Suse > Suse's Quotes

“Books were safer than other people anyway.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane

“Nobody actually looks like what they really are on the inside.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane

“The other side’s got an energy that our side en’t got. Comes from their certainty about being right. If you got that certainty, you’ll be willing to do anything to bring about the end you want. It’s the oldest human problem, Lyra, an’ it’s the difference between good and evil. Evil can be unscrupulous, and good can’t. Evil has nothing to stop it doing what it wants, while good has one hand tied behind its back. To do the things it needs to do to win, it’d have to become evil to do ’em.”
― Philip Pullman, The Secret Commonwealth

“Time was simple, is simple. We can divide it into simple parts, measure it, arrange dinner by it, drink whisky to its passage. We can mathematically deploy it, use it to express ideas about the observable universe, and yet if asked to explain it in simple language to a child–in simple language which is not deceit, of course–we are powerless. The most it ever seems we know how to do with time is to waste it.”
― Claire North, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

“Sophia was silent a while, thinking it through. Then, “Go with it.” She said the unfamiliar words carefully, and, grinning, tried them again. “Go with it. You talk about decent people living decent lives as if that doesn’t mean anything, like it’s not a big deal. But you listen–this ‘decent’, it is the only thing that matters. I don’t care if you theorise, Mr Scientist, a machine that makes all men kind and all women beautiful if, while making your machine, you don’t stop to help the old mother cross the street, you know? I don’t care if you cure ageing, or stop starvation or end nuclear wars, if you forget this–” she rapped her knuckles against my forehead “–or this–” pressed her palm against my chest “–because even then if you save everyone else, you’ll be dead inside. Men must be decent first and brilliant later, otherwise you’re not helping people, just servicing the machine.”
― Claire North, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

“You know what, sometimes it seems to me we're living in a world that we fabricate for ourselves. We decide what's good and what isn't, we draw maps of meanings for ourselves... And then we spend our whole lives struggling with what we have invented for ourselves. The problem is that each of us has our own version of it, so people find it hard to understand each other.”
― Olga Tokarczuk, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

“Never be ashamed,’ he said. ‘Accept what life offers you and try to drink from every cup. All wines should be tasted; some should only be sipped, but with others, drink the whole bottle.’
‘How will I know which is which?’
‘By the taste. You can only know a good wine if you have first tasted a bad one.”
― Paulo Coelho, Brida

“If you never noticed, it never happened. I mean, the whole point of bullying is to make the person notice it’s being done to him or her. You can’t have bullying without the victim noticing.”
― Haruki Murakami, 1Q84

“When the common soldiers are too strong and their officers too weak, the result is INSUBORDINATION.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

“When the officers are too strong and the common soldiers too weak, the result is COLLAPSE.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

“Travel far enough, you meet yourself.”
― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

“There's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for.”
― J. R. R. Tolkien

“I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane

“Grown-ups don't look like grown-ups on the inside either. Outside, they're big and thoughtless and they always know what they're doing. Inside, they look just like they always have. Like they did when they were your age. Truth is, there aren't any grown-ups. Not one, in the whole wide world.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane

“And did I pass?" The face of the old woman on my right was unreadable in the gathering dusk. On my left the younger woman said, "You don't pass or fail at being a person, dear.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane