I don't really care what people say about me. I'm fine with lies and rumors. It's the truth I don't want being told.”
― Katja Millay, The Sea of Tranquility