Ella > Ella's Quotes

“You can't change the desert. You can only take the fastest course through it. Wishing it's an oasis won't make it so...”
― Michelle Moran, Nefertiti

“I wonder if our names determine our destiny, or if destiny leads us to choose certain names.”
― Michelle Moran, Nefertiti

“But life is a battle: may we all be enabled to fight it well!”
― Charlotte Brontë, The Letters of Charlotte Brontë

“I can't imagine a man really enjoying a book and reading it only once.”
― C.S. Lewis

“I prefer to be left alone with my books.”
― Alison Weir, Innocent Traitor

“This is how memories are; what seems so clear and unforgettable at one moment vanishes like steam the next.”
― Michelle Moran, The Heretic Queen

“That's because I've learned how to use it [smile], Woserit said. I don't pass it out like an old woman giving free milk to the village cats. It's something that must be controlled, and for you especially. You use it on anyone. You must learn to be more judicious.”
― Michelle Moran, The Heretic Queen

“You want it to feel like a surprise. You want to keep him guessing whether he'll make you smile entirely so that when you do, he will feel like he's been given a gift.”
― Michelle Moran, The Heretic Queen

“The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.”
― Flannery O'Connor

“But he that sows lies in the end shall not lack of a harvest, and soon he may rest from toil indeed, while others reap and sow in his stead.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion

“Some people have a way with words, and other people...oh, uh, not have way.”
― Steve Martin

“A man sometimes devotes his life to a desire which he is not sure will ever be fulfilled. Those who laugh at this folly are, after all, no more than mere spectators of life.”
― Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Rashomon and Other Stories

“I don't think unhappiness is fated.”
― Michelle Moran, Cleopatra's Daughter

“What is honor compared to a woman's love? What is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms . . . or the memory of a brother's smile? Wind and words. Wind and words. We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“Life is not a song, sweetling.
Someday you may learn that, to your sorrow.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“The things we love destroy us every time, lad. Remember that.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“Death is so terribly final, while life is full of possibilities.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“A kiss is a secret which takes the lips for the ear.”
― Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac

“If you want to understand any woman you must first ask about her mother and then listen carefully. Stories about food show a strong connection. Wistful silences demonstrate unfinished business. The more a daughter knows about the details of her mother's life - without flinching or whining - the stronger the daughter.”
― Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

“I moved my arms through the water, feeling them float on the surface, watching the waves and wake that followed my gesture. Here was magic, I thought. Here was something holy.”
― Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more.
Men were deceivers ever,
One foot in sea, and one on shore,
To one thing constant never.
Then sigh not so, but let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into hey nonny, nonny.

Sing no more ditties, sing no more
Of dumps so dull and heavy.
The fraud of men was ever so
Since summer first was leafy.
Then sigh not so, but let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into hey, nonny, nonny.”
― William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

“For which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?”
― William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

“What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living?

Beatrice: Is it possible disdain should die while she hath
such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick?”
― William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

“Wooing, wedding, and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque-pace: the first suit is hot and hasty like a Scotch jig--and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly modest, as a measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes repentance and with his bad legs falls into the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave.”
― William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

“The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.”
― Elie Wiesel

“She held herself very straight, like Audrey Hepburn, whom all women idolize and men never think about.”
― Jeffrey Eugenides, The Virgin Suicides

“The end of man is knowledge, but there is one thing he can't know. He can't know whether knowledge will save him or kill him. He will be killed, all right, but he can't know whether he is killed because of the knowledge which he has got or because of the knowledge which he hasn't got and which if he had it, would save him.”
― Robert Penn Warren, All the King's Men

“My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people.”
― Orson Welles

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