Em > Em's Quotes

“Elinor agreed to it all, for she did not think he deserved the compliment of rational opposition.”
― Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

“Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“Good design is actually a lot harder to notice than poor design, in part because good designs fit our needs so well that the design is invisible,”
― Donald A. Norman, The Design of Everyday Things

“People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

“Time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted.”
― John Marsden, Tomorrow, When the War Began

“For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“The scholar's greatest weakness: calling procrastination research.”
― Stephen King, 11/22/63

“You know, it's pretty easy reading this book to see why I was angry and confused for all those years. I lived my life being told different stories: some true, some lies and I still don't know which is which. Children are born innocent. At birth we are very much like a new hard drive - no viruses, no bad information, no crap that's been downloaded into it yet. It's what we feed into that hard drive, or in my case "head drive" that starts the corruption of the files.”
― Nikki Sixx, The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star

“Forgiveness is not something you do for someone else; it's something you do for yourself. To forgive is not to condone, it is to refuse to continue feeling bad about an injury.”
― Jim Beaver, Life's That Way

“Destroying things is much easier than making them.”
― Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games

“The true purpose of a present is to be received.”
― Marie Kondō, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing

“In ACT, our main interest in a thought is not whether it’s true or false, but whether it’s helpful; that is, if we pay attention to this thought, will it help us create the life we want?”
― Russ Harris, The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living: A Guide to ACT

“If something is going to happen to me, I want to be there.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“Better be without sense than misapply it as you do. ”
― Jane Austen, Emma

“Oh! This'll impress you - I'm actually in the Abnormal Psychology textbook. Obviously my family is so proud. Keep in mind though, I'm a PEZ dispenser and I'm in the abnormal Psychology textbook. Who says you can't have it all?”
― Carrie Fisher, Wishful Drinking

“The Australian is forcefully loquacious, until the moment of expressing any emotion. He is aggressively committed to equality and equal-opportunity for all men, except for black Australians. He has high assurance in anything he does combined with a gnawing lack of confidence in anything he thinks.”
― Robin Boyd, The Australian Ugliness

“But the Time Traveller had more than a touch of whim among his elements, and we distrusted him.”
― H.G. Wells, The Time Machine

“He walked with just such a limp as I have seen in footsore tramps.”
― H.G. Wells, The Time Machine

“It really matters when the work we are doing doesn't.”
― Scott Mautz, Make It Matter: How Managers Can Motivate by Creating Meaning

“Joy doesn’t betray but sustains activism. And when you face a politics that aspires to make you fearful, alienated, and isolated, joy is a fine initial act of insurrection.”
― Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities

“It is irrational to be politically well-informed because the low returns from data simply do not justify their cost in time and other resources.”
― Bryan Caplan, The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies

“The more deference there is, the narrower the band of judgements on which organisations rely. Deference acts like the fatty deposits that build up in arteries, restricting the flow of fresh, oxygen-enriched blood across the system.”
― Robin Ryde, Never Mind the Bosses: Hastening the Death of Deference for Business Success

“We know how unsafe the world is for us. We are like cliffs staring down at a raging sea, battered by winds and salt and spray and unable to wrench ourselves away from the supposed inevitability of it all. But though we may recede under the relentless thrashing, still we stand tall. The world and all its angry currents cannot break us, no matter how hard it tries. Still, this erosion of the spirit is a bitter pill to swallow.”
― Clementine Ford, Fight Like a Girl

“I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“There had not been this many words sounded in our house for a long time, and it was going to take a while to clean them out.”
― Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle