Kathleen > Kathleen's Quotes

“Open your heart. Someone will come. Someone will come for you. But first you must open your heart.”
― Kate DiCamillo, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

“But answer me this: how can a story end happily if there is no love?”
― Kate DiCamillo, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

“And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor -
And this, and so much more? -”
― T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems

“Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.'

'Does it hurt?' asked the Rabbit.

'Sometimes,' said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. 'When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.'

'Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,' he asked, 'or bit by bit?'

'It doesn't happen all at once,' said the Skin Horse. 'You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.”
― Margery Williams Bianco, The Velveteen Rabbit

“They will come back, come back again,
As long as the red earth rolls.
He never wasted a leaf or a tree.
Do you think he would squander souls?”
― Ruyard Kipling

“You love me. Real or not real?"
I tell him, "Real.”
― Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

“What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again.”
― Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

“With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.”
― Max Ehrmann, Desiderata: A Poem for a Way of Life

“You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.”
― Ray Bradbury

“How can I keep silent? How can I stay quiet?
My friend, whom I loved, has turned to clay,
my friend Enkidu, whom I loved has turned to clay.
Shall I not be like him, and also lie down,
never to rise again, through all eternity?”
― Anonymous, The Epic of Gilgamesh

“His descent was like nightfall.”
― Homer, The Iliad

“I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“He is half of my soul, as the poets say.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“I am made of memories.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“I will never leave him. It will be this, always, for as long as he will let me.
If I had had words to speak such a thing, I would have. But there were none that seemed big enough for it, to hold that swelling truth.
As if he had heard me, he reached for my hand. I did not need to look; his fingers were etched into my memory, slender and petal-veined, strong and quick and never wrong.
“Patroclus,” he said. He was always better with words than I.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“That is — your friend?"
"Philtatos," Achilles replied, sharply. Most beloved.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“Name one hero who was happy."
"You can't." He was sitting up now, leaning forward.
"I can't."
"I know. They never let you be famous AND happy." He lifted an eyebrow. "I'll tell you a secret."
"Tell me." I loved it when he was like this.
"I'm going to be the first." He took my palm and held it to his. "Swear it."
"Why me?"
"Because you're the reason. Swear it."
"I swear it”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“Happiness is a warm puppy.”
― Charles M. Schulz

“Human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere.”
― Elie Wiesel, Night

“To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.”
― Elie Wiesel, Night

“The man did not even hear her. His eyes had gone straight to Mercy where she sat by the hearth, and her own eyes stared back, enormous in her white face. Then with a hoarse, wordless sigh, John Holbrook stumbled across the room, and went down on his knees with his head in Mercy’s lap.”
― Elizabeth George Speare, The Witch of Blackbird Pond

“When I take you on board the Witch, it's going to be for keeps.”
― Elizabeth George Speare, The Witch of Blackbird Pond

“Hannah's magic cure for every ill," he teased. "Blueberry cake and a kitten.”
― Elizabeth George Speare, The Witch of Blackbird Pond

“Do act mysterious. It always keeps them coming back for more.”
― Carolyn Keene, Nancy's Mysterious Letter

“I was once told that flying involves long hours of boredom, interrupted by moments of extreme fright.”
― Franklin W. Dixon

“If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger.”
― Emily Jane Brontë , Wuthering Heights

“I wish I were a girl again, half-savage and hardy, and free.”
― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

“Sometimes,' said Pooh, 'the smallest things take up the most room in your heart.”
― A.A. Milne

“Neatness was not one of the things he aimed at in life.”
― George Selden, The Cricket in Times Square

“Fairies have to be one thing or the other, because being so small they unfortunately have room for one feeling only at a time.”
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan