Mae > Mae's Quotes

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  • #1
    Oscar Wilde
    “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
    Oscar Wilde

  • #2
    Mae West
    “You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”
    Mae West

  • #3
    Friendship ... is born at the moment when one man says to another What! You
    “Friendship ... is born at the moment when one man says to another "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .”
    C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

  • #5
    Mark Twain
    “If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.”
    Mark Twain

  • #6
    Oscar Wilde
    “Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”
    Oscar Wilde

  • #7
    We accept the love we think we deserve.
    “We accept the love we think we deserve.”
    Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

  • #8
    “Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.”
    Narcotics Anonymous

  • #9
    Laini Taylor
    “Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love.

    It did not end well.”
    Laini Taylor, Daughter of Smoke & Bone

  • #10
    Laini Taylor
    “Hope can be a powerful force. Maybe there's no actual magic in it, but when you know what you hope for most and hold it like a light within you, you can make things happen, almost like magic.”
    Laini Taylor, Daughter of Smoke & Bone

  • #11
    Sarah Kay
    “If I should have a daughter…“Instead of “Mom”, she’s gonna call me “Point B.” Because that way, she knows that no matter what happens, at least she can always find her way to me. And I’m going to paint the solar system on the back of her hands so that she has to learn the entire universe before she can say “Oh, I know that like the back of my hand.”

    She’s gonna learn that this life will hit you, hard, in the face, wait for you to get back up so it can kick you in the stomach. But getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air. There is hurt, here, that cannot be fixed by band-aids or poetry, so the first time she realizes that Wonder-woman isn’t coming, I’ll make sure she knows she doesn’t have to wear the cape all by herself. Because no matter how wide you stretch your fingers, your hands will always be too small to catch all the pain you want to heal. Believe me, I’ve tried.

    And “Baby,” I’ll tell her “don’t keep your nose up in the air like that, I know that trick, you’re just smelling for smoke so you can follow the trail back to a burning house so you can find the boy who lost everything in the fire to see if you can save him. Or else, find the boy who lit the fire in the first place to see if you can change him.”

    But I know that she will anyway, so instead I’ll always keep an extra supply of chocolate and rain boats nearby, ‘cause there is no heartbreak that chocolate can’t fix. Okay, there’s a few heartbreaks chocolate can’t fix. But that’s what the rain boots are for, because rain will wash away everything if you let it.

    I want her to see the world through the underside of a glass bottom boat, to look through a magnifying glass at the galaxies that exist on the pin point of a human mind. Because that’s how my mom taught me. That there’ll be days like this, “There’ll be days like this my momma said” when you open your hands to catch and wind up with only blisters and bruises. When you step out of the phone booth and try to fly and the very people you wanna save are the ones standing on your cape. When your boots will fill with rain and you’ll be up to your knees in disappointment and those are the very days you have all the more reason to say “thank you,” ‘cause there is nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline no matter how many times it’s sent away.

    You will put the “wind” in win some lose some, you will put the “star” in starting over and over, and no matter how many land mines erupt in a minute be sure your mind lands on the beauty of this funny place called life.

    And yes, on a scale from one to over-trusting I am pretty damn naive but I want her to know that this world is made out of sugar. It can crumble so easily but don’t be afraid to stick your tongue out and taste it.

    “Baby,” I’ll tell her “remember your mama is a worrier but your papa is a warrior and you are the girl with small hands and big eyes who never stops asking for more.”

    Remember that good things come in threes and so do bad things and always apologize when you’ve done something wrong but don’t you ever apologize for the way your eyes refuse to stop shining.

    Your voice is small but don’t ever stop singing and when they finally hand you heartbreak, slip hatred and war under your doorstep and hand you hand-outs on street corners of cynicism and defeat, you tell them that they really ought to meet your mother.”
    Sarah Kay

  • #12
    Adeline Yen Mah
    “Please believe that one single positive dream is more important than a thousand negative realities.”
    Adeline Yen Mah, Chinese Cinderella: The True Story of an Unwanted Daughter

  • #13
    Jodi Picoult
    “My mother... she is beautiful, softened at the edges and tempered with a spine of steel. I want to grow old and be like her.”
    Jodi Picoult

  • #14
    Laini Taylor
    “She moved like a poem and smiled like a sphinx.”
    Laini Taylor, Daughter of Smoke & Bone

  • #15
    Madame de Sévigné
    “The human heart will never wrinkle.”
    Madame de Sévigné, Letters of Madame de Sévigné to her Daughter and her Friends, Volume 2

  • #16
    Laini Taylor
    “Once upon a time, an angel lay dying in the mist.

