James > James's Quotes

“Like most writers, I tend to find out what I feel on a subject by writing about it. It is how we interpret the world, how we make sense of it.”
― Robert Galbraith, The Silkworm

“But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”
― George Eliot, Middlemarch

“For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“You must not be too severe upon yourself," replied Elizabeth.

Say nothing of that. Who should suffer but myself? It has been my own doing, and I ought to feel it." You may well warn me against such an evil. Human nature is so prone to fall into it! No, Lizzy, let me once in my life feel how much I have been to blame. I am not afraid of being overpowered by the impression. It will pass away soon enough.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“Nothing in the world is like this-
a bright white page with
pale blue lines. The smell of a newly sharpened pencil
the soft hush of it
moving finally
one day
into letters.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, Brown Girl Dreaming

“Letters becoming words, words gathering meaning, becoming thoughts outside my head becoming sentences written by Jacqueline Amanda Woodson”
― Jacqueline Woodson, Brown Girl Dreaming

“The first time I write my full name
Jacqueline Amanda Woodson
without anybody' help
on a clean white page in my composition notebook,
I know
If I wanted to
I could write anything
Letters becoming words, words gathering meaning, becoming
thoughts outside my head
becoming sentences
written by
Jacqueline Amanda Woodson”
― Jacqueline Woodson, Brown Girl Dreaming

“I am in love with everything around me,
the dotted white lines moving
across my teacher's blackboard, the smell of chalk, the flag jutting out from the wall and slowly swaying above.
There is nothing more beautiful that P.S. 106.
Nothing more perfect than my first-grade classroom.
No one more kind than Ms. Feilder, who meets me at the door each morning,
takes my hand from my sister's, smiles down and says,
Now that Jacqueline is here, the day can begin.
And I believe her.
Yes, I truly believe her.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, Brown Girl Dreaming