Max > Max's Quotes

“I don't exactly know what I mean by that, but I mean it.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“People are always ruining things for you.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“What am I in the eyes of most people — a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person — somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then — even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart. That is my ambition, based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. And my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible momentum.”
― Vincent Van Gogh

“To suffer without complaint is the only lesson we have to learn in this life”
― Vincent Willem van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

“In the end we shall have had enough of cynicism, skepticism and humbug, and we shall want to live more musically.”
― Vincent Van Gogh

“I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.”
― Vincent van Gogh

“A great fire burns within me, but no one stops to warm themselves at it, and passers-by only see a wisp of smoke”
― Vincent Van Gogh

“I'm sick of just liking people. I wish to God I could meet somebody I could respect.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“Make sure you marry someone who laughs at the same things you do.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“Almost every time somebody gives me a present, it ends up making me sad.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“The fact is always obvious much too late, but the most singular difference between happiness and joy is that happiness is a solid and joy a liquid.”
― J.D. Salinger, Nine Stories

“For most of us, for almost all of us, truth can be attained, if at all, only in silence. It is in silence that the human spirit touches the divine.”
― Iris Murdoch, Under the Net

“All the time when I speak to you, even now, I'm saying not precisely what I think, but what will impress you and make you respond. That's so even between us - and how much more it's so where there are stronger motives for deception. In fact, one's so used to this one hardly sees it. The whole language is a machine for making falsehoods.”
― Iris Murdoch, Under the Net

“The first coffee of the morning is never, ever, ready quickly enough. You die before it’s ready and then your ghost pours the resurrection potion out of the moka pot.”
― Helen Oyeyemi, Boy, Snow, Bird

“Once you let people know anything about what you think, that's it, you're dead. Then they'll be jumping about in your mind, taking things out, holding them up to the light and killing them, yes, killing them, because thoughts are supposed to stay and grow in quiet, dark places, like butterflies in cocoons.”
― Helen Oyeyemi, The Icarus Girl

“But then, maybe “I don’t believe in you” is the cruelest way to kill a monster.”
― Helen Oyeyemi, White Is for Witching