    And a devil knelt over him and smiled.”
    Laini Taylor, Daughter of Smoke & Bone

  • #17
    Tamora Pierce
    “Curiosity killed the cat,” Fesgao remarked, his dark eyes unreadable.
    Aly rolled her eyes. Why did everyone say that to her? “People always forget the rest of the saying,” she complained. “‘And satisfaction brought it back.”
    Tamora Pierce , Trickster's Choice

  • #18
    Kristin Hannah
    “As mothers and daughters, we are connected with one another. My mother is the bones of my spine, keeping me straight and true. She is my blood, making sure it runs rich and strong. She is the beating of my heart. I cannot now imagine a life without her.”
    Kristin Hannah, Summer Island

  • #19
    Charlie Chaplin
    “Your naked body should only belong to those who fall in love with your naked soul.”
    Charlie Chaplin in a letter to his daughter Geraldine

  • #20
    Warsan Shire
    “1. I’m lonely so I do lonely things
    2. Loving you was like going to war; I never came back the same.
    3. You hate women, just like your father and his father, so it runs in your blood.
    4. I was wandering the derelict car park of your heart looking for a ride home.
    5. You’re a ghost town I’m too patriotic to leave.
    6. I stay because you’re the beginning of the dream I want to remember.
    7. I didn’t call him back because he likes his girls voiceless.
    8. It’s not that he wants to be a liar; it’s just that he doesn’t know the truth.
    9. I couldn’t love you, you were a small war.
    10. We covered the smell of loss with jokes.
    11. I didn’t want to fail at love like our parents.
    12. You made the nomad in me build a house and stay.
    13. I’m not a dog.
    14. We were trying to prove our blood wrong.
    15. I was still lonely so I did even lonelier things.
    16. Yes, I’m insecure, but so was my mother and her mother.
    17. No, he loves me he just makes me cry a lot.
    18. He knows all of my secrets and still wants to kiss me.
    19. You were too cruel to love for a long time.
    20. It just didn’t work out.
    21. My dad walked out one afternoon and never came back.
    22. I can’t sleep because I can still taste him in my mouth.
    23. I cut him out at the root, he was my favorite tree, rotting, threatening the foundations of my home.
    24. The women in my family die waiting.
    25. Because I didn’t want to die waiting for you.
    26. I had to leave, I felt lonely when he held me.
    27. You’re the song I rewind until I know all the words and I feel sick.
    28. He sent me a text that said “I love you so bad.”
    29. His heart wasn’t as beautiful as his smile
    30. We emotionally manipulated one another until we thought it was love.
    31. Forgive me, I was lonely so I chose you.
    32. I’m a lover without a lover.
    33. I’m lovely and lonely.
    34. I belong deeply to myself .”
    Warsan Shire

  • #21
    Andrea Gibson
    “I want you to tell me about every person you’ve ever been in love with.
    Tell me why you loved them,
    then tell me why they loved you.

    Tell me about a day in your life you didn’t think you’d live through.
    Tell me what the word home means to you
    and tell me in a way that I’ll know your mother’s name
    just by the way you describe your bedroom
    when you were eight.

    See, I want to know the first time you felt the weight of hate,
    and if that day still trembles beneath your bones.

    Do you prefer to play in puddles of rain
    or bounce in the bellies of snow?
    And if you were to build a snowman,
    would you rip two branches from a tree to build your snowman arms
    or would leave your snowman armless
    for the sake of being harmless to the tree?
    And if you would,
    would you notice how that tree weeps for you
    because your snowman has no arms to hug you
    every time you kiss him on the cheek?

    Do you kiss your friends on the cheek?
    Do you sleep beside them when they’re sad
    even if it makes your lover mad?
    Do you think that anger is a sincere emotion
    or just the timid motion of a fragile heart trying to beat away its pain?

    See, I wanna know what you think of your first name,
    and if you often lie awake at night and imagine your mother’s joy
    when she spoke it for the very first time.

    I want you to tell me all the ways you’ve been unkind.
    Tell me all the ways you’ve been cruel.
    Tell me, knowing I often picture Gandhi at ten years old
    beating up little boys at school.

    If you were walking by a chemical plant
    where smokestacks were filling the sky with dark black clouds
    would you holler “Poison! Poison! Poison!” really loud
    or would you whisper
    “That cloud looks like a fish,
    and that cloud looks like a fairy!”

    Do you believe that Mary was really a virgin?
    Do you believe that Moses really parted the sea?
    And if you don’t believe in miracles, tell me —
    how would you explain the miracle of my life to me?

    See, I wanna know if you believe in any god
    or if you believe in many gods
    or better yet
    what gods believe in you.
    And for all the times that you’ve knelt before the temple of yourself,
    have the prayers you asked come true?
    And if they didn’t, did you feel denied?
    And if you felt denied,
    denied by who?

    I wanna know what you see when you look in the mirror
    on a day you’re feeling good.
    I wanna know what you see when you look in the mirror
    on a day you’re feeling bad.
    I wanna know the first person who taught you your beauty
    could ever be reflected on a lousy piece of glass.

    If you ever reach enlightenment
    will you remember how to laugh?

    Have you ever been a song?
    Would you think less of me
    if I told you I’ve lived my entire life a little off-key?
    And I’m not nearly as smart as my poetry
    I just plagiarize the thoughts of the people around me
    who have learned the wisdom of silence.

    Do you believe that concrete perpetuates violence?
    And if you do —
    I want you to tell me of a meadow
    where my skateboard will soar.

    See, I wanna know more than what you do for a living.
    I wanna know how much of your life you spend just giving,
    and if you love yourself enough to also receive sometimes.
    I wanna know if you bleed sometimes
    from other people’s wounds,
    and if you dream sometimes
    that this life is just a balloon —
    that if you wanted to, you could pop,
    but you never would
    ‘cause you’d never want it to stop.

    If a tree fell in the forest
    and you were the only one there to hear —
    if its fall to the ground didn’t make a sound,
    would you panic in fear that you didn’t exist,
    or would you bask in the bliss of your nothingness?

    And lastly, let me ask you this:

    If you and I went for a walk
    and the entire walk, we didn’t talk —
    do you think eventually, we’d… kiss?

    No, wait.
    That’s asking too much —
    after all,
    this is only our first date.”
    Andrea Gibson

  • #22
    Benjamin Alire Sáenz
    “I wondered if my smile was as big as hers. Maybe as big. But not as beautiful.”
    Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

  • #23
    Janet Fitch
    “I couldn't imagine owning beauty like my mothers. I wouldn't dare.”
    Janet Fitch, White Oleander

  • #24
    Eavan Boland
    “The Pomegranate

    The only legend I have ever loved is
    the story of a daughter lost in hell.
    And found and rescued there.
    Love and blackmail are the gist of it.
    Ceres and Persephone the names.
    And the best thing about the legend is
    I can enter it anywhere. And have.
    As a child in exile in
    a city of fogs and strange consonants,
    I read it first and at first I was
    an exiled child in the crackling dusk of
    the underworld, the stars blighted. Later
    I walked out in a summer twilight
    searching for my daughter at bed-time.
    When she came running I was ready
    to make any bargain to keep her.
    I carried her back past whitebeams
    and wasps and honey-scented buddleias.
    But I was Ceres then and I knew
    winter was in store for every leaf
    on every tree on that road.
    Was inescapable for each one we passed.
    And for me.
    It is winter
    and the stars are hidden.
    I climb the stairs and stand where I can see
    my child asleep beside her teen magazines,
    her can of Coke, her plate of uncut fruit.
    The pomegranate! How did I forget it?
    She could have come home and been safe
    and ended the story and all
    our heart-broken searching but she reached
    out a hand and plucked a pomegranate.
    She put out her hand and pulled down
    the French sound for apple and
    the noise of stone and the proof
    that even in the place of death,
    at the heart of legend, in the midst
    of rocks full of unshed tears
    ready to be diamonds by the time
    the story was told, a child can be
    hungry. I could warn her. There is still a chance.
    The rain is cold. The road is flint-coloured.
    The suburb has cars and cable television.
    The veiled stars are above ground.
    It is another world. But what else
    can a mother give her daughter but such
    beautiful rifts in time?
    If I defer the grief I will diminish the gift.
    The legend will be hers as well as mine.
    She will enter it. As I have.
    She will wake up. She will hold
    the papery flushed skin in her hand.
    And to her lips. I will say nothing.”
    Eavan Boland

  • #25
    Elizabeth Wein
    “It's very modern. Very gamine. You look like a jazz singer.”
    Elizabeth Wein, The Pearl Thief

  • #26
    Catarine Hancock
    “i cried because i was
    full of dead stars and broken debris,
    but you still called me
    beautiful.”
    Catarine Hancock, The Boys I've Loved & The End of the World

  • #27
    “I came up with a new reason
    To write your name today
    I plagiarized each letter
    From a love note you wrote me.
    The scent of ink was sacred to me
    In that relapsed moment…
    For a minute I could pretend
    The paper reminded me of your skin;
    I could pretend the glimmering ink
    Was the moonlit lake
    Of our summer night.
    But the pretending crumpled with paper
    And I threw us into the trash can
    For the bridge between us is long burned
    And it’s time I accepted that.”
    Justin Wetch, Bending The Universe

  • #28
    John Mark Green
    “Strangely incurious, her lovers from before. She has worlds within I'm longing to explore.”
    John Mark Green

  • #29
    Sanober  Khan
    “your hand
    touching mine.
    this is how
    galaxies
    collide.”
    Sanober Khan

  • #30


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