Forrest > Forrest's Quotes

“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I buy food and clothes.”
― Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus

“I know that I am a small, weak man, but I have amassed a large library; I dream of dangerous places.”
― Terry Pratchett, Snuff

“Girls don't want boys, girls want high-speed internet and dragons.”
― Speranza

“Nac Mac Feegle! The Wee Free Men! Nae king! Nae quin! Nae laird! Nae master! We willna' be fooled again!”
― Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men

“Well, knowledge is a fine thing, and mother Eve thought so; but she smarted so severely for hers, that most of her daughters have been afraid of it since. ”
― Abigail Adams

“It's a good thing I was born a girl, otherwise I'd be a drag queen.”
― Dolly Parton

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”
― Mark Twain

“It is the grand misfortune of my life that nobody will let me alone.”
― Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

“Picking five favorite books is like picking the five body parts you'd most like not to lose.”
― Neil Gaiman

“You were a mermaid, weren't you? That's what Nadya said."
"I still am," said Cora. "I just have my scales under my skin for now.”
― Seanan McGuire, Beneath the Sugar Sky

“As to her education..." says Angelica.
"'Tis done," says Mrs Lippard. "Her school could do no more for her."
"I learned nothing," growls Sukie.
"You read every book they had."
"If I had known there were so few, I would have read slower.”
― Imogen Hermes Gowar, The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock

“Them as can do has to do for them as can't. And someone has to speak up for them as has no voices.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men

“That night, cold and alone, Joseph had thought he'd found a portal into the past.
But he'd been wrong. It was a vision of the future.”
― Brian Selznick, The Marvels

“Zoology, eh? That's a big word, isn't it."

"No, actually it isn't," said Tiffany. "Patronizing is a big word. Zoology is really quite short.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men

“I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:
1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“Witches are naturally nosy,” said Miss Tick, standing up. “Well, I must go. I hope we shall meet again. I will give you some free advice, though.”
“Will it cost me anything?”
“What? I just said it was free!” said Miss Tick.
“Yes, but my father said that free advice often turns out to be expensive,” said Tiffany.
Miss Tick sniffed. “You could say this advice is priceless,” she said, “Are you listening?”
“Yes,” said Tiffany.
“Good. Now...if you trust in yourself...”
“Yes?”
“...and believe in your dreams...”
“Yes?”
“...and follow your star...” Miss Tick went on.
“Yes?”
“...you’ll still be beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren’t so lazy. Goodbye.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men

“...it will always remain my private persuasion that Nature was absorbed in making cabbages when Mrs. Vesey was born, and that the good lady suffered the consequences of a vegetable preoccupation in the mind of the Mother of us all. ”
― Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

“We’ve much to do, and time does insist on being linear here, because it’s awful.”
― Seanan McGuire

“Jill had always wanted to know what it was like to be allowed to wear her hair long, to put on a pretty skirt, to sit next to her sister and hear people cooing over what a lovely matched pair they were. She liked sports, yes, and she liked reading her books; she liked knowing things. She would probably have been a soccer player even if her father hadn't insisted, would definitely have watched spaceships on TV and superheroes in the movies, because the core of who Jill was had nothing to do with the desires of her parents and everything to do with the desires of her heart. But she would have done some of those things in a dress. Having half of everything she wanted denied to her for so long had left her vulnerable to them: they were the forbidden fruit, and like all forbidden things, even the promise of them was delicious.”
― Seanan McGuire, Down Among the Sticks and Bones

“Layla sighed and leaned over to put her hand on Rini's shoulder.
"Breathe," she said.
"I think one of my lungs has stopped existing." said Rini.”
― Seanan McGuire, Beneath the Sugar Sky

“Let the end come as it may, here I am ready to profit by it: here I am, facing both ways, with perfect ease and security - a moral agriculturist, with his eye on two crops at once, and his swindler's sickle ready for any emergency.
For the next week to come, the newspaper will be more interesting to me than ever. I wonder which side I shall eventually belong to?”
― Wilkie Collins, No Name

“A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read.”
― Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!

“If complete and utter chaos was lightning, then he'd be the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armour and shouting 'All gods are bastards!”
― Terry Pratchett, The Color of Magic

“The enemy isn't men, or women, it's bloody stupid people and no one has the right to be stupid.”
― Terry Pratchett, Monstrous Regiment

“Many people could say things in a cutting way, Nanny knew. But Granny Weatherwax could listen in a cutting way. She could make something sound stupid just by hearing it.”
― Terry Pratchett

“It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.”
― Terry Pratchett, Jingo

“Once we were blobs in the sea, and then fishes, and then lizards and rats and then monkeys, and hundreds of things in between. This hand was once a fin, this hand once had claws! In my human mouth I have the pointy teeth of a wolf and the chisel teeth of a rabbit and the grinding teeth of a cow! Our blood is as salty as the sea we used to live in! When we're frightened, the hair on our skin stands up, just like it did when we had fur. We are history! Everything we've ever been on the way to becoming us, we still are. [...]

I'm made up of the memories of my parents and my grandparents, all my ancestors. They're in the way I look, in the colour of my hair. And I'm made up of everyone I've ever met who's changed the way I think.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“All witches are selfish, the Queen had said. But Tiffany’s Third Thoughts said: Then turn selfishness into a weapon! Make all things yours! Make other lives and dreams and hopes yours! Protect them! Save them! Bring them into the sheepfold! Walk the gale for them! Keep away the wolf! My dreams! My brother! My family! My land! My world! How dare you try to take these things, because they are mine!

I have a duty!”
― Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men

“You can't give her that!' she screamed. 'It's not safe!'
IT'S A SWORD, said the Hogfather. THEY'RE NOT MEANT TO BE SAFE.
'She's a child!' shouted Crumley.
IT'S EDUCATIONAL.
'What if she cuts herself?'
THAT WILL BE AN IMPORTANT LESSON.”
― Terry Pratchett, Hogfather