Moses > Moses's Quotes

“The chief investigator for Special Cases was a composite of the most ordinary features, a stencil of a man.”
― Martin Cruz Smith, Gorky Park

“It stimulated him as grit stimulates an oyster.”
― Sarah Bakewell, How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in one question and twenty attempts at an answer

“Inevitably the real garden with a growing family of children will be untidy, messy even, noisy and often destructive. It drives arch control freaks like myself mad. But I hate it when they are not there.2”
― Monty Don, My Roots: A Decade in the Garden

“We all have an idealised picture of the garden that we have carried around in our heads from the moment it became ours and which, I guess, is never the same as the growing reality. Over the years that the garden is coming into being that image carries you forward and inspires you, but when things reach maturity, the cold light of reality can be harsh.”
― Monty Don, My Roots: A Decade in the Garden

“You need to see bare branches to know the full astonishing shock of the new leaves come next April. You need the flat, brown emptiness of the mixed borders to measure their summer fullness.”
― Monty Don, My Roots: A Decade in the Garden

“Wordsworth once wrote of ‘spots of time’, experiences so intense they expand and inform existence ever after. They have a ‘renovating virtue’.”
― John Lewis-Stempel, The Running Hare: The Secret Life of Farmland

“You know,’ she said, ‘it’s a good thing, now and again, to take stock of oneself in life. To see where one has gone wrong.”
― Daphne du Maurier

“It was restful to look upon her, and to know that in this room nothing was expected of me. I wondered how often Jean de Gué came here from the château and sat with his head against a cushion, as I was doing now. Her casual friendliness was disarming, yet inviting, too. It held a quality of ease suggesting mutual understanding without emotional demand.”
― Daphne du Maurier

“I have no great opinion of the human race. It is just as well, now and again, that we have wars, so that men know what it is to suffer pain. One day they will exterminate themselves, as they have exterminated the rabbits. So much the better. The world will be peaceful again, with nothing left but the forest over there, and the soil.”
― Daphne du Maurier, The Scapegoat

“the rank and melancholy smell of charred wet wood and sodden leaves coming towards me on a wisp of air.”
― Daphne du Maurier, The Scapegoat

“When there’s a sudden silence, and nobody speaks, it means there’s an angel in the room, so”
― Daphne du Maurier, The Scapegoat

“There is nothing pleasant to be said about losing,” she began, “and the Obolensky boy is a pill. But, Sasha, my dear, why on earth would you give him the satisfaction?”
― Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow

“In short, Fatima knew a flower’s fragrance, color, and purpose better than a bee.”
― Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow

“Tall and thin, with a narrow head and superior demeanor, he looked rather like a bishop that had been plucked from a chessboard. When”
― Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow

“But, Audrius, I have never taken the lift in my life!”
― Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow

“Does a banquet really need an asparagus server?” “Does an orchestra need a bassoon?”
― Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow

“But then, as every child knows, the drumbeat of the season must sound from within. And”
― Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow

“For centuries champagne has been used to launch marriages and ships. Most assume this is because the drink is so intrinsically celebratory; but, in fact, it is used at the onset of these dangerous enterprises because it so capably boosts one’s resolve. When the glass was placed on the table, the Count took a swig large enough to tickle his sinuses.”
― Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow

“And as she talked, the Count had to acknowledge once again the virtues of withholding judgment.”
― Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow

“You have always been fond of little Nina.” “Of course I have.” “And in part, that is because she is such an independent spirit.” “Precisely.” “Then you must trust in her. And even if she is single-minded to a fault, you must trust that life will find her in time. For eventually, it finds us all.” The Count nodded for a moment, reflecting on Marina’s”
― Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow

“If you are ever in doubt, just remember that unlike adults, children want to be happy. So they still have the ability to take the greatest pleasure in the simplest things.” By”
― Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow

“There are no more sympathetic souls than strangers. So,”
― Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow

“In the end, a parent’s responsibility could not be more simple: To bring a child safely into adulthood so that she could have a chance to experience a life of purpose and, God willing, contentment.”
― Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow

“our lives are steered by uncertainties, many of which are disruptive or even daunting; but that if we persevere and remain generous of heart, we may be granted a moment of supreme lucidity—a moment in which all that has happened to us suddenly comes into focus as a necessary course of events, even as we find ourselves on the threshold of a bold new life that we had been meant to lead all along.”
― Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow

“But no counsel, however well grounded in history, is suitable for all. Like bottles of wine, two men will differ radically from each other for being born a year apart or on neighboring hills. By way of example, as this traveler stood before the ruins of his old home, he was not overcome by shock, indignation, or despair. Rather, he exhibited the same smile, at once wistful and serene, that he had exhibited upon seeing the overgrown road. For as it turns out, one can revisit the past quite pleasantly, as long as one does so expecting nearly every aspect of it to have changed.”
― Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow

“I was as empty of life as a scarecrow’s pockets. I”
― Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep

“You can have a hangover from other things than alcohol. I had one from women. Women made me sick.”
― Raymond Chandler, Philip Marlowe Complete Collection

“He looked like a man who had gained confidence through exposure to a hostile environment; like one who no longer owed anything to anyone.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“I see the problem,” I said slowly. “I don’t seem to have any behavioral filters.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear

“Because of this my progress was frustratingly slow, but I couldn’t help but be fascinated. It was like suddenly being given a second tongue. And it was a secret thing, of sorts. I have always had a weakness for secrets.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear