zac > zac's Quotes

“She felt... how life, from being made up of little separate incidents which one lived one by one, became curled and whole like a wave which bore one up with it and threw one down with it, there, with a dash on the beach.”
― Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

“She had known happiness, exquisite happiness, intense happiness, and it silvered the rough waves a little more brightly, as daylight faded, and the blue went out of the sea and it rolled in waves of pure lemon which curved and swelled and broke upon the beach and the ecstasy burst in her eyes and waves of pure delight raced over the floor of her mind and she felt, It is enough! It is enough!”
― Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

“And looking up, she saw above the thin trees the first pulse of the full-throbbing star, and wanted to make her husband look at it; for the sight gave her such keen pleasure. But she stopped herself. He never looked at things. If he did, all he would say would be, Poor little world, with one of his sighs.”
― Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

“He smiled the most exquisite smile, veiled by memory, tinged by dreams.”
― Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

“So on a summer's day waves collect, overbalance, and fall; collect and fall; and the whole world seems to be saying 'that is all' more and more ponderously, until even the heart in the body which lies in the sun on the beach says too 'that is all'. Fear no more, says the heart. Fear no more, says the heart, committing its burden to some sea, which sighs collectively for all sorrows, and renews, begins, collects, lets fall.”
― Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

“All the seas of the world tumbled about her heart. He was drawing her into them: he would drown her.”
― James Joyce, Eveline

“There was no hope for him this time: it was the third stroke. Night after night I had passed the house (it was vacation time) and studied the lighted square of window: and night after night I had found it lighted in the same way, faintly and evenly. If he was dead, I thought, I would see the reflection of candles on the darkened blind, for I knew that two candles must be set at the head of a corpse. He had often said to me: I am not long for this world and I had thought his words idle. Now I knew they were true. Every night as I gazed up at the window I said softly to myself the word paralysis. It had always sounded strangely in my ears, like the word gnomon in the Euclid and the word simony in the Catechism. But now it sounded to me like the name of some maleficent and sinful being. It filled me with fear, and yet I longed to be nearer to it and to look upon its deadly work.”
― James Joyce, Dubliners

“What does the brain matter compared with the heart?”
― Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

“It is a thousand pities never to say what one feels.”
― Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

“...she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day.”
― Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

“Moments like this are buds on the tree of life. Flowers of darkness they are.”
― Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

“What is the meaning of life? That was all- a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years, the great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead, there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark; here was one.”
― Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

“Love is lak de sea. It’s uh movin’ thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore.”
― Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

“If you kin see de light at daybreak, you don't keer if you die at dusk. It's so many people never seen de light at all.”
― Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

“He really had been through death, but he had returned because he could not bear the solitude.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

“Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice...”
― Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

“Death really did not matter to him but life did, and therefore the sensation he felt when they gave their decision was not a feeling of fear but of nostalgia.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

“Thus they went on living in a reality that was slipping away, momentarily captured by words, but which would escape irremediably when they forgot the values of the written letters.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

“A short time later, when the carpenter was taking measurements for the coffin, through the window they saw a light rain of tiny yellow flowers falling. They fell on the town all through the night in a silent storm, and they covered the roofs and blocked the doors and smothered the animals who slept outdoors. So many flowers fell from the sky that in the morning the streets were carpeted with a compact cushion and they had to clear them away with shovels and rakes so that the funeral procession could pass by.”
― Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

“Then he made one last effort to search in his heart for the place where his affection had rotted away, and he could not find it.”
― Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

“Lost in the solitude of his immense power, he began to lose direction.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

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

“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

“Love is such a priceless treasure that you can buy the whole world with it, and redeem not only your own but other people's sins. Go, and do not be afraid.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“In most cases, people, even wicked people, are far more naive and simple-hearted than one generally assumes. And so are we.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“You will see great sorrow, and in that sorrow you will be happy. This is my last message to you: in sorrow seek happiness. Work, work unceasingly. Remember my words, for although I shall talk with you again, not only my days but my hours are numbered.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“Men are made for happiness, and he who is completely happy has the right to say to himself, 'I am doing God's will on earth.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“But to fall in love does not mean to love. One can fall in love and still hate.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“I do love nothing in the world so well as you- is not that strange?”
― William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing