Afra > Afra's Quotes

“Fiction allows us to slide into these other heads, these other places, and look out through other eyes. And then in the tale we stop before we die, or we die vicariously and unharmed, and in the world beyond the tale we turn the page or close the book, and we resume our lives.”
― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

“Sometimes people are beautiful.
Not in looks.
Not in what they say.
Just in what they are.”
― Markus Zusak, I Am the Messenger

“So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“I don’t know if you’ve ever felt like that. That you wanted to sleep for a thousand years. Or just not exist. Or just not be aware that you do exist. Or something like that. I think wanting that is very morbid, but I want it when I get like this. That’s why I’m trying not to think. I just want it all to stop spinning.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“Do you think I am an automaton? — a machine without feelings? and can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! — I have as much soul as you — and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh: it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal — as we are!”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens.”
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind

“I don't like hope very much. In fact, I hate it. It's the crystal meth of emotions. It hooks you fast and kills you hard. It's bad news. The worst. It's sharp sticks and cherry bombs. When hope shows up, it's only a matter of time until someone gets hurt.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution

“Of course I loved books more than people.”
― Diane Setterfield, The Thirteenth Tale

“There are too many books in the world to read in a single lifetime; you have to draw the line somewhere.”
― Diane Setterfield, The Thirteenth Tale

“I cannot live without books.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“In my mind I am eloquent; I can climb intricate scaffolds of words to reach the highest cathedral ceilings and paint my thoughts. But when I open my mouth, everything collapses.”
― Isaac Marion, Warm Bodies

“There's no benchmark for how life's "supposed" to happen. There is no ideal world for you to wait around for. The world is always just what it is now, it's up to you how you respond to it.”
― Isaac Marion, Warm Bodies

“It is a lovely oddity of human nature that a person is more inclined to interrupt two people in conversation than one person alone with a book.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“I've come to realize that however blue my circumstances, if after finishing a chapter of a Dickens novel I feel a miss-my-stop-on-the-train sort of compulsion to read on, then everything is probably going to be just fine.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“As a quick aside, let me observe that in moments of high emotion....if the next thing you're going to say makes you feel better, then it's probably the wrong thing to say. This is one of the finer maxims that I've discovered in life. And you can have it, since it's been of no use to me.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“I told him I'd always found the description a little too long on adjectives and a little too short on specifics.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“...be careful when choosing what you're proud of--because the world has every intention of using it against you.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“In our twenties, when there is still so much time ahead of us, time that seems ample for a hundred indecisions, for a hundred visions and revisions—we draw a card, and we must decide right then and there whether to keep that card and discard the next, or discard the first card and keep the second. And before we know it, the deck has been played out and the decisions we have just made will shape our lives for decades to come.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“I was attempting to write the story of my life. It wasn't so much about plot. It was much more about character.”
― David Levithan, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“Luckily, I always travel with a book, just in case I have to wait on line for Santa, or some such inconvenience.”
― David Levithan, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“I was horribly bookish, to the point of coming right out and saying it, which I knew was not socially acceptable. I particularly loved the adjective bookish, which I found other people used about as often as ramrod or chum or teetotaler.”
― David Levithan, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“But isn't this a dance? Isn't all of this a dance? Isn't that what we do with words? Isn't that what we do when we talk, when we spar, when we make plans or leave it to chance? Some of it's choreographed. Some of the steps have been done for ages. And the rest -- the rest is spontaneous. The rest has to be decided on the floor, in the moment, before the music ends.”
― David Levithan, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“What a massive responsibility, being a moral creature”
― Isaac Marion, Warm Bodies

“What's the point of trying to fix a world we're so briefly in?”
― Isaac Marion, Warm Bodies

“If you never noticed, it never happened.”
― Haruki Murakami, 1Q84 Book 1

“Reality was utterly coolheaded and utterly lonely.”
― Haruki Murakami, 1Q84 Book 1

“Life is not like water. Things in life don't necessarily flow over the shortest possible route.”
― Haruki Murakami, 1Q84

“That's what the world is , after all: an endless battle of contrasting memories.”
― Haruki Murakami, 1Q84