Vishvajeet Kumar > Vishvajeet's Quotes

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“...the great floodgates of the wonder-world swung open...”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery--isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is.”
― Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

“Is it wrong to trust in a beautiful lie if it helps you get through life?”
― Miriam Toews, A Complicated Kindness

“Perhaps depression is caused by asking oneself too many unanswerable questions.”
― Miriam Toews, Swing Low

“She was becoming sad. There is no joy involved in following others' expectations of yourself.”
― Miriam Toews

“Things shouldn't hinge on so very little. Sneeze and you're highway carnage. Remove one tiny stone and you're an avalanche statistic. But I guess if you can die without ever understanding how it happened then you can also live without a complete understanding of how. And in a way that's kind of relaxing.”
― Miriam Toews, A Complicated Kindness

“It was the first time that we had sort of articulated our major problem. She wanted to die and I wanted her to live and we were enemies who loved each other.”
― Miriam Toews, All My Puny Sorrows

“Can’t you just be like the rest of us, normal and sad and fucked up and alive and remorseful?”
― Miriam Toews, All My Puny Sorrows

“…just because someone is eating the ashes of your protagonist doesn't mean you stop telling the story.”
― Miriam Toews, All My Puny Sorrows

“Sadness is what holds our bones in place.”
― Miriam Toews, All My Puny Sorrows

“But whatever, we descendants of the Girl Line may not have wealth and proper windows in our drafty homes but at least we have rage and we will build empires with that, gentlemen.”
― Miriam Toews, All My Puny Sorrows

“Dan wanted me to stay. I wanted Elf to stay. Everyone in the whole world was fighting with somebody to stay. When Richard Bach wrote "If you love someone, set them free" he can't have been directing his advice at human beings.”
― Miriam Toews, All My Puny Sorrows

“Life being what it is, one dreams not of revenge. One just dreams.”
― Miriam Toews, A Complicated Kindness

“I had a thought, on the way home from the rock field, that the things we don't know about a person are the things that make them human, and it made me feel sad to think that, but sad in that reassuring way that some sadness has, a sadness that says welcome home in twelve different languages.”
― Miriam Toews, A Complicated Kindness

“...and I put on "All My Love" and watched the sun rise yet again and thought thank you Robert Plant for all your love but do you have anymore?”
― Miriam Toews, A Complicated Kindness

“We are not members, . . . we are commodities. . . . When our men have used us up so that we look sixty when we’re thirty and our wombs have literally dropped out of our bodies onto our spotless kitchen floors, finished, they turn to our daughters.”
― Miriam Toews, Women Talking

“By leaving, we are not necessarily disobeying the men according to the Bible, because we, the women, do not know exactly what is in the Bible, being unable to read it. Furthermore, the only reason why we feel we need to submit to our husbands is because our husbands have told us that the Bible decrees it.”
― Miriam Toews, Women Talking

“Freedom is good... [i]t's better than slavery. And forgiveness is good, better than revenge. And hope for the unknown is good, better than hatred of the familiar.”
― Miriam Toews, Women Talking

“None of us have ever asked the men for anything, Agata states. Not a single thing, not even for the salt to be passed, not even for a penny or a moment alone or to take the washing in or to open a curtain or to go easy on the small yearlings or to put your hand on the small of my back as I try, again, for the twelfth or thirteenth time, to push a baby out of my body.”
― Miriam Toews, Women Talking

“The truth is, I don't have a catchy method of conversing and yet unfortunately suffer of a minute to minute basis the agony of the unexpressed thought.”
― Miriam Toews, Women Talking

“Perhaps we need to know more specifically what we are fighting to achieve (not only what we are fighting to destroy), and what actions would be required for such an achievement, even after the fight has been won, if it is won.”
― miriam toews, Women Talking

“We are women without a voice, Ona states calmly. We are women out of time and place, without even the language of the country we reside in. We are Mennonites without a homeland. We have nothing to return to, and even the animals of Molotschna are safer in their homes than we women are. All we women have are our dreams—so of course we are dreamers.”
― Miriam Toews, Women Talking

“Why does the mention of love, the memory of love, the memory of love lost, the promise of love, the end of love, the absence of love, the burning, burning need for love, need to love, result in so much violence?”
― Miriam Toews, Women Talking

“The sun is setting, Ona reminds us, and our light is fading. We should light the kerosene lamp.
But what of your question? asks Greta. Should we consider asking the men to leave?
None of us have ever asked the men for anything, Agatha states. Not a single thing, not even for the salt to be passed, not even for a penny or a moment alone or to take the washing in or to open a curtain or to go easy on the small yearlings or to put your hand on the small of my back as I try, again, for the twelfth or thirteenth time, to push a baby out of my body.
Isn't it interesting, she says, that the one and only request the women would make of the men would be to leave?
The women break out laughing again.
They simply can't stop laughing, and if one of them stops for a moment she will quickly resume laughing with a loud burst, and off they'll all go again.
It's not an option, says Agata, at last.
No, the others (finally in complete accord!) agree. Asking the men to leave is not an option.
Greta asks the women to imagine her team, Ruth and Cheryl (Agata yelps in exasperation at the mention of their names), requesting that Greta leave them alone for the day to graze in the field and do nothing.
Imagine my hens, adds Agata, telling me to turn around and leave the premises when I show up to gather the eggs.
Ona begs the women to stop making her laugh, she's afraid she'll go into premature labour.
This makes them laugh harder! They even find it uproariously funny that I continue to write during all of this. Ona's laughter is the finest, the most exquisite sound in all of nature, filled with breath and promise, and the only sound she releases into the world that she doesn't also try to retrieve.”
― Miriam Toews, Women Talking

“There's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pur whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do you?”
― charles bukowski