Michell > Michell's Quotes

“The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust. A merging of two people is an impossibility, and where it seems to exist, it is a hemming-in, a mutual consent that robs one party or both parties of their fullest freedom and development. But once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

“Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge

“Come to the beach with me
And watch the pelicans die,
Hear their feeble screams
Calling to an empty sky
Where once they played
And scouted for food,
Not scavenging like the gulls
But plummeting unafraid
Into friendly waters.

Come to the beach with me
And watch the pelicans die,
Listen to their feeble screams
Calling to an empty sky.
Maybe Christ will walk by
And save them in their final toil
Or work a miracle from the shore,
A courtesy of Union Oil.

Come to the beach with me
And watch the pelicans die.
My God! They'll never fly again.
It's worse than Normandy somehow,
For there we only murdered men.”
― James Kavanaugh, There Are Men Too Gentle to Live Among Wolves

“We're squirrels in human form, she whispered. And so are you.”
― Audrey Niffenegger, Her Fearful Symmetry

“As it has been said:
Love and a cough
cannot be concealed.
Even a small cough.
Even a small love.”
― Anne Sexton

“We do know that no one gets wise enough to really understand the heart of another, though it is the task of our life to try.”
― Louise Erdrich, The Bingo Palace

“I not only use all the brains that I have, but all I can borrow.”
― Woodrow Wilson

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

“Books say: She did this because. Life says: She did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren't. I'm not surprised some people prefer books.”
― Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot

“If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud.”
― Émile Zola

“An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.”
― Niels Bohr

“Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness. Know how to give without hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness.”
― George Sand

“The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.”
― James Branch Cabell, The Silver Stallion

“There is no mistaking a real book when one meets it. It is like falling in love.”
― Christopher Morley, Pipefuls

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

“There are no faster or firmer friendships than those formed between people who love the same books.”
― Irving Stone, Clarence Darrow for the Defense

“You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.”
― Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.”
― James Baldwin

“It isn't what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it.”
― Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends & Influence People

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.”
― William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

“Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.”
― Mark Twain

“The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.”
― Anna Quindlen

“Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to be always part of unanimity.”
― Christopher Morley

“A map says to you.
Read me carefully, follow me closely, doubt me not...
I am the earth in the palm of your hand.”
― Beryl Markham

“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven..”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”
― Dr. Seuss, Happy Birthday to You!

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
Nothing is going to get better. It's not.”
― Dr. Seuss, The Lorax

“I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen.”
― John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent

“The capacity for friendship is God's way of apologizing for our families.”
― Jay McInerney, The Last of the Savages

“Sorry.

Sorry means you feel the pulse of other people's pain as well as your own, and saying it means you take a share of it. And so it binds us together, makes us trodden and sodden as one another. Sorry is a lot of things. It's a hole refilled. A debt repaid. Sorry is the wake of misdeed. It's the crippling ripple of consequence. Sorry is sadness, just as knowing is sadness. Sorry is sometimes self-pity. But Sorry, really, is not about you. It's theirs to take or leave.

Sorry means you leave yourself open, to embrace or to ridicule or to revenge. Sorry is a question that begs forgiveness, because the metronome of a good heart won't settle until things are set right and true. Sorry doesn't take things back, but it pushes things forward. It bridges the gap. Sorry is a sacrament. It's an offering. A gift.”
― Craig Silvey, Jasper Jones