Ива Великова > Ива's Quotes

“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.”
― Franz Kafka

“You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.”
― Ray Bradbury

“I hope she'll be a fool -- that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“Bran thought about it. 'Can a man still be brave if he's afraid?'
'That is the only time a man can be brave,' his father told him.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”
― Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing: Releasing the Creative Genius Within You

“Show me a hero, and I'll write you a tragedy.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Fear cuts deeper than swords.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“If you look for perfection, you'll never be content.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.”
― Leo Tolstoy, The Kreutzer Sonata

“but for my own part, if a book is well written, I always find it too short.”
― Jane Austen

“It's enough for me to be sure that you and I exist at this moment.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

“..че над града вали,
тъй както и в душата...
И ние се опивахме
с тъгата.”
― Елисавета Багряна

“Как ще спреш ти мене - волната, скитницата, непокорната -
родната сестра на вятъра, на водата и на виното,
за която е примамица непостижното, просторното,
дето все сънува пътища - недостигнати, неминати, -
мене как ще спреш?”
― Елисавета Багряна