Beth > Beth's Quotes

“For me, books have always been a way to feel less alone while being alone.”
― Jonathan Ames, interview on AV Club.com

“I was aware that I was acting atrociously but I couldn't stop myself. Rarely had I behaved in such a manner. But I guess when we're feeling lonely in life, we attack those who actually do love us. It's one of the things that characterizes human nature and can be summed up in one word: FLAWED.”
― Jonathan Ames, Wake Up, Sir!

“Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armour yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“Sleep is good, he said, and books are better.”
― George R. R. Martin

“Unfortunately, I'm one of those idiots who knows everything about health and is in a constant state of alarm, and yet I continue to do everything I shouldn't do.”
― Jonathan Ames, Wake Up, Sir!

“Oh, God, I don't know what's more difficult, life or the English language.”
― Jonathan Ames, Wake Up, Sir!

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

“There's no such thing as perfect writing, just like there's no such thing as perfect despair.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hear the Wind Sing

“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

“Of course you keep telling yourself there's something to be learned from everything, and growing old shouldn't be that hard. That's the general drift.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hear the Wind Sing

“But even so, every now and then I would feel a violent stab of loneliness. The very water I drink, the very air I breathe, would feel like long, sharp needles. The pages of a book in my hands would take on the threatening metallic gleam of razor blades. I could hear the roots of loneliness creeping through me when the world was hushed at four o'clock in the morning.”
― Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“Unfortunately, the clock is ticking, the hours are going by. The past increases, the future recedes. Possibilities decreasing, regrets mounting.”
― Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance Dance

“Here's what I think, Mr. Wind-Up Bird," said May Kasahara. "Everybody's born with some different thing at the core of their existence. And that thing, whatever it is, becomes like a heat source that runs each person from the inside. I have one too, of course. Like everybody else. But sometimes it gets out of hand. It swells or shrinks inside me, and it shakes me up. What I'd really like to do is find a way to communicate that feeling to another person. But I can't seem to do it. They just don't get it. Of course, the problem could be that I'm not explaining it very well, but I think it's because they're not listening very well. They pretend to be listening, but they're not, really. So I get worked up sometimes, and I do some crazy things.”
― Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“Winter is coming.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“Or maybe the ... shock of it started me covering up all kinds of memories the way a squirrel hides a nut and forgets where he's buried it.”
― Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“To tell you the truth, sleepless nights are as unusual for me as sumo wrestlers who look good in berets.”
― Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“Life is not a song, sweetling.
Someday you may learn that, to your sorrow.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“What she was finding also was how one book led to another, doors kept opening wherever she turned and the days weren't long enough for the reading she wanted to do.”
― Alan Bennett, The Uncommon Reader

“It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emerson in His Journals

“A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading.”
― William Styron, Conversations with William Styron

“I never change, I simply become more myself.”
― Joyce Carol Oates, Solstice

“Follow your inner moonlight; don't hide the madness.”
― Allen Ginsberg

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“Open a book this minute and start reading. Don’t move until you’ve reached page fifty. Until you’ve buried your thoughts in print. Cover yourself with words. Wash yourself away. Dissolve.”
― Carol Shields, The Republic of Love

“When I pronounce the word Future,
the first syllable already belongs to the past.

When I pronounce the word Silence,
I destroy it.”
― Wisława Szymborska, Poems New and Collected

“Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own self.”
― Franz Kafka

“One is happy once one knows the necessary ingredients of happiness: simple tastes, a certain degree of courage, self denial to a point, love of work, and above all, a clear conscience.”
― George Sand, Correspondance, 1812-1876; Volume 5

“One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.”
― Helen Keller, The Story of My Life

“I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”
― E. B. White

“I'm going to smile, and my smile will sink down into your pupils, and heaven knows what it will become.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, No Exit