Kat W > Kat's Quotes

“How much can we ever know about the love and pain in another heart? How much can we hope to understand those who have suffered deeper anguish, greater deprivation, and more crushing disappointments than we ourselves have known?”
― Orhan Pamuk, Snow

“I don't want to be a tree; I want to be its meaning.”
― Orhan Pamuk, My Name Is Red

“What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable?”
― John Green, An Abundance of Katherines

“Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are.”
― Mason Cooley

“I have spread my dreams under your feet.
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”
― W.B. Yeats

“Wait

Wait, for now.
Distrust everything, if you have to.
But trust the hours. Haven't they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out of season will become lovely again.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again,
their memories are what give them
the need for other hands. And the desolation
of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness
carved out of such tiny beings as we are
asks to be filled; the need
for the new love is faithfulness to the old.

Wait.
Don't go too early.
You're tired. But everyone's tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a while and listen.
Music of hair,
Music of pain,
music of looms weaving all our loves again.
Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,
most of all to hear,
the flute of your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.”
― Galway Kinnell

“Whenever you think or you believe or you know, you're a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you're nobody-but-yourself.”
― e.e. cummings

“Sometimes books don't find us until the right time.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

“The words you can’t find, you borrow.
We read to know we’re not alone. We read because we are alone. We read and we are not alone. We are not alone.
My life is in these books, he wants to tell her. Read these and know my heart.
We are not quite novels.
The analogy he is looking for is almost there.
We are not quite short stories. At this point, his life is seeming closest to that.
In the end, we are collected works.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

“You know everything you need to know about a person from the answer to the question, What is your favorite book?”
― Gabrielle Zevin, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

“What happens when people open their hearts?"
"They get better.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“It's not always necessary to be strong, but to feel strong.”
― Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

“Woke up this morning with a terrific urge to lie in bed all day and read.”
― Raymond Carver

“History does not always repeat itself. Sometimes it just yells, 'Can't you remember anything I told you?' and lets fly with a club.”
― John W. Campbell Jr.

“Life before Death.
Strength before Weakness.
Journey before Destination.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

“That's what being shy feels like. Like my skin is too thin, the light too bright. Like the best place I could possibly be is in a tunnel far under the cool, dark earth. Someone asks me a question and I stare at them, empty-faced, my brain jammed up with how hard I'm trying to find something interesting to say. And in the end, all I can do is nod or shrug, because the light of their eyes looking at me, waiting for me, is just too much to take. And then it's over and there's one more person in the world who thinks I'm a complete and total waste of space.
The worst thing is the stupid hopefulness. Every new party, every new bunch of people, and I start thinking that maybe this is my chance. That I'm going to be normal this time. A new leaf. A fresh start. But then I find myself at the party, thinking, Oh, yeah. This again.
So I stand on the edge of things, crossing my fingers, praying nobody will try to look me in the eye. And the good thing is, they usually don't.”
― Carol Rifka Brunt, Tell the Wolves I'm Home

“The sun kept on with its slipping away, and I thought how many small good things in the world might be resting on the shoulders of something terrible.”
― Carol Rifka Brunt, Tell the Wolves I'm Home

“Sleep is good, he said, and books are better.”
― George R. R. Martin

“You should write because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page. Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write.”
― Annie Proulx

“Ignorance killed the cat; curiosity was framed!”
― C. J. Cherryh

“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

“They’re a rotten crowd’, I shouted across the lawn. ‘You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead," he suggested. "After that my own rule is to let everything alone.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“Here’s to books, the cheapest vacation you can buy.”
― Charlaine Harris

“A man thinks he can fly, but he is afraid to jump. A poor friend pushes him from behind.” He looks up at me. “A good friend jumps with.”
― Pierce Brown, Morning Star

“Show me a hero, and I'll write you a tragedy.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Happy endings are a luxury of fiction.”
― Trudi Canavan, Priestess of the White

“This book is dedicated to the uncool, uncoordinated, unexceptional, uncharming, uninteresting, and especially the unashamed. To everyone from the Awkwards to the Zeroes, living as the proud oddballs they are. This book is dedicated to my people.”
― Drew Hayes, The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant

“Having fun isn't hard when you've got a library card.”
― Marc Brown

“Your mind will believe comforting lies while also knowing the painful truths that make those lies necessary. And your mind will punish you for believing both.”
― Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls