Monica Fumarolo > Monica's Quotes

“Muhammad brought the promise that anyone could find fulfillment and everlasting life through allegiance to the one true God. The Buddah held out hope that the suffering could be transcended. Jesus brought the message that even the last shall be first, that even the tax collectors and lepers - the outcasts - had cause for hope. And so that is the question I leave you with in this final: What is your cause for hope.”
― John Green, Looking for Alaska

“Each time someone dies, a library burns.”
― Jandy Nelson, The Sky Is Everywhere

“I know you aren't perfect. But it's a person's imperfections that make them perfect for someone else.”
― Stephanie Perkins, Lola and the Boy Next Door

“The presence of God is the finest of rewards.”
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi

“You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you.”
― Joseph Campbell

“Some lose all mind and become soul,insane.
some lose all soul and become mind, intellectual.
some lose both and become accepted”
― Charles Bukowski

“there is a place in the heart that
will never be filled

a space

and even during the
best moments
and
the greatest times
times

we will know it

we will know it
more than
ever

there is a place in the heart that
will never be filled
and

we will wait
and
wait

in that space.”
― Charles Bukowski

“Walking the stacks in a library, dragging your fingers across the spines -- it's hard not to feel the presence of sleeping spirits.”
― Robin Sloan, Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

“You’re wishin’ too much, baby. You gotta stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone oughtta be.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

“I just want to know—are you rooting for me? Are you hoping I pull this off?"

Cath's eyes settled on his, tentatively, like they'd fly away if he moved.

She nodded her head.

The right side of his mouth pulled up.

"I'm rooting for you," she whispered. She wasn't even sure he could hear her from the bed.

Levi's smile broke free and devoured his whole face.”
― Rainbow Rowell, Fangirl

“How do you just stop being terrified of getting left behind and ending up by yourself forever and not meaning anything to the world?”
― John Green, An Abundance of Katherines

“I wish, as well as everybody else, to be perfectly happy; but, like everybody else, it must be in my own way.”
― Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

“A book is a gift you can open again and again.”
― Garrison Keillor

“The greatest gift life has to offer is the opportunity to work hard at work worth doing.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“Elliot finished his book in bed and pondered going to get another one. He only had so much time left, and he had so many books to get through.”
― Sarah Rees Brennan, In Other Lands

“If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”
― Toni Morrison

“You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

“I tell my students, 'When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else. This is not just a grab-bag candy game.”
― Toni Morrison

“I wish I could talk to twenty-three-year-old Sarah again. Ten-year-old Sarah doesn’t understand my struggle. She hasn’t come to this yet. She hasn’t come to the place where my present means nothing but my future is all everyone talks about. Twenty-three-year-old”
― A.S. King, Still Life with Tornado

“Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation.”
― Walter Cronkite

“Be comforted, dear soul! There is always light behind the clouds.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

“Don't laugh at the spinsters, dear girls, for often very tender, tragic romances are hidden away in the hearts that beat so quietly under the sober gowns, and many silent sacrifices of youth, health, ambition, love itself, make the faded faces beautiful in God's sight. Even the sad, sour sisters should be kindly dealt with, because they have missed the sweetest part of life, if for no other reason.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

“My mother was very strong about my doing well in school and living up to my potential. Two things were important to her and she repeated them endlessly. One was to ‘be a lady,’ and that meant conduct yourself civilly, don’t let emotions like anger or envy get in your way. And the other was to be independent, which was an unusual message for mothers of that time to be giving their daughters.”
― Ruth Bader Ginsburg, My Own Words: Ruth Bader Ginsburg

“Between life and death there is a library, and within that library, the shelves go on forever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be if you had made other choices… Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?”
― Matt Haig, The Midnight Library

“Know your own happiness. You want nothing but patience- or give it a more fascinating name, call it hope.”
― Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

“I will be calm. I will be mistress of myself.”
― Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

“If a book is well written, I always find it too short.”
― Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

“It is not what we think or feel that makes us who we are. It is what we do. Or fail to do...”
― Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

“Yeah, about the test...

The test will measure whether you are an informed, engaged, and productive citizen of the world, and it will take place in schools and bars and hospitals and dorm rooms and in places of worship. You will be tested on first dates, in job interviews, while watching football, and while scrolling through your Twitter feed. The test will judge your ability to think about things other than celebrity marriages, whether you’ll be easily persuaded by empty political rhetoric, and whether you’ll be able to place your life and your community in a broader context. The test will last your entire life, and it will be comprised of the millions of decisions that, when taken together, will make your life yours. And everything, everything, will be on it.

...I know, right?”
― John Green

“We should always make time for the things we like. If we don't, we might forget how to be happy.”
― T.J. Klune, The House in the Cerulean Sea