Lisa > Lisa's Quotes

“Everyone looks retarded once you set your mind to it.”
― David Sedaris

“Our dreams are luminous, a cast fire upon the world.
Morning arrives and that's it.
Sunlight darkens the earth.”
― Charles Wright

“You saw me before I saw you. In the airport, that day in August, you had that look in your eyes, as though you wanted something from me, as though you’d wanted it for a long time. No one had ever looked at me like that before, with that kind of intensity. It unsettled me, surprised me, I guess. Those blue, blue eyes, icy blue, looking back at me as if I could warm them up. They’re pretty powerful, you know, those eyes, pretty beautiful, too.”
― Lucy Christopher, Stolen

“When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“It was the possibility of darkness that made the day seem so bright.”
― Stephen King, Wolves of the Calla

“In the light, we read the inventions of others; in the darkness we invent our own stories. ”
― Alberto Manguel, The Library at Night

“Real love amounts to withholding the truth, even when you're offered the perfect opportunity to hurt someone's feelings”
― David Sedaris, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim

“Hugh and I have been together for so long that in order to arouse extraordinary passion, we need to engage in physical combat. Once, he hit me on the back of the head with a broken wineglass, and I fell to the floor pretending to be unconscious. That was romantic, or would have been had he rushed to my side rather than stepping over my body to fetch the dustpan.”
― David Sedaris, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim

“For the first twenty years of my life, I rocked myself to sleep. It was a harmless enough hobby, but eventually, I had to give it up. Throughout the next twenty-two years I lay still and discovered that after a few minutes I could drop off with no problem. Follow seven beers with a couple of scotches and a thimble of good marijuana, and it’s funny how sleep just sort of comes on its own. Often I never even made it to the bed. I’d squat down to pet the cat and wake up on the floor eight hours later, having lost a perfectly good excuse to change my clothes. I’m now told that this is not called “going to sleep” but rather “passing out,” a phrase that carries a distinct hint of judgment.”
― David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day

“After a few months in my parents' basement, I took an apartment near the state university, where I discovered both crystal methamphetamine and conceptual art. Either one of these things are dangerous, but in combination they have the potential to destroy entire civilizations.”
― David Sedaris , Me Talk Pretty One Day

“I just looked at the pattern of my life, decided I didn't like it, and changed.”
― David Sedaris, Barrel Fever: Stories and Essays

“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”
― Albert Camus

“At the heart of all beauty lies something inhuman.”
― Albert Camus

“In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion."

[The Minotaur]”
― Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

“There is not love of life without despair about life.”
― Albert Camus, Lyrical and Critical Essays

“O light! This is the cry of all the characters of ancient drama brought face to face with their fate. This last resort was ours, too, and I knew it now. In the middle of winter I at last discovered that there was in me an invincible summer.”
― Albert Camus, L’été

“There is scarcely any passion without struggle.”
― Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

“All I do is lie, and that has made me immune to compliments.”
― David Sedaris

“It's quite an undertaking to start loving somebody. You have to have energy, generosity, blindness. There is even a moment right at the start where you have to jump across an abyss: if you think about it you don't do it.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea

“I am alone in the midst of these happy, reasonable voices. All these creatures spend their time explaining, realizing happily that they agree with each other. In Heaven's name, why is it so important to think the same things all together. ”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea

“I want to leave, to go somewhere where I should be really in my place, where I would fit in . . . but my place is nowhere; I am unwanted.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea

“I exist. It is soft, so soft, so slow. And light: it seems as though it suspends in the air. It moves.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea

“Little flashes of sun on the surface of a cold, dark sea.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea

“People. You must love people. Men are admirable. I want
to vomit—and suddenly, there it is: the Nausea”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea

“You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.”
― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

“Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.”
― Khalil Gibran, The Prophet

“When love beckons to you follow him, Though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And when he speaks to you believe in him, Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden. For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth......

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure, Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor, Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears. Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.

Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love. And think not you can direct the course of love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself."

But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires: To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love; And to bleed willingly and joyfully.”
― Kahlil Gibran, Le Prophète

“Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.”
― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

“My soul preached to me and taught me to love that which the people abhor and befriend him who they revile.”
― Kahlil Gibran, Second Treasury of Kahlil Gibran