Katrina Atienza > Katrina's Quotes

“..perhaps all our lovers are merely hints and symbols; vagabond languages scrawled on gate-posts and paving stones along the weary road that others have trampled before us; perhaps you and I are types and this sadness which sometimes falls between us springs from disappointment in our search, each straining through and beyond each other, snatching a glimpse now and then of the shadow which turns the corner always a pace or two ahead of us.”
― Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited

“It was before him again in its completeness -- the choice in which she was content to rest: in the stupid costliness of the food and the showy dulness of the talk, in the freedom of speech which never arrived at wit and the freedom to act which never made for romance. The strident setting of the restaurant, in which their table seemed set apart in a special glare of publicity, and the presence at it of little Dabham of the "Riviera Notes," emphasized the ideals of a world where conspicuousness passed for distinction, and the society column had become the roll of fame.”
― Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth

“In the case of the creative mind, it seems to me, the intellect has withdrawn its watchers from the gates, and the ideas rush in pell-mell, and only then does it review and inspect the multitude. You worthy critics, or whatever you may call yourselves, are ashamed or afraid of the momentary and passing madness which is found in all real creators, the longer or shorter duration of which distinguishes the thinking artist from the dreamer. Hence your complaints of unfruitfulness, for you reject too soon and discriminate too severely.”
― Friedrich Schiller

“No pain is too small if it hurts, but any pain is too big if it's cherished.”
― Edward St. Aubyn

“That is the secret of happiness and virtue -- liking what you've got to do.”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

“Maybe this world is another planet’s hell.”
― Aldous Huxley

“Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand.”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

“The villain is the person who knows the most but cares the least.”
― Chuck Klosterman, I Wear the Black Hat: Grappling With Villains

“It was his shoes, he noticed to his pleasure, that she most objected to; and he thought: bloody good, that's what shoes are for.”
― John le Carré, A Small Town in Germany

“Each person has a self-image that, to some degree, does not match reality. A significant difference between self-image and reality can be harmful. The more self-aware you are, the less likely you are to be vulnerable to your illusions. The more aware you are, the more you can do with your life.”
― Robert H. Bolton and Dorothy Grover Bolton

“You do it because the doing of it is the thing. The doing is the thing. The talking and worrying and thinking is not the thing.”
― Amy Poehler, Yes Please

“Each person bears a fear which is special to him. One man fears a close space and another man fears drowning; each laughs at the other and calls him stupid. Thus fear is only a preference, to be counted the same as the preference for one woman or another, or mutton for pig, or cabbage for onion.”
― Michael Crichton, Eaters of the Dead