Sj > Sj's Quotes

“Freedom (n.): To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“Don't fool yourself, my dear. You're much worse than a bitch. You're a saint. Which shows why saints are dangerous and undesirable.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“Happy is the man who has broken the chains which hurt the mind, and has given up worrying once and for all.”
"Be patient and tough; one day this pain will be useful to you.”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones

“Pain is the feeling. Suffering is the effect the pain inflicts. If one can endure pain, one can live without suffering. If one can withstand pain, one can withstand anything. If one can learn to control pain, one can learn to control oneself. ”
― James Frey, My Friend Leonard

“Books are the ultimate Dumpees: put them down and they’ll wait for you forever; pay attention to them and they always love you back.”
― John Green, An Abundance of Katherines

“Harlem

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?”
― Langston Hughes, The Collected Poems

“Beneatha: Love him? There is nothing left to love.

Mama: There is always something left to love. And if you ain't learned that, you ain't learned nothing. (Looking at her) Have you cried for that boy today? I don't mean for yourself and for the family 'cause we lost the money. I mean for him: what he been through and what it done to him. Child, when do you think is the time to love somebody the most? When they done good and made things easy for everybody? Well then, you ain't through learning - because that ain't the time at all. It's when he's at his lowest and can't believe in hisself 'cause the world done whipped him so! when you starts measuring somebody, measure him right, child, measure him right. Make sure you done taken into account what hills and valleys he come through before he got to wherever he is.”
― Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun

“I'm just tired of hearing about God all the time. What has He got to do with anything?... I'm not going to be immoral or commit crimes because I don't believe. I don't even think about that. I just get so tired of Him getting the credit for things the human race achieves through its own effort. Now, there simply is no God. There's only man. And it's he who makes miracles.”
― Lorraine Hansberry

“Beneatha: You didn't tell us what Alaiyo means... for all I know, you might be calling me Little Idiot or something...
...
Asagai: It means... it means One for Whom Bread--Food--Is Not Enough.”
― Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun

“I want to fly! I want to touch the sun!"
"Finish your eggs first.”
― Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun

“Take pride in your pain; you are stronger than those who have none”
― Lois Lowry, Gathering Blue

“The man that I named the Giver passed along to the boy knowledge, history, memories, color, pain, laughter, love, and truth. Every time you place a book in the hands of a child, you do the same thing. It is very risky. But each time a child opens a book, he pushes open the gate that separates him from Elsewhere. It gives him choices. It gives him freedom. Those are magnificent, wonderfully unsafe things.

[from her Newberry Award acceptance speech]”
― Lois Lowry

“Death ends a life, not a relationship.”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson

“Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you're not really losing it. You're just passing it on to someone else.”
― Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven

“No life is a waste," the Blue Man said. "The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we're alone.”
― Mitch Albom

“Sacrifice is a part of life. It's supposed to be. It's not something to regret. It's something to aspire to.”
― Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven

“Heaven can be found in the most unlikely corners.”
― Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven - Meniti Bianglala

“Don't cling to things because everything is impermanent.”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson

“Sometimes there is absolutely no difference at all between salvation and damnation.”
― Stephen King, The Green Mile

“Time takes it all, whether you want it to or not.”
― Stephen King, The Green Mile

“We each owe a death, there are no exceptions, I know that, but sometimes, oh God, the Green Mile is so long.”
― Stephen King, Coffey on the Mile

“Later, going home, I realized they didn't look alike at all; what made them seem to was the aftermath of stress and the lingering of sorrow. It's strange how pain marks our faces, and makes us look like family.”
― Stephen King, Coffey's Hands

“Deep down, Clark's essentially a good person... and deep down, I'm not”
― Jeph Loeb, Batman: Hush, Vol. 1

“I run blindly through the madhouse ... And I cannot even pray ... For I have no God.”
― Grant Morrison, Batman: Arkham Asylum - A Serious House on Serious Earth

“The thing you fail to grasp is that people are not basically good. We are basically selfish. We shove and clamour and cry for adoration, and beat down everyone else to get it. Life is a competition of prattling peacocks enraptured in inane mating rituals. But for all our effacing and self-importance, we are all slaves to what we fear most. You have so very much to learn. Here. Let me teach you.”
― Christopher Nolan

“You want to play the Bogey-Man?...Part's already taken. I'm driven by demons you can't even imagine.”
― Pat Mills, Batman: The Book Of Shadows

“Be he the first to stand or the last, a man must stand," the father had told his adoring son. "And if there is only one man, then that man must stand alone." ~Thomas to Bruce Wayne”
― Andrew Vachss, Batman: The Ultimate Evil

“I offered them Utopia, but they fought for the right to live in Hell.”
― Mark Millar, Superman: Red Son

“If I have to have a past, then I prefer it to be multiple choice.”
― Alan Moore, Batman: The Killing Joke