Anna > Anna's Quotes

“You've no idea how long life goes on and how many, many changes it brings. Young people seem to imagine that it's over in a flash, that they do this thing, or that thing, and then die, but I can assure you they are quite wrong.”
― Nancy Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate and Other Novels

“At least when you're young you're also stupid.”
― Douglas Coupland, Hey Nostradamus!

“I felt wise and cynical as all hell.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”
― Jorge Luis Borges

“Finally he spoke the three simple words that no amount of bad art or bad faith can every quite cheapen. She repeated them, with exactly the same slight emphasis on the second word, as though she were the one to say them first. He had no religious belief, but it was impossible not to think of an invisible presence or witness in the room, and that these words spoken aloud were like signatures on an unseen contract.”
― Ian McEwan, Atonement

“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I've ever known.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956

“We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the neverending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.”
― Oscar Wilde

“My mouth hung slightly open, i was getting ready to sat something important. what i wanted to say was: I's so, so sorry. but instead I said, "i love you." Only then, when i said it out loud, did i know that it was true.
Carly threaded her fingers through mine and i squeezed her hand. She said it back to me, and i was relieved in a way that i wasn't expecting. i didn't know that i needed her to say it until she did. i was so grateful; i leaned down and kissed her fearlessly, which was unlike me. When she kissed me back, i brought my hand up and cupped the nape of her neck, pulling her hair with clumsy fingers. i tried to back off, to apologize for hurting her, but she kept me close, kissing me softly at first, then hard and fast until the lines between us blurred.”
― Anna Jarzab, All Unquiet Things

“All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“From early childhood, I had been told how smart I was, and throughout my life various people had tried so hard to teach me everything there was to know. But it occurred to me then how negligent they had been in teaching me how to love. I had two example of love in life - my mother's, absolute and over- burdened, the trial of love; and my father's, the cold and ambitious pursuit of meaning in love, the desire to turn it into a product with a worth that could be measured. Of the two options, I had skewed towards the former, disappointed with my father's method, and so I had bestowed a sort of unconditional love on Carly without really understanding what it meant. I wished that just one person had taught me a way to love her less. If I had loved her less, maybe I wouldn't have hated her so much. And maybe then I could have forgiven her.”
― Anna Jarzab, All Unquiet Things

“The work of the eyes is done. Go now and do the heart-work on the images imprisoned within you.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

“How many people are we going to lose before the universe decides we've had enough?" Carly asked me. I didn't answer, but if I had known what was coming I would have said, "All of them.”
― Anna Jarzab, All Unquiet Things

“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.”
― Roald Dahl

“Life is sometimes sad and often dull, but there are currants in the cake, and here is one of them.”
― Nancy Mitford, The Pursuit of Love

“When the day shall come that we do part," he said softly, and turned to look at me, "if my last words are not 'I love you'-ye'll ken it was because I didna have time.”
― Diana Gabaldon

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Be clearly aware of the stars and infinity on high. Then life seems almost enchanted after all.”
― Vincent Van Gogh