Maxine > Maxine's Quotes

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
― Leo Tolstoy , Anna Karenina

“The few own the many because they possess the means of livelihood of all ... The country is governed for the richest, for the corporations, the bankers, the land speculators, and for the exploiters of labor. The majority of mankind are working people. So long as their fair demands - the ownership and control of their livelihoods - are set at naught, we can have neither men's rights nor women's rights. The majority of mankind is ground down by industrial oppression in order that the small remnant may live in ease.”
― Helen Keller, Rebel Lives: Helen Keller

“That's what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you to another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It's geometrically progressive - all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment.”
― Mary Ann Shaffer, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end.”
― Gilda Radner

“When you were a little girl, Madam.....was this the woman you dreamed of becoming?”
― Andrew Sean Greer, The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells

“America for Me

'Tis fine to see the Old World and travel up and down
Among the famous palaces and cities of renown,
To admire the crumblyh castles and the statues and kings
But now I think I've had enough of antiquated things.

So it's home again, and home again, America for me!
My heart is turning home again and there I long to be,
In the land of youth and freedom, beyond the ocean bars,
Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars.

Oh, London is a man's town, there's power in the air;
And Paris is a woman's town, with flowers in her hair;
And it's sweet to dream in Venice, and it's great to study Rome;
But when it comes to living there is no place like home.

I like the German fir-woods in green battalions drilled;
I like the gardens of Versailles with flashing foutains filled;
But, oh, to take your hand, my dear, and ramble for a day
In the friendly western woodland where Nature has her sway!

I know that Europe's wonderful, yet something seems to lack!
The Past is too much with her, and the people looking back.
But the glory of the Present is to make the Future free--
We love our land for what she is and what she is to be.

Oh, it's home again, and home again, America for me!
I want a ship that's westward bound to plough the rolling sea,
To the blessed Land of Room Enough, beyond the ocean bars,
Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars.”
― Henry Van Dyke

“Fourth avenue was a red dog road. Red dog is burned out trash coal. If the coal had too much slate, it was piled in a slag heap and burned. The coal burned up, but the slate didn't The heat turned it every shade of red and orange and lavender you could imagine. When the red on our road got buried under rutted dirt or mud, dump trucks would pour new loads of the sharp-edged rock. My best friend Sissy and I followed along after the truck, looking for fossils. We found ferns and shells and snails, and once I found a perfect imprint of a four-leaf clover.”
― Drema Hall Berkheimer, Running on Red Dog Road: And Other Perils of an Appalachian Childhood

“No, the sadness will soften, its edges will become less rough. In time missing him will be the way you love him.”
― M.J. Rose, The Witch of Painted Sorrows

“They'd both learned that a memory is a fact that has been dyed and trimmed and rinsed so many times that it comes out looking almost unrecognizable to anyone else who was in that room or anyone who was standing on the grass beneath that telephone pole.”
― Mary Beth Keane, Ask Again, Yes

“Let me guess,” I said. “This is about Schrödinger’s cat.” “I’m impressed, Dylan,” she replied with a smile. “Hey, I watched The Big Bang Theory.”
― Brian Freeman, Infinite

“All my life, I’d been hurrying to get somewhere, without the slightest idea where that was.”
― Brian Freeman, Infinite

“It’s about how we’re all part of an infinite number of parallel worlds. Every time we make a choice, a carbon copy of ourselves makes the opposite choice in a different universe.”
― Brian Freeman, Infinite

“The only prison we can never escape is our brain, and yet our brain is what sets us free.”
― Brian Freeman, Infinite

“That's what friends should do. cherish the good and pretend not to notice the harmless rest.”
― Beth Hoffman, Saving CeeCee Honeycutt

“It's how we survive the hurt in life that brings us strength and gives us beauty.”
― Beth Hoffman, Saving CeeCee Honeycutt

“I know every book of mine by its smell, and I have but to put my nose between the pages to be reminded of all sorts of things.”
― George Gissing

“When a chapter of your Life Book is complete, your spirit knows its time to turn the page so a new chapter can begin. Even when you're scared or think you're not ready your spirit knows you are. ”
― Beth Hoffman

“Being human?” She smirks. “Be wary of a man who you don’t want bringing you a cool towel when you’re about to pass out from explosive diarrhea.”
― Rachel Howzell Hall, These Toxic Things

“I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.”
― Marilyn Monroe

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

“If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.”
― Mark Twain

“Friendship ... is born at the moment when one man says to another "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

“We accept the love we think we deserve.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.”
― Narcotics Anonymous

“I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.”
― Marilyn Monroe

“Threats are the last resort of a man with no vocabulary.”
― Tamora Pierce, Lady Knight