Melissa Rochelle > Melissa Rochelle's Quotes

“If to have breasts is to be human, then to save them is to save ourselves.”
― Florence Williams

“I'm always happy," Sasha said. "Sometimes I just forget.”
― Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad

“Like it or not, women are always subject to criticism if they show too much feeling in public.”
― Hillary Rodham Clinton, Living History

“By telling you anything at all I'm at least believing in you, I believe you're there, I believe you into being.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

“It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“Getting out of bed is a good way to leave your troubles behind.”
― Nancy E. Turner, Sarah's Quilt

“Falling in love, although it resulted in altered body chemistry and was therefore real, was a hormonally induced delusional state, according to him. In addition it was humiliating, because it put you at a disadvantage, it gave the love object too much power. As for sex per se, it lacked both challenge and novelty, and was on the whole a deeply imperfect solution to the problem of intergenerational genetic transfer.”
― Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake

“Some people sense is wasted on and that's purely a fact.”
― Nancy E. Turner

“What I say is, a town isn’t a town without a bookstore. It may call itself a town, but unless it’s got a bookstore, it knows it’s not foolin’ a soul.”
― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

“There is no knowing what is in a man's heart.”
― Charles Portis, True Grit

“We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.”
― Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

“While clothes do not, as the saying would sometimes have it, make the man, and fine feathers do not make fine birds, sometimes they can add a certain spice to a recipe.”
― Neil Gaiman, Stardust

“The key is to pump up your righteous anger and mute your petty resentment. I'll be happy if I can get that balance to fifty-fifty.”
― A. J. Jacobs, The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible

“Life would be a lot easier if conversations were rewindable and erasable, like videos. Or if you could instruct people to disregard what you just said, like in a courtroom.”
― Sophie Kinsella, Confessions of a Shopaholic

“I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumble bee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself.”
― Neil Gaiman

“We’re all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness—and call it love—true love.”
― Robert Fulghum, True Love

“Truth is, I think naked men are kind of strange looking what with their doodles and ding-dong hanging loose like they do. Nevertheless, there's the curiosity thing. I guess it's another one of those car crash experiences, where you feel compelled to look even if you know you'll be horrified.”
― Janet Evanovich, Seven Up

“If you're 50 years old or younger, give every book about 50 pages before you decide to commit yourself to reading it, or give it up.

If you're over 50, which is when time gets shorter, subtract your age from 100 - the result is the number of pages you should read before deciding whether or not to quit. If you're 100 or over you get to judge the book by its cover, despite the dangers in doing so.”
― Nancy Pearl

“I just said, 'Well, the real people performing miracles every day are librarians,' and we all laughed ourselves off our chairs.”
― Nancy Pearl

“I have for a long time felt that our society is becoming more and more fractured and divisive and that you could go a whole day without really talking to another person. If you give people a good book to talk about, you can build a community out of a diverse group. A common language grows out of it.”
― Nancy Pearl

“Jennifer Aniston and Her New Man'" I read the words aloud uncertainly. "What new man? Why would she need a new man?"

"Oh yes." Nicole follows my gaze, unconcerned. "You know she split up from Brad Pitt?"

"Jennifer and Brad split?" I stare up at her, aghast. "You can't be serious! They can't have done!"

"He went off with Angelina Jolie. They've got a daughter."

"No!" I wail. "But Jen and Brad were so perfect together! They looked so good and they had that lovely wedding picture and everything...."

"They're divorced now." Nicole shrugs, like it's no big deal.

I can't get over this. Jennifer and Brad divorced. The world is a different place.”
― Sophie Kinsella, Remember Me?

“When You Are Old"


WHEN you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.”
― W.B. Yeats

“Choices

If i can't do
what i want to do
then my job is to not
do what i don't want
to do

It's not the same thing
but it's the best i can
do

If i can't have
what i want . . . then
my job is to want
what i've got
and be satisfied
that at least there
is something more to want

Since i can't go
where i need
to go . . . then i must . . . go
where the signs point
through always understanding
parallel movement
isn't lateral

When i can't express
what i really feel
i practice feeling
what i can express
and none of it is equal

I know
but that's why mankind
alone among the animals
learns to cry”
― Nikki Giovanni

“The world's a big place. You can't do or be everything, nor should you. Life is bigger than any one man. But when you read about other people's lives, when you read their stories, you catch a glimpse of a world bigger than your own. You may never travel a hundred miles from where you were born, but if you read stories, you'll get to see the entire world.”
― The Waiter (Steve Dublanica), Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip-Confessions of a Cynical Waiter

“Take criticism seriously, but not personally. If there is truth or merit in the criticism, try to learn from it. Otherwise, let it roll right off you.”
― Hillary Rodham Clinton, Living History

“It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls.

It is a violation of human rights when women and girls are sold into the slavery of prostitution.

It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire and burned to death because their marriage dowries are deemed too small.

It is a violation of human rights when individual women are raped in their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war.

It is a violation of human rights when a leading cause of death worldwide among women ages 14 to 44 is the violence they are subjected to in their own homes.

It is a violation of human rights when young girls are brutalized by the painful and degrading practice of genital mutilation.

It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families, and that includes being forced to have abortions or being sterilized against their will.

If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, it is that human rights are women's rights - and women's rights are human rights. Let us not forget that among those rights are the right to speak freely - and the right to be heard.

[From 'Women's Rights Are Human Rights' Speech Beijing, China: 5 September 1995]”
― Hillary Rodham Clinton

“And on the subject of burning books: I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their powerful political connections or their great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and have refused to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles.

So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

“Sometimes you want to fall on your knees and thank God in heaven for all the poor news reporting that goes on in the world.”
― Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees

“Now and then sprays of rain flew over and misted our faces. Every time I refused to wipe away the wetness. It made the world seem so alive to me. I couldn't help but envy the way a good storm got everyone's attention.”
― Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees

“Granpa said if there was less words, there wouldn't be as much trouble in the world. He said privately to me that there was always some damn fool making up a word that served no purpose except to cause trouble.”
― Forrest Carter, The Education of Little Tree