Imaginary > Imaginary's Quotes

“It is required of every man," the ghost returned, "that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide; and, if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“Literature is greater than any of us, dammit.”
― Romain Gary

“There is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate.”
― Linda Grayson

“I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.”
― Jerome K. Jerome

“I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?”
― Ernest Hemingway

“Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Garden of Eden

“Sometimes I write drunk and revise sober, and sometimes I write sober and revise drunk. But you have to have both elements in creation — the Apollonian and the Dionysian, or spontaneity and restraint, emotion and discipline.”
― Peter De Vries, Reuben, Reuben

“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“Never confuse movement with action.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof, shit detector.”
― Hemingway, Ernest

“Every book was a peep-hole into the realm of knowledge. His hunger fed upon what he read, and increased.”
― Jack London, Martin Eden

“Decide in your heart of hearts what really excites and challenges you, and start moving your life in that direction. Every decision you make, from what you eat to what you do with your time tonight, turns you into who you are tomorrow, and the day after that. Look at who you want to be, and start sculpting yourself into that person. You may not get exactly where you thought you'd be, but you will be doing things that suit you in a profession you believe in. Don't let life randomly kick you into the adult you don't want to become.”
― Chris Hadfield

“I wasn't lonely. Loneliness, I think, has very little to do with location. It's a state of mind. In the centre of every city are some of the loneliest people in the world. If anything, because our whole planet was just outside the window, I felt even more aware of and connected to the seven billion other people who call it home.”
― Chris Hadfield, An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth

“If you start thinking that only your biggest and shiniest moments count, you're setting yourself up to feel like a failure most of the time.”
― Chris Hadfield, An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth

“Early success is a terrible teacher. You're essentially being rewarded for a lack of preparation, so when you find yourself in a situation where you must prepare, you can't do it. You don't know how.”
― Chris Hadfield, An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth

“Still, I also know that most people, including me, tend to applaud the wrong things: the showy, dramatic record-setting sprint rather than the years of dogged preparation or the unwavering grace displayed during a string of losses. Applause, then, never bore much relation to the reality of my life as an astronaut, which was not all about, or even mostly about, flying around in space.”
― Chris Hadfield, An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth

“It’s like being a newborn, this sudden sensory overload of noise, color, smells and gravity after months of quietly floating, encased in relative calm and isolation. No wonder babies cry in protest when they’re born.”
― Chris Hadfield, An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth

“What I did each day would determine the kind of person I’d become.”
― Chris Hadfield, An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth

“Life is just a lot better if you feel you’re having 10 wins a day rather than a win every 10 years or so.”
― Chris Hadfield, An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

“If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all—in which case, you fail by default.”
― J.K. Rowling

“I had the epiphany that laughter was light, and light was laughter, and that this was the secret of the universe.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“The first duty of the novelist is to entertain. It is a moral duty. People who read your books are sick, sad, traveling, in the hospital waiting room while someone is dying. Books are written by the alone for the alone.”
― Donna Tartt

“Does such a thing as 'the fatal flaw,' that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature? I used to think it didn't. Now I think it does. And I think that mine is this: a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“Beauty is rarely soft or consolatory. Quite the contrary. Genuine beauty is always quite alarming.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“Never love anyone who treats you like you're ordinary.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very;' your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.”
― Mark Twain