Joy > Joy's Quotes

“Death is a strange thing. People live their whole lives as if it does not exist, and yet it's often one of the great motivations for living. Some of us, in time, become so conscious of it that we live harder, more obstinately, with more fury. Some need its constant presence to even be aware of its antithesis. Others become so preoccupied with it that they go into the waiting room long before it has announced its arrival. We fear it, yet most of us fear more than anything that it may take someone other than ourselves. For the greatest fear of death is always that it will pass us by. And leave us there alone.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever.”
― Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See

“But it is not bravery; I have no choice. I wake up and live my life. Don't you do the same?”
― Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See

“So how, children, does the brain, which lives without a spark of light, build for us a world full of light?”
― Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See

“You know the greatest lesson of history? It’s that history is whatever the victors say it is. That’s the lesson. Whoever wins, that’s who decides the history. We act in our own self-interest. Of course we do. Name me a person or a nation who does not. The trick is figuring out where your interests are.”
― Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See

“All your life you wait, and then it finally comes, and are you ready?”
― Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See

“When I lost my sight, Werner, people said I was brave. When my father left, people said I was brave. But it is not bravery; I have no choice. I wake up and live my life. Don't you do the same?”
― Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See

“We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another.”
― Veronica Roth, Divergent

“Becoming fearless isn't the point. That's impossible. It's learning how to control your fear, and how to be free from it.”
― Veronica Roth, Divergent

“I have a theory that selflessness and bravery aren't all that different.”
― Veronica Roth, Divergent

“A brave man acknowledges the strength of others.”
― Veronica Roth, Divergent

“People, I have discovered, are layers and layers of secrets. You believe you know them, that you understand them, but their motives are always hidden from you, buried in their own hearts. You will never know them, but sometimes you decide to trust them.”
― Veronica Roth, Insurgent

“We both have war inside us. Sometimes it keeps us alive. Sometimes it threatens to destroy us.”
― Veronica Roth, Insurgent

“Like a wild animal, the truth is too powerful to remain caged.”
― Veronica Roth, Insurgent

“She taught me all about real sacrifice. That it should be done from love... That it should be done from necessity, not without exhausting all other options. That it should be done for people who need your strength because they don't have enough of their own.”
― Veronica Roth, Allegiant

“I wonder if fears ever really go away, or if they just lose their power over us.”
― Veronica Roth, Allegiant

“I'll say it one last time: Be brave.”
― Veronica Roth, Allegiant

“Knowledge is power. Power to do evil...or power to do good. Power itself is not evil. So knowledge itself is not evil.”
― Veronica Roth, Allegiant

“Can I be forgiven for all I've done to get here?
I want to be.
I can.
I believe it.”
― Veronica Roth, Allegiant

“She was elusive. She was today. She was tomorrow. She was the faintest scent of a cactus flower, the flitting shadow of an elf owl. We did not know what to make of her. In our minds we tried to pin her to a cork board like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Stargirl

“Live today. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Just today. Inhabit your moments. Don’t rent them out to tomorrow. Do you know what you’re doing when you spend a moment wondering how things are going to turn out with Perry?

You’re cheating yourself out of today. Today is calling to you, trying to get your attention, but you’re stuck on tomorrow, and today trickles away like water down a drain. You wake up the next morning and that today you wasted is gone forever. It’s now yesterday. Some of those moments may have had wonderful things in store for you , but now you’ll never know.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Love, Stargirl

“When a stargirl cries, she sheds not tears but light.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Stargirl

“The earth is speaking to us, but we can't hear because of all the racket our senses are making. Sometimes we need to erase them, erase our senses. Then - maybe - the earth will touch us. The universe will speak. The stars will whisper.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Stargirl

“It's in the morning, for most of us. It's that time, those few seconds when we're coming out of sleep but we're not really awake yet. For those few seconds we're something more primitive than what we are about to become. We have just slept the sleep of our most distant ancestors, and something of them and their world still clings to us. For those few moments we are unformed, uncivilized. We are not the people we know as ourselves, but creatures more in tune with a tree than a keyboard. We are untitled, unnamed, natural, suspended between was and will be, the tadpole before the frog, the worm before the butterfly. We are for a few brief moments, anything and everything we could be. And then...and then -- ah -- we open our eyes and the day is before us and ... we become ourselves.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Stargirl

“Nothing’s more fun than being carried away.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Stargirl

“It's a sort of computer. There are special drawing programs for it. For children,' she whispers a little louder.

And something is shining in her eyes.

Something that Ove recognizes.”
― Fredrick Backman

“A job well done is a reward in its own right, as his father always used to say.”
― Fredrick Backman

“A year turned into several years, and several years turned into all the years. One morning you wake up with more life behind you than in front of you, not being able to understand how it's happened.”
― Fredrick Backman, Britt-Marie Was Here

“...just as Elsa opens Audi's door to jump out, he (Dad) turns to her hesitantly and says in a low voice:

"...but there are moments when I sincerely hope that not ALL your best traits come from Granny and Mum, Elsa."

And then Elsa squeezes her eyes together tightly and puts her forehead against his shoulder and her fingers into her jacket pocket and spins the lid of the red felt-tip pen that he gave her when she was small, so she could add her own punctuation marks, and which is still the best present he's ever given her. Or anyone.

"You gave me your words," she whispers.”
― Fredrick Backman

“He cleared his throat and looked around with a certain desperation to find something to ask this old man about. Because that was what Ove had learned: if one didn't have anything to say, one had to find something to ask. If there was one thing that made people forget to dislike one, it was when they were given the opportunity to talk about themselves.”
― Fredrick Backman