sylvia > sylvia's Quotes

“For me, becoming isn’t about arriving somewhere or achieving a certain aim. I see it instead as forward motion, a means of evolving, a way to reach continuously toward a better self. The journey doesn’t end.”
― Michelle Obama, Becoming

“People are rotten everywhere you go. They’re no good. You want to see a very bad man? Make an ordinary man successful beyond his imagination. Let’s see how good he is when he can do whatever he wants.”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

“At an early age I learned that people make mistakes, and you have to decide if their mistakes are bigger than your love for them.”
― Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give

“The main message of Jesus, I believed, is that mercy trumps justice every time.”
― Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

“For every door that’s been opened to me, I’ve tried to open my door to others. And here is what I have to say, finally: Let’s invite one another in. Maybe then we can begin to fear less, to make fewer wrong assumptions, to let go of the biases and stereotypes that unnecessarily divide us. Maybe we can better embrace the ways we are the same. It’s not about being perfect. It’s not about where you get yourself in the end. There’s power in allowing yourself to be known and heard, in owning your unique story, in using your authentic voice. And there’s grace in being willing to know and hear others. This, for me, is how we become.”
― Michelle Obama, Becoming

“When it's time to die, go ahead and die, and when it's time to live, live. Don't sort-of-maybe live, but live like you're going all out, like you're not afraid.”
― Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees

“The world will give you that once in awhile, a brief timeout; the boxing bell rings and you go to your corner, where somebody dabs mercy on your beat-up life.”
― Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees

“People, in general, would rather die than forgive. It's that hard.”
― Sue Monk Kidd

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

“She wants to know if I love her, that's all anyone wants from anyone else, not love itself but the knowledge that love is there, like new batteries in the flashlight in the emergency kit in the hall closet.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

“There were things I wanted to tell him. But I knew they would hurt him. So I buried them, and let them hurt me.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

“Songs are as sad as the listener.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

“I felt suddenly shy. I was not used to shy. I was used to shame. Shyness is when you turn your head away from something you want. Shame is when you turn your head away from something you do not want.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

“I hated myself for going, why couldn't I be the kind of person who stays?”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

“She let out a laugh, and then she put her hand over her mouth, like she was angry at herself for forgetting her sadness.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

“Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worst kind of suffering.”
― Paulo Coelho, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

“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 like to see people reunited, I like to see people run to each other, I like the kissing and the crying, I like the impatience, the stories that the mouth can't tell fast enough, the ears that aren't big enough, the eyes that can't take in all of the change, I like the hugging, the bringing together, the end of missing someone.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

“Does it break my heart, of course, every moment of every day, into more pieces than my heart was made of, I never thought of myself as quiet, much less silent, I never thought about things at all, everything changed, the distance that wedged itself between me and my happiness wasn't the world, it wasn't the bombs and burning buildings, it was me, my thinking, the cancer of never letting go, is ignorance bliss, I don't know, but it's so painful to think, and tell me, what did thinking ever do for me, to what great place did thinking ever bring me? I think and think and think, I've thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer

“Flirting is a promise of sexual intercourse without a guarantee.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane.”
― John Green, Looking for Alaska

“When I look at my room, I see a girl who loves books.”
― John Green, Looking for Alaska

“I wanted so badly to lie down next to her on the couch, to wrap my arms around her and sleep. Not fuck, like in those movies. Not even have sex. Just sleep together in the most innocent sense of the phrase. But I lacked the courage and she had a boyfriend and I was gawky and she was gorgeous and I was hopelessly boring and she was endlessly fascinating. So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was hurricane.”
― John Green, Looking for Alaska

“Entropy increases. Things fall apart.”
― John Green, Looking for Alaska

“We need never be hopeless because we can never be irreperably broken.”
― John Green, Looking for Alaska

“Bitch (noun): A woman who won't bang her head against the wall obsessing over someone else's opinion - be it a man or anyone else in her life. She understands that if someone does not approve of her, it's just one person's opinion; therefore, it's of no real importance. She doesn't try to live up to anyone else's standards - only her own. Because of this, she relates to a man very differently.”
― Sherry Argov, Why Men Love Bitches: From Doormat to Dreamgirl―A Woman's Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationship

“Relationship Principle 10
You can tell how much someone respects you by how much he respects your opinion. If he doesn't respect your opinion, he won't respect you.”
― Sherry Argov, Why Men Marry Bitches: A Woman's Guide to Winning Her Man's Heart

“Unfortunately, the clock is ticking, the hours are going by. The past increases, the future recedes. Possibilities decreasing, regrets mounting.”
― Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance Dance

“You are all the colors in one, at full brightness.”
― Jennifer Niven, All the Bright Places

“Stars in the sky, stars on the ground. It’s hard to tell where the sky ends and the earth begins. I feel the need to say something grand and poetic, but the only thing I come up with is “It’s lovely.”
― Jennifer Niven, All the Bright Places