Olivia > Olivia's Quotes

“A pier is a disappointed bridge; yet stare at it for long enough and you can dream it to the other side of the Channel.”
― Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot

“We accept the love we think we deserve.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“Don’t we forgive everything of a lover? We forgive selfishness, desire, guile. As long as we are the motive for it.”
― Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient

“I'll be looking at the moon,
but I'll be seeing you.”
― Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient

“She had always wanted words, she loved them, grew up on them. Words gave her clarity, brought reason, shape. Whereas I thought words bent emotions like sticks in water.”
― Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient

“The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust. A merging of two people is an impossibility, and where it seems to exist, it is a hemming-in, a mutual consent that robs one party or both parties of their fullest freedom and development. But once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

“To love someone is like moving into a house," Sonja used to say. "At first you fall in love in everything new, you wonder every morning that this is one's own, as if they are afraid that someone will suddenly come tumbling through the door and say that there has been a serious mistake and that it simply was not meant to would live so fine. But as the years go by, the facade worn, the wood cracks here and there, and you start to love this house not so much for all the ways it is perfect in that for all the ways it is not. You become familiar with all its nooks and crannies. How to avoid that the key gets stuck in the lock if it is cold outside. Which floorboards have some give when you step on them, and exactly how to open the doors for them not to creak. That's it, all the little secrets that make it your home.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“Death is a strange thing. People live their whole lives as if it does not exist, and yet it's often one of the great motivations for living. Some of us, in time, become so conscious of it that we live harder, more obstinately, with more fury. Some need its constant presence to even be aware of its antithesis. Others become so preoccupied with it that they go into the waiting room long before it has announced its arrival. We fear it, yet most of us fear more than anything that it may take someone other than ourselves. For the greatest fear of death is always that it will pass us by. And leave us there alone.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“All too often, when we see injustices, both great and small, we think, That's terrible, but we do nothing. We say nothing. We let other people fight their own battles. We remain silent because silence is easier. Qui tacet consentire videtur is Latin for 'Silence gives consent.' When we say nothing, when we do nothing, we are consenting to these trespasses against us.”
― Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist

“In truth, feminism is flawed because it is a movement powered by people and people are inherently flawed.”
― Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist: Essays

“In yet another commercial, Oprah somberly says, “Inside every overweight woman is a woman she knows she can be.” This is a popular notion, the idea that the fat among us are carrying a thin woman inside. Each time I see this particular commercial, I think, I ate that thin woman and she was delicious but unsatisfying. And then I think about how fucked up it is to promote this idea that our truest selves are thin women hiding in our fat bodies like imposters, usurpers, illegitimates.”
― Roxane Gay, Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body

“We need to stop playing Privilege or Oppression Olympics because we’ll never get anywhere until we find more effective ways of talking through difference. We should be able to say, “This is my truth,” and have that truth stand without a hundred clamoring voices shouting, giving the impression that multiple truths cannot coexist.”
― Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist: Essays

“What does it say about our culture that the desire for weight loss is considered a default feature of womanhood?”
― Roxane Gay, Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body

“You don't necessarily have to do anything once you acknowledge your privilege. You don't have to apologize for it. You need to understand the extent of your privilege, the consequences of your privilege, and remain aware that people who are different from you move through and experience the world in ways you might never know anything about.”
― Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist

“Screws fall out all the time, the world is an imperfect place.”
― John Hughes

“We can't always make the choices we'd like, but we can try to make the best of what we must settle for.'

[Lizzie Lester]”
― Pip Williams, The Dictionary of Lost Words

“It struck me that we are never fully at ease when we are aware of another's gaze. Perhaps we are never fully ourselves. In the desire to please or impress, to persuade or dominate, our movements become conscious, our features set.

[Esme Nicholl]”
― Pip Williams, The Dictionary of Lost Words

“I remember Lizzie apologizing to Mrs. Lloyd the first time she stayed to chat, for the chip in the cup.

'A chip doesn't stop it from holding tea,' Mrs. Lloyd had said.

[Esme Nicholl]”
― Pip Williams, The Dictionary of Lost Words

“[Esme] 'And then I was born and then she [her mother Lily] died.'

[Edith 'Ditte' Thompson, her godmother] 'Yes.'

'But when we talk about her, she comes to life.'

'Never forget that Esme. Words are our tools of resurrection.”
― Pip Williams, The Dictionary of Lost Words

“I often wondered what kind of slip I would be written on if I was a word. Something too long, certainly. Probably the wrong colour. A scrap of paper that didn't quite fit. I worried that perhaps I would never find my place in the pigeon-holes at all.”
― Pip Williams, The Dictionary of Lost Words

“Words are like stories ... They change as they are passed from mouth to mouth; their meanings stretch or truncate to fit what needs to be said.”
― Pip Williams, The Dictionary of Lost Words

“We don't always have the words. But we can talk around things.”
― Jon McGregor, Lean Fall Stand

“Grief is the stuff of life. A life without grief is no life at all. But regret is a prison. Some part of you which you deeply value lies forever impaled at a crossroads you can no longer find and never forget.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Passenger

“When corruption is the very foundation of a regime, those who battle it are extremists.”
― Alexei Navalny, Patriot: A Memoir

“We must do what they fear--tell the truth, spread the truth. This is the most power weapon against this regime of liars, thieves, and hypocrites. Everyone has this weapon. So make use of it.”
― Alexei Navalny, Patriot: A Memoir

“If you were to ask me whether I hate Vladimir Putin, my answer would be, yes, I hate him, but not because he tried to kill me or put my brother in prison. I hate Putin because he has stolen the last twenty years from Russia. These could have been incredible years, the sort of period that we’ve never had in our history. We had no enemies. We had peace on all our borders. The price of oil, gas, and our other natural resources was incredibly high. We earned huge amounts from our exports. Putin could have used these years to turn Russia into a prosperous country. All of us could have lived better. Instead, twenty million people live below the poverty line. Part of the money Putin and his cronies simply stole; part of it was squandered. They did nothing good for our country, and that is their worst crime”
― Alexey Navalny, Patriot: A Memoir