Cheri > Cheri's Quotes

“I don't want to be a tree; I want to be its meaning.”
― Orhan Pamuk, My Name Is Red

“You don't choose what to believe. Belief chooses you.”
― Steven Galloway, The Cellist of Sarajevo

“Recalling his first impression of Hitler, Hanfstaengl wrote, "Hitler looked like a suburban hairdresser on his day off.”
― Erik Larson, In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin

“Fear is good. In the right degree it prevents us from making fools of ourselves. But in the wrong measure it prevents us from fully living. Fear is our boon companion but never our master.”
― Alan Brennert, Moloka'i

“A good teacher teaches what he has been taught. A wise one teaches what he has learned”
― Ralph Helfer as stated by Kalli Gooma, Modoc: The True Story of the Greatest Elephant That Ever Lived

“Maybe we have only a finite amount of love to give. We're born with our portion, and if we love and are not loved enough in return, it's depleted.”
― Ayana Mathis, The Twelve Tribes of Hattie

“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

“Let your heart lead you, do not be afraid, for there will be much to regret if reason and sense and fear are your only markers”
― Tara Conklin, The House Girl

“They say, Find a purpose in your life and live it. But, sometimes, it is only after you have lived that you recognize your life had a purpose, and likely one you never had in mind.”
― Khaled Hosseini, And the Mountains Echoed

“Still anyone who trusts a serpent deserves its bite. The wise see a creature for what it is, not what it says it may be.”
― Alice Hoffman, The Dovekeepers

“We’re all good when it suits us, he used to say: that doesn’t count. It’s when you want so badly to do something wrong—when you’re about to make a fortune from a dishonest deal, or kiss the lovely lips of your neighbor’s wife, or tell a lie to get yourself out of terrible trouble—that’s when you need the rules. Your integrity is like a sword, he would say: you shouldn’t wave it until you’re about to put it to the test.”
― Ken Follett, World Without End

“So is it just human nature to believe that things happen for a reason - to find some shred of meaning even in the worst experiences?”
― Christina Baker Kline, Orphan Train

“History is not just facts and events. History is also a pain in the heart and we repeat history until we are able to make another’s pain in the heart our own.”
― Julius Lester

“We are like water, aren’t we? We can be fluid, flexible when we have to be. But strong and destructive, too.” And something else, I think to myself. Like water, we mostly follow the path of least resistance.”
― Wally Lamb, We Are Water

“In my mind, I built stairways. At the end of the stairways, I imagined rooms. These were high, airy places with big windows and a cool breeze moving through. I imagined one room opening brightly onto another room until I'd built a house, a place with hallways and more staircases. I built many houses, one after another, and those gave rise to a city -- a calm, sparkling city near the ocean, a place like Vancouver. I put myself there, and that's where I lived, in the wide-open sky of my mind. I made friends and read books and went running on a footpath in a jewel-green park along the harbour. I ate pancakes drizzled in syrup and took baths and watched sunlight pour through trees. This wasn't longing, and it wasn't insanity. It was relief. It got me through.”
― Amanda Lindhout, A House in the Sky

“A man can condemn his enemies, but it’s wiser to know them.”
― Harper Lee, Go Set a Watchman

“If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: in love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are.”
― Kristin Hannah, The Nightingale

“A woman made of parts is a dangerous thing. You never know when she'll throw away a piece you may need.”
― Heidi W. Durrow, The Girl Who Fell from the Sky

“If you want to understand any woman you must first ask about her mother and then listen carefully. Stories about food show a strong connection. Wistful silences demonstrate unfinished business. The more a daughter knows about the details of her mother's life - without flinching or whining - the stronger the daughter.”
― Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

“If you were doing something safe, something you already knew could be done, you were wasting time.”
― Scott Kelly, Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery

“An alcoholic will steal your wallet and lie to you. A drug addict will steal your wallet and then help you look for it.”
― David Sheff, Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction

“The love a parent feels for a child is strange. There is a starting point to our love for everyone else, but not this person. This one we have always loved, we loved them before they even existed. No matter how well prepared they are, all moms and dads experience a moment of total shock, when the tidal wave of feelings first washed through them, knocking them off their feet. It's incomprehensible because there's nothing to compare it to. It's like trying to describe sand between your toes or snowflakes on your tongue to someone who's lived their whole life in a dark room. It sends the soul flying.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“It doesn’t take a lot to be able to let go of your child. It takes everything.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“Loneliness is an invisible ailment.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“For me, culture is as much about what we encourage as what we actually permit.” David asked what he meant by that, and Sune replied: “That most people don’t do what we tell them to. They do what we let them get away with.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“Time always moves at the same rate, only feelings have different speeds.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown

“Talent is like letting two balloons up into the air: the most interesting thing isn’t watching which one climbs fastest, but which one has the longest string,”
― Fredrick Backman, Beartown

“The more you invest in a set of beliefs—the greater the sacrifice you make in the service of that conviction—the more resistant you will be to evidence that suggests that you are mistaken. You don’t give up. You double down.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War