Kate > Kate's Quotes

“The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.”
― Terry Pratchett, Diggers

“Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH', the paint wouldn't even have time to dry.”
― Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

“Laura felt a warmth inside her. It was very small, but it was strong. It was steady, like a tiny light in the dark, and it burned very low but no winds could make it flicker because it would not give up.”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder, The Long Winter

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein

“What I say is, a town isn’t a town without a bookstore. It may call itself a town, but unless it’s got a bookstore, it knows it’s not foolin’ a soul.”
― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

“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

“She was already learning that if you ignore the rules people will, half the time, quietly rewrite them so that they don't apply to you.”
― Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites

“Just because you have the emotional range of a teaspoon doesn't mean we all have.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

“May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.”
― Neil Gaiman

“I can believe things that are true and things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not.

I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the Beatles and Marilyn Monroe and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen - I believe that people are perfectable, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkled lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women.

I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state.

I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste.

I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like martians in War of the Worlds.

I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman.

I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumble bee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself.

I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck.

I believe that anyone who says sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too.

I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system.

I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.”
― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“Isn't it odd how much fatter a book gets when you've read it several times?" Mo had said..."As if something were left between the pages every time you read it. Feelings, thoughts, sounds, smells...and then, when you look at the book again many years later, you find yourself there, too, a slightly younger self, slightly different, as if the book had preserved you like a pressed flower...both strange and familiar.”
― Cornelia Funke, Inkspell

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don’t know any other way of loving.”
― Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets

“Don't call me darling. I'm a driving instructor!”
― Hilary McKay, Saffy's Angel

“Rose had the sort of eyes that manage perfectly well with things close by, but entirely blur out things far away. Because of this even the brightest stars had only appeared as silvery smudges in the darkness. In all her life, Rose had never properly seen a star.
Tonight there was a sky full.
Rose looked up, and it was like walking into a dark room and someone switching on the universe.”
― Hilary McKay, Indigo's Star

“The ideal home: big enough for you to hear the children, but not very well.”
― Mignon McLaughlin

“I smiled back and I thought
how incredible that was, that they would find the time to smile. There was goodness in the world still, even if you couldn’t always see it.”
― Jenny Valentine, Broken Soup

“Everything is going to be fine.”

I hate it when people say that, people who have absolutely no idea of what’s coming next. They turn you into an idiot for even asking.”
― Jenny Valentine

“Even when you’d lost everything you thought there was to lose, somebody came along and gave you something for free.”
― Jenny Valentine, Broken Soup

“I didn't have time to lose it. I didn't have time to lie down in the corner shop and scream and beat the floor until my hands bled. I didn't have time to miss Jack. Stroma kept on chattering away and getting excited over novelty spaghetti shapes and finding the joy in every little thing, and it occurred to me even then that she was probably looking after me, too.”
― Jenny Valentine, Broken Soup

“For as I sit there, in pain, I suddenly notice I have changed. I am not self-loathing anymore. These billion cheap blackbirds inside me - beaking the wires of the cage, frantic - are now on the ground, sleeping. This billion eyed mess, which I cannot comprehend, contain or name, has now disappeared - replaced by these hot, red lines on my leg and arm.”
― Caitlin Moran, How to Build a Girl

“Typical! I break my neck trying to get here, and I find you peacefully tidying up!”
― Diana Wynne Jones, Howl’s Moving Castle

“It's amazing the way one can take a step ten and a half miles long and still always land in a cowpat.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, Howl’s Moving Castle

“Tantrums are seldom about the thing they appear to be about.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, Howl’s Moving Castle

“Go to bed, you fool,” Calcifer said sleepily. “You’re drunk.” “Who, me?” said Howl. “I assure you, my friends, I am cone sold stober.” He got up and stalked upstairs, feeling for the wall as if he thought it might escape him unless he kept in touch with it. His bedroom door did escape him. “What a lie that was!” Howl remarked as he walked into the wall. “My shining dishonesty will be the salvation of me.” He walked into the wall several times more, in several different places, before he discovered his bedroom door and crashed his way through it. Sophie could hear him falling about, saying that his bed was dodging.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, Howl's Moving Castle

“Ninety percent of all problems are caused by people being assholes.”
“What causes the other ten percent?” asked Kizzy.
“Natural disasters,” said Nib.”
― Becky Chambers, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

“What do your crazy speciests do?” Kizzy asked.
Sissix shrugged. “Live on gated farms and have private orgies.”
“How is that any different than what the rest of you do?”
“We don’t have gates and anybody can come to our orgies.”
― Becky Chambers, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

“We all have our time machines, don't we. Those that take us back are memories...And those that carry us forward, are dreams.”
― H.G. Wells

“When you’re in a relationship, love isn’t a noun, man. It’s a fucking verb. Maybe you can’t always choose who you fall in love with, but it’s a choice to wake up every morning and love the one you’re with, to be there for them and do whatever it takes to put their needs right up there front and center with your own.”
― Jaine Diamond, Dirty Like Zane

“We're going on a bit too fast. You and I, Sam, are still stuck in the worst places of the story, and it is all too likely that some will say at this point: "Shut the book now, dad; we don't want to read any more.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers