Katey Bassett > Katey's Quotes

“THE INVITATION
by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for, and if you
dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love,
for your dreams,
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow,
if you have been opened by life's betrayals
or have become shriveled and closed from fear of future pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain,
mine or your own,
without moving to hide it,
or fade it,
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy,
mine or your own,
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us to be careful,
to be realistic,
to remember
the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling
me is true.
I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself;
if you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul;
if you can be faithless and therefore
trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty even when it's not pretty,
every day,
and if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure,
yours or mine,
and still stand on the
edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon, "yes!"

It doesn't interest me who you know, or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you,
from the inside,
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
with your and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.”
― Oriah Mountain Dreamer

“I have flown the distance of your body from side to side of your ivory coast. I know the forests where I can rest and feed. I have mapped you with my naked eye and stored you out of sight.
The millions of cells that make up your tissues are plotted on my retina. Night flying I know exactly where I am. Your body is my landing strip.”
― Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body

“Happy memories can be bittersweet, but they also assure us that we are valued as people, that we have deep connections with other people and that we have led a meaningful life.”
― Meik Wiking, The Art of Making Memories: How to Create and Remember Happy Moments

“There is no exquisite beauty… without some strangeness in the proportion.”
― Edgar Allan Poe

“Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see.”
― Edgar Allan Poe

“I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge. It has not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have periled life and reputation and reason. It has been the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories, from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom.”
― Edgar Allan Poe

“There is nothing more dreadful than the habit of doubt. Doubt separates people. It is a poison that disintegrates friendships and breaks up pleasant relations. It is a thorn that irritates and hurts; it is a sword that kills.”
― Buddha Siddhartha Guatama Shakyamuni

“In literature and in life we ultimately pursue, not conclusions, but beginnings.”
― Sam Tanenhaus, Literature Unbound

“Perhaps the man wasn’t so mad after all. Or maybe it’s a madness that I can learn to appreciate.”
― Charlie N. Holmberg, The Paper Magician

“Beauty is just like a book. Some will not bother to look beyond the cover; others will find the entire tome utterly captivating.”
― Charlie N. Holmberg, Keeper of Enchanted Rooms

“When people say impossible, they usually mean improbable.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Siege and Storm

“Crows remember human faces. They remember the people who feed them, who are kind to them. And the people who wrong them too. They don’t forget. They tell each other who to look after and who to watch out for.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“The Darkling slumped back in his chair. “Fine,” he said with a weary shrug. “Make me your villain.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone

“I still get nightmares. In fact, I get them so often I should be used to them by now. I'm not. No one ever really gets used to nightmares.”
― Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves

“For some reason, you will no longer be the person you believed you once were. You'll detect slow and subtle shifts going on all around you, more importantly shifts in you. Worse, you'll realize it's always been shifting, like a shimmer of sorts, a vast shimmer, only dark like a room. But you won't understand why or how.”
― Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves

“Prometheus, thief of light, giver of light, bound by the gods, must have been a book.”
― Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves

“Here then at long last is my darkness. No cry of light, no glimmer, not even the faintest shard of hope to break free across the hold.”
― Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves

“I think that's what finally stopped me. I slid right to the edge. My legs were hanging over. And I could feel it too. I don't know how. There was no wind, no sound, no change of temperature. There was just this terrible emptiness reaching up for me.”
― Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves

“Make no mistake, those who write long books have nothing to say.
Of course those who write short books have even less to say.”
― Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves

“I must read.
I must read.
I must read.”
― Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves

“Do not wake me from this slumber, but be assured that just as I have wept much, I have also wandered many roads with my thoughts.”
― Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves

“we would be together and have our books and at night be warm in bed together with the windows open and the stars bright.”
― Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

“Read, read, read. Read everything -- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it.
Then write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out of the window.”
― William Faulkner

“Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world...would do this, it would change the earth.”
― William Faulkner

“Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Do not bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.”
― William Faulkner

“The saddest thing about love, Joe, is that not only the love cannot last forever, but even the heartbreak is soon forgotten.”
― William Faulkner

“The next time you try to seduce anyone, don't do it with talk, with words. Women know more about words than men ever will. And they know how little they can ever possibly mean.”
― William Faulkner

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“People in their right minds never take pride in their talents.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird