Rae > Rae's Quotes

“Why do you demand of me a heroism that perhaps you have not either? It is despotism; it is tyranny. If I ruin anyone, it is only myself.... I am not committing a murder. Why do you look at me like that? Why are you so pale? Rodya, darling, what's the matter?”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“He was a clerk and had almost always something wrong with his eyes.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment

“But only be good, dear, only be brave, only be kind and true always, and then you will never hurt any one, so long as you live, and you may help many, and the big world may be better because my little child was born. And that is best of all, Ceddie, — it is better than everything else, that the world should be a little better because a man has lived — even ever so little better, dearest.”
― frances hodgson burnett, Little Lord Fauntleroy

“But in reality, the more there was to do the better; and I never ceased contriving fresh improvements, being fully aware of the importance of constant employment as a means of strengthening and maintaining the health of mind and body. This, indeed, with a consciousness of continual progress toward a desirable end, is found to constitute the main element of happiness. Our”
― Johann David Wyss, The Swiss Family Robinson

“It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

“Children’s novels...spoke and still speak of hope. They say: look, this is what bravery looks like. This is what generosity looks like. They tell me, through the medium of wizards and lions and talking spiders, that this world we live in is a world of people who tell jokes and work and endure. Children’s books say: the world is huge. They say: hope counts for something. They say: bravery will matter, wit will matter, empathy will matter, love will matter. These things may or may not be true. I do not know. I hope they are.”
― Katherine Rundell, Why You Should Read Children's Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise

“It is usual to speak in a playfully apologetic tone about one’s adult enjoyment of what are called ‘children’s books’. I think the convention a silly one. No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally (and often far more) worth reading at the age of fifty – except, of course, books of information. The only imaginative works we ought to grow out of are those which it would have been better not to have read at all.”
― C.S. Lewis, Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“It's strange to be here, the mystery never leaves you alone".”
― John O'Donohue