Nancy > Nancy's Quotes

“You can choose your friends but you sho' can't choose your family, an' they're still kin to you no matter whether you acknowledge 'em or not, and it makes you look right silly when you don't.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness sake. But don't make a production of it. Children are children, but they can spot an evasion faster than adults, and evasion simply muddles 'em.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“Don't be afraid of death; be afraid of an unlived life. You don't have to live forever, you just have to live.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“We're playing Scrabble. It's a nightmare."

"Scrabble?" He sounds surprised. "Scrabble's great."

"Not when you're playing with a family of geniuses, it's not. They all put words like 'iridiums'. And I put 'pig'.”
― Sophie Kinsella, I've Got Your Number

“We give all we have, lives, property, safety, skill...we fight, we die, for a simple thing. Only that a man can stand up.”
― Esther Forbes, Johnny Tremain

“Childhood should be carefree, playing in the sun; not living a nightmare in the darkness of the soul.”
― Dave Pelzer, A Child Called "It"

“One could come from less than humble beginnings, to become a winner from within.”
― Dave Pelzer, A Child Called "It"

“Inside, my soul became so cold I hated everything. I even despised the sun, for I knew I would never be able to play in its warm presence. I cringed with hate whenever I heard other children laughing, as they played outside. My stomach coiled whenever I smelled food that was about to be served to somebody else, knowing it wasn't for me.”
― Dave Pelzer, A Child Called "It"

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“All that you touch
You Change.

All that you Change
Changes you.

The only lasting truth
is Change.

God
is Change.”
― Octavia E. Butler

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind.”
― Henry James

“I pop a beautiful sentence into my mouth and suck it like a fruit drop.”
― Bohumil Hrabal

“Our mothers always remain the strangest, craziest people we've ever met.”
― Marguerite Duras

“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.”
― Groucho Marx

“A falsehood can run around the world while the truth is still putting its shoes on.”
― Bill Bennett

“Happiness is like a cat. If you try to coax it or call it, it will avoid you. It will never come. But if you pay no attention to it and go about your business, you'll find it rubbing up against your legs and jumping into your lap.”
― William J. Bennett

“Literature is news that stays news.”
― Ezra Pound, ABC of Reading

“You have to be the bravest person in the world to go out every day, being yourself when no one likes who you are.”
― Matthew Dicks, Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend

“Everyone is someone's devil.”
― Matthew Dicks, Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend

“It's strange how teachers can go off to college for all those years to learn to become teachers, but some of them never learn the easy stuff. Like making kids laugh. And making sure they know that you love them.”
― Matthew Dicks, Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend

“There are two types of teachers in the world: there are those who play school and teachers that teach school”
― Matthew Dicks, Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend

“Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn't matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough.”
― Richard P. Feynman

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Selected Poems

“What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.”
― Thomas Paine, The American Crisis

“As long as you have any floor space at all, you have room for books! Just make two stacks of books the same height, place them three or four feet apart, lay a board across them, and repeat. Voila! Bookshelves!”
― Jan Karon

“The bravest people are the ones who don’t mind looking like cowards.”
― T.H. White, The Once and Future King

“Time is a river...and books are boats. Many volumes start down that stream, only to be wrecked and lost beyond recall in its sands. Only a few, a very few, endure the testings of time and live to bless the ages following.”
― R.W. and Rev. Joseph Fort Newton, The Lost Symbol

“Imagine how different a world might be if more leaders took time to ponder the finality of death before racing off to war.”
― Dan Brown, The Lost Symbol

“Be content with who you are and where you are, and do whatever you can do to bring to others such contentment, and joy, and understanding that you have managed to find yourself.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Double Comfort Safari Club