Barbara > Barbara's Quotes

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”
― Albert Camus

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“People are always ruining things for you.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“Becoming fearless isn't the point. That's impossible. It's learning how to control your fear, and how to be free from it.”
― Veronica Roth, Divergent

“You can never be overdressed or overeducated.”
― Oscar Wilde

“There are few things more liberating in life than having your worst fear realized.”
― Conan O'Brien

“She had a way of pouring everything of herself into what she did. When she fought, she was the blade. When she loved, she was the kiss. In that regard, she was far more … human than any I have known.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Shadows of Self

“A harp can be a dangerous as a sword, in the right hands.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords

“Ever Tried. Ever Failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
― Samuel Beckett

“They say in every library there is a single book that can answer the question that burns like a fire in the mind.”
― Lemony Snicket, Who Could That Be at This Hour?

“Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world. ”
― Archimedes

“When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
― William Shakespeare, Macbeth

“Wayne popped one in his mouth—candied bacon wrapped around a walnut. “How is it?” Wax asked. “Tastes like cotton candy,” Wayne said, relishing the flavor, “made of baby.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Shadows of Self

“There is always something ridiculous about the emotions of people whom one has ceased to love.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“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

“Come to the edge.
We might fall.
Come to the edge.
It's too high!
COME TO THE EDGE!
And they came
And he pushed
And they flew.”
― Christopher Logue, New numbers

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

“Hell is—other people!”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, No Exit

“Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble!”
― William Shakespeare, Macbeth

“Choose a life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television. Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers... Choose DSY and wondering who the fuck you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit crushing game shows, stucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away in the end of it all, pishing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourself, choose your future. Choose life... But why would I want to do a thing like that?”
― Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting

“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.”
― Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

“Brevity is the soul of wit.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
― Seneca

“Will a day come when the race will detect the funniness of these juvenilities and laugh at them—and by laughing at them destroy them? For your race, in its poverty, has unquestionably one really effective weapon—laughter. Power, Money, Persuasion, Supplication, Persecution--these can lift at a colossal humbug,—push it a little— crowd it a little—weaken it a little, century by century: but only Laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of Laughter nothing can stand.

- "The Chronicle of Young Satan," Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts”
― Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts

“We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Diary

“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”
― Mark Twain