Shannon > Shannon's Quotes

“You go on. You set one foot in front of the other, and if a thin voice cries out, somewhere behind you, you pretend not to hear, and keep going.”
― Geraldine Brooks, March

“What a long strange trip it's been.”
― Jerry Garcia

“New Orleanians are notoriously late showing up, if they show up at all, because by and large they don't keep calendars. Calendars are tools for managing the future, and in New Orleans the future doesn't exist.”
― Dan Baum, Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans

“—if a painting really works down in your heart and changes the way you see, and think, and feel, you don’t think, ‘oh, I love this picture because it’s universal.’ ‘I love this painting because it speaks to all mankind.’ That’s not the reason anyone loves a piece of art. It’s a secret whisper from an alleyway. Psst, you. Hey kid. Yes you.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“And as much as I’d like to believe there’s a truth beyond illusion, I’ve come to believe that there’s no truth beyond illusion. Because, between ‘reality’ on the one hand, and the point where the mind strikes reality, there’s a middle zone, a rainbow edge where beauty comes into being, where two very different surfaces mingle and blur to provide what life does not: and this is the space where all art exists, and all magic.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“Because--isn't it drilled into us constantly, from childhood on, an unquestioned platitude in the culture--? From William Blake to Lady Gaga, from Rousseau to Rumi to Tosca to Mister Rogers, it's a curiously uniform message, accepted from high to low: when in doubt, what to do? How do we know what's right for us? Every shrink, every career counselor, every Disney princess knows the answer: "Be yourself." "Follow your heart."

Only here's what I really, really want someone to explain to me. What if one happens to be possessed of a heart that can't be trusted--? What if the heart, for its own unfathomable reasons, leads one willfully and in a cloud of unspeakable radiance away from health, domesticity, civic responsibility and strong social connections and all the blandly-held common virtues and instead straight toward a beautiful flare of ruin, self-immolation, disaster?...If your deepest self is singing and coaxing you straight toward the bonfire, is it better to turn away? Stop your ears with wax? Ignore all the perverse glory your heart is screaming at you? Set yourself on the course that will lead you dutifully towards the norm, reasonable hours and regular medical check-ups, stable relationships and steady career advancement the New York Times and brunch on Sunday, all with the promise of being somehow a better person? Or...is it better to throw yourself head first and laughing into the holy rage calling your name?”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“We have art in order not to die of the truth.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“The sky was a rich, mindless, never-ending blue, like a promise of some ridiculous glory that wasn’t really there.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“yet isn’t it always the inappropriate thing, the thing that doesn’t quite work, that’s oddly the dearest?”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“And so ended his affection," said Elizabeth impatiently. "There has been many a one, I fancy, overcome in the same way. I wonder who first discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love!" "I have been used to consider poetry as the FOOD of love," said Darcy. "Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Everything nourishes what is strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away." Darcy only smiled;”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“Memory is more indelible than ink.”
― Anita Loos

“If you were music, I would listen to you ceaselessly, and my low spirits would brighten up.”
― Anna Akhmatova, The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova

“There is an odd synchronicity in the way parallel lives veer to touch one another, change direction, and then come close again and again until they connect and hold for whatever it was that fate intended to happen.”
― Ann Rule

“Tell me what you pay attention to and I will tell you who you are.”
― José Ortega y Gasset

“You only have to forgive once. To resent, you have to do it all day, every day.”
― M.L Stedman

“Scars are just another kind of memory.”
― M.L. Stedman, The Light Between Oceans

“You only have to forgive once. To resent, you have to do it all day, every day. You have to keep remembering all the bad things.”
― M. L. Stedman, The Light Between Oceans

“There is no dishonor in losing the race. There is only dishonor in not racing because you are afraid to lose.”
― Garth Stein, The Art of Racing in the Rain

“Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing.”
― August Wilson

“Melancholy is sadness that has taken on lightness.”
― Italo Calvino

“Do we only decide in retrospect that we've been happy? Don't we notice when we're happy, or do we realize only much later that we were?”
― Nina George, The Little Paris Bookshop

“We are immortal in the dreams of our loved ones. And our dead live on after their deaths in our dreams.”
― Nina George, The Little Paris Bookshop

“All of us preserve time. We preserve the old versions of the people who have left us. And under our skin, under the layer of wrinkles and experience and laughter, we, too, are old versions of ourselves. Directly below the surface, we are our former selves: the former child, the former lover, the former daughter.”
― Nina George, The Little Paris Bookshop

“Death doesn't matter
It makes no difference to life.
We will always remain what we were to each other.”
― Nina George, The Little Paris Bookshop

“In the end, I'm only going next door.
To the end of the corridor, into my favorite room.
And from there, out into the garden.
And there I will become light and go wherever I want.”
― Nina George, The Little Paris Bookshop

“My little big friend Samy left me with one final scrap of wisdom. For once she didn’t shout—she tends to shout. She gave me a hug as I sat there, staring at the sea and counting the colors, and whispered very quietly to me: “Do you know that there’s a halfway world between each ending and each new beginning? It’s called the hurting time, Jean Perdu. It’s a bog; it’s where your dreams and worries and forgotten plans gather. Your steps are heavier during that time. Don’t underestimate the transition, Jeanno, between farewell and new departure. Give yourself the time you need. Some thresholds are too wide to be taken in one stride.”
― Nina George, The Little Paris Bookshop

“You’re right, Manon. It is all still there. The times we spent together are immortal, imperishable, and life never stops. The death of our loved ones is merely a threshold between an ending and a new beginning.”
― Nina George, The Little Paris Bookshop

“the soul sometimes needs to cry to be happy.”
― Nina George, The Little Paris Bookshop

“The reality of love is better than its reputation”
― Nina George, The Little Paris Bookshop

“We don’t generally lie around for days wallowing in our happiness like roast beef in gravy, do we? Happiness is so short-lived. How long have you ever been genuinely happy in one stretch?”
― Nina George, The Little Paris Bookshop