Meredith > Meredith's Quotes

“Their lives had another forty seconds to run.”
― Stephen King

“The alternative to thinking in evolutionary terms is not to think at all.”
― P.B. Medawar

“There will come a time when you believe everything is finished; that will be the beginning. ”
― Louis L'Amour

“If anybody would make me the greatest king that ever lived, with palaces and gardens, and fine dinners, and wine and coaches, and beautiful clothes, and hundreds of servants, on condition that I would not read books, I would not be a king. I would rather be a poor man in a garret with plenty of books than a king who did not love reading.”
― Thomas Babington Macaulay

“Her strength, she would tell Van much later on, was nothing more nor less than the hope of, at last, attaining that goal which had become so important for her--not to succeed in doing something, but simply to do something good.”
― Laurence Cossé, A Novel Bookstore

“You have so much to offer, she was often told, as if she had a tray of cigarettes and candy perpetually strapped to her waist.”
― Lily King

“Time rises and rises, and when it reaches the level of your eyes you drown.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

“Through the years, I have learned there is no harm in charging oneself up with delusions between moments of valid inspiration.”
― Steve Martin, Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life

“I’ve come to the end of another book alive. At times like this I’m always at a loss for words.”
― Joe Coomer, Sailing in a Spoonful of Water

“At ten, I couldn't articulate much but I got the message: to be a true historian, you had to mourn amply and well. (spoken by narrator Ava Bigtree in Swamplandia!)”
― Karen Russell

“[T]he narrative intelligences of our books should leave us feeling a bit pressed intellectually, a bit outmatched, amazed ultimately by the talent of the author who brought such an exquisite intelligence to life.” (from article “From the Library of Your Soul-Mate: The Unique Social Bond of Literature”)”
― Bryan Basamanowicz

“There was something of Francis in the boy, something pure and genuine and flawed. That type didn't think twice before running headlong into a burning house or a young girl's arms.”
― Johanna Moran, The Wives of Henry Oades

“We begin in the world as anagrams of our antecedents.”
― Maggie O'Farrell, The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox

“A book is a sneeze.”
― E.B. White, Letters of E.B. White

“How are the Indians on cats?"
"I never saw one. Plenty of dogs, though."
"They eat the dogs, don't they?"
"That's the Shoshones," I said. "A dog or coyote is sacred to a Comanche. You would be cursed."
"But they do eat human beings occasionally?"
"That's the Tonkawas," I said.
"Never the Comanches."
"A Comanche who ate a man would be killed by the tribe immediately, because supposedly it becomes an addiction."
"Interesting," he said. He was scratching his chin. "And this Sun Dance they all talk about?"
"That's the Kiowas," I said. "We never did that.”
― Philipp Meyer, The Son

“I stand beside Tom's barn and ponder the benign heedlessness of the people in the speeding cars, and here I am in the speeding car. In my heart I wish the bypass had never been built; in my car I never take the old way.”
― Michael Perry, Visiting Tom: A Man, a Highway, and the Road to Roughneck Grace

“... Tom got to rattling off the pranks he and his school boy buddies pulled ... and what I saw wasn't an old man gone wistful but rather an old man still resonating to the glee of a young heart.”
― Michael Perry, Visiting Tom: A Man, a Highway, and the Road to Roughneck Grace

“He had made his decision. Later in life Ann would learn that when certain men made decisions no matter how much it might torture them afterwards they would stick with their decision. Men, she learned, would rather suffer than change their minds or their habits. They could develop elaborate systems for containing pain, sometimes so successful they would remain completely unaware of the vastness of the pain they possessed.”
― Susan Minot, Evening

“All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

“Why didn't I learn to treat everything like it was the last time. My greatest regret was how much I believed in the future.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

“The planet is fine. The people are fucked.”
― George Carlin

“The fiercely competitive are fierce because they don’t see themselves as competitive.”
― George Hammond