Danielle > Danielle's Quotes

“Let us step into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

“I remembered that the real world was wide, and that a varied field of hopes and fears, of sensations and excitments, awaited those who had the courage to go forth into it's expanse, to seek real knowledge of life amidst it's perils.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Leave the problems of God to God and karma to karma. Today you’re here and nothing you can do will change that. Today you’re alive and here and honored, and blessed with good fortune. Look at this sunset, it’s beautiful, neh? This sunset exists. Tomorrow does not exist. There is only now. Please look. It is so beautiful and it will never happen ever again, never, not this sunset, never in all infinity.

Lose yourself in it, make yourself one with nature and do not worry about karma, yours, mine, or that of the village.”
― James Clavell, Shōgun

“Much more surprising things can happen to anyone who, when a disagreeable or discouraged thought comes into his mind, just has the sense to remember in time and push it out by putting in an agreeable, determinedly courageous one. Two things cannot be in one place.

Where you tend a rose, my lad,
A thistle cannot grow.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

“Le temps de lire est toujours du temps volé. C'est sans doute la raison pour laquelle le métro se trouve être la plus grande bibliothèque du monde.”
― Françoise Sagan

“Et moi aussi, je me suis senti prêt à tout revivre. Comme si cette grande colère m'avait purgé du mal, vidé d'espoir, devant cette nuit chargée de signes et d'étoiles, je m'ouvrais pour la première fois à la tendre indifférence du monde. De l'éprouver si pareil à moi, si fraternel enfin, j'ai senti que j'avais été heureux, et que je l'étais encore. Pour que tout soit consommé, pour que je me sente moins seul, il me restait à souhaiter qu'il y ait beaucoup de spectateurs le jour de mon exécution et qu'ils m'accueillent avec des cris de haine.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“In that moment, I understood Ophelia more than I had in half a semester of my English teacher’s lectures. Whether the boy you love is mad or pretending to be mad, wanting someone you can’t understand or who won’t let you understand will make you go mad yourself. Waiting for his affection was a version of Chinese water torture, desperately waiting for the next drop of any sign that he might like me, unsure when it would come, if it came at all.”
― Dana Schwartz

“All right, me darlings. You heard the Captain. Look around and tell ol'Biggo what you thieving rascals grabbed when you ran for your lives!”
― Raymond E. Feist, Shadow of a Dark Queen

“And with this loyalty, Lefty crossed himself and kicked the bucket.”
― Nikolay Leskov

“There’s no such thing as greater good—there’s just good, and the more of it we can do, the better.”
― Julie Leong, The Teller of Small Fortunes

“And I don’t give a rat’s ass whether or not that’s worthy enough a purpose for the likes of you. I am more than just what I do; I am a person, and I am alive, and that is purpose enough.”
― Julie Leong, The Teller of Small Fortunes

“Because I’m here! And why not! Aye, our lives are short and shaped by circumstance, and maybe we can’t control most of what’s to come. But we can control how we feel. We can savor the sweetness of a blackberry scone, and the company of our friends, and the warmth of the summer wind at night, and be grateful for it. We can be nothing, and choose to be miserable about it, like you—or we can be nothing, but choose to be happy, and let that be purpose enough. Which sounds more worthwhile to you?”
― Julie Leong, The Teller of Small Fortunes

“Yes, apocalypse. We've had that over and over. But we always survived. We're still here. And we'll still be here, even if the power and the radios don't come back on and we never see any white people again.”
― Waubgeshig Rice, Moon of the Crusted Snow

“Tell her that I'm back with Mother Earth. That I've been returned. That I live on in the land. I'll be here forever. And I'll be with her, and all of you, as long as your hearts beat strongly. Tell her I was full of love, and happiness, even though my life was over. That I didn't regret nothing. Tell her that I was smiling.”
― Waubgeshig Rice, Moon of the Turning Leaves

“Maybe the only difference between a monster and a hero was the colour of a soldier's uniform”
― Allison Saft, Down Comes the Night

“It takes incredible strength to be kind in this world. To endure suffering instead of further it.”
― Allison Saft, Down Comes the Night

“She’d once heard a librarian describe it perfectly on a podcast—that libraries were one of the last places someone could go where they didn’t have to buy or believe in anything to come in.”
― Melissa Payne, The Night of Many Endings

“sometimes the best way to open someone’s mind was by listening, not arguing.”
― Melissa Payne, The Night of Many Endings

“The seasons die, but then they come back to life again, there is no reason you cannot too.”
― Melissa Payne, The Night of Many Endings

“Gentleness is often mistaken for weakness, but the two are not even close cousins.”
― Frances Hardinge, Unraveller

“What lucky people we readers are that we live not just one life, but many, and diving into yet another is as easy as opening a book.”
― Lisa Wingate, Shelterwood

“The light between them outshines the November day. My heartstrings tug, and I want to call my mother and my grandmother, the women who built me - who implanted the idea that whatever path I chose for myself, I could conquer it.

What a gift that was. What a gift that still is.”
― Lisa Wingate, Shelterwood

“sometimes
i love you means
i want to love you

sometimes
i love you means
i’ll stay a little while longer

sometimes
i love you means
i’m not sure how to leave

sometimes
i love you means
i have nowhere else to go”
― Rupi Kaur, Home Body

“we think we are lost
while our fuller
found and complete selves
are somewhere in the future
we get on our hands and knees
thinking self-improvement will
help us reach them
but this finding ourselves bullshit
is never going to end
i’m tired of putting off living until
i have more information on who i am
i’m a new person every month
always becoming and unbecoming
only to become again
our fuller selves are not off in the future
they’re right here
in the only moment that exists
i don’t need fixing
i will be searching for answers my whole life
not because i’m a half-formed thing
but because i’m brilliant enough to keep growing
everything necessary to live a vivid life
already exists in me

- i am complete simply because i am imperfect”
― Rupi Kaur, Home Body

“give me laugh lines and wrinkles i want proof of the jokes we shared engrave the lines into my face like the roots of a tree that grow deeper with each passing year i want sunspots as souvenirs for the beaches we laid on i want to look like i was never afraid to let the world take me by the hand and show me what it’s made of i want to leave this place knowing i did something with my body other than trying to make it look perfect”
― Rupi Kaur, Home Body

“Tears sprang, unbidden, to my beady, plebeian eyes. That so much beauty was possible in the heart of this stone-and-concrete city, that it should be owned by one person, while I paid almost half my salary and almost all my waking hours for not even a hundredth of this space—it hurt. How could this be what my life had become about?”
― Lauren Ho, Last Tang Standing

“In a world so determined
to sort us in boxes-
are you happy or sad
a morning person or night
woke warrior or shy
brown or white?

In a world that forgets
how ridiculous it is for a being
to be just one thing
when we are stardust and earth,
ashes and flowers,
all mangled together.

In a world that demands
I piece myself apart
to claim one identity or another,
I only find myself whole, here
with you, I can be everything,
I can be me.”
― Komal Kapoor, Unfollowing You

“the brave do not tolerate bondage forever. And it is the work of a whole nation to save itself.”
― Katherine Arden, The Unicorn Hunters

“The land was like another family member that knew everything that had happened there and could understand and comfort like no one else. The farm was in us, and Wolf Creek ran through our veins like blood.”
― Elisabeth Voltz, Shoebox Funeral: Stories from Wolf Creek

“The sea is better than a mother. You can love your mother, and she still might leave you. You can love or hate the sea, but it will always be there. Forever. The sea has been the center of her life. It has nurtured her and stolen from her, but it has never left.”
― Lisa See, The Island of Sea Women