MK > MK's Quotes

“...there is power in self-sacrifice.”
― Veronica Roth, Divergent

“The reason birds can fly and we can't is simply because they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have wings.”
― J.M. Barrie, The Little White Bird

“Life is a long lesson in humility.”
― J.M. Barrie, The Little Minister

“There's something so terrible about wanting something you've already had. You know exactly what you're missing. Your body knows precisely how to shape itself around the ache, the hollowness that wants to be filled”
― Leah Raeder, Unteachable

“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

“I need to figure out the secret. I need to work out how to keep things flying back to me instead of always flying away.”
― Carol Rifka Brunt, Tell the Wolves I'm Home

“Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves, and so I chose to tell myself a different story from the one women are told. I decided I was safe. I was strong. I was brave. Nothing could vanquish me. Insisting on this story was a form of mind control, but for the most part, it worked.”
― Cheryl Strayed, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

“Alone had always felt like an actual place to me, as if it weren’t a state of being, but rather a room where I could retreat to be who I really was.”
― Cheryl Strayed, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

“I’ve dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas: they’ve gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind.”
― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

“The unhappy person resents it when you try to cheer him up, because that means he has to stop dwelling on himself and start paying attention to the universe. Unhappiness is the ultimate form of self-indulgence. When you're unhappy, you get to pay a lot of attention to yourself. You get to take yourself oh so very seriously.”
― Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume

“Family life, even with just one little boy, had its own familiar rhythms, and it was perfectly possible to keep right on dancing like you always have, even when your mind is somewhere else.”
― Liane Moriarty, The Husband's Secret

“As his flesh touched my spirit, the feeling of falling turned into a feeling of flying. I was soaring through time toward him.”
― Laura Whitcomb, A Certain Slant of Light

“It was funny when you realized that none of the thoughts running through your head had made it into the outside world, that they were yours and yours alone.”
― Meg McKinlay, Below

“I had always been the girl who focused quietly on the spine of a leaf while other kids ran around squealing.”
― Meg McKinlay, Below

“I don’t mind being watched by trees. It’s everyone else that makes me feel like the stupid-smart–intermittently-imploding girl.”
― Kristen Chandler, Wolves, Boys, and Other Things That Might Kill Me

“For me, reading that scene never fails to bring on a brief, scalding instant of recognition in recalling exactly what it was like to be a tiny little kid, your whole sense of being so lumpy and vulnerable that the smallest things were everything, and the everything could be so unspeakably wonderful, and the wonderful could be snatched away in an instant, leaving a big ragged hole in your universe just like the one in Laura’s dress.”
― Wendy McClure, The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie

“I can't seem to be a pessimist long enough to overlook the possibility of things being overwhelmingly good.”
― John Corey Whaley, Where Things Come Back

“Adults follow paths. Children explore. Adults are content to walk the same way, hundreds of times, or thousands; perhaps it never occurs to adults to step off the paths, to creep beneath rhododendrons, to find the spaces between fences.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane

“Night, the time I can stop worrying about my life and drift off into the abyss, free from conscious thought. It is my only diversion from the realities of my life; my escape from this incomprehensible heaviness, this foreboding feeling that has over taken me.”
― Jaime Guerard, Awaken

“I wish friends held hands more often, like the children I see on the streets sometimes. I'm not sure why we have to grow up and get embarrassed about it.”
― Stephanie Perkins, Anna and the French Kiss

“Do adults realize how lucky they are? Or do they forget that these small moments are actually small miracles? I don’t want to ever forget.”
― Stephanie Perkins , Isla and the Happily Ever After

“You’ve got to have pride in your home. You are where you’re from. Otherwise, you’re always going to be lost.”
― Morgan Matson, Amy & Roger's Epic Detour

“You need shoving, not pushing. You need to jump back on that camel. Otherwise you’re going to stay up on the ledge you’ve made for yourself.”
― Jennifer Niven, All the Bright Places

“All I can figure is that my parents were either totally laid back or totally tired. I’m guessing that it was more of the latter, but either way, there really were some good lessons from that level of independence.”
― Sophie Hudson, Home Is Where My People Are: The Roads That Lead Us to Where We Belong

“the only time you get lucky is when you’re planning your suicide, it’s definitely time to go.”
― Jasmine Warga, My Heart and Other Black Holes

“He thinks I’m having trouble expressing my feelings, which is why he suggested I write in a journal—to get it out, he said, like in the old days when physicians used to bleed their patients in order to drain the mysterious poisons. Which almost always ended up killing them in spite of the doctors’ good intentions, I might point out.”
― Cynthia Hand, The Last Time We Say Goodbye

“Anyone who has been married knows that the whole “for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health” thing is all fine and good and easy when you’re twenty-four and wearing a pretty dress and fit as a fiddle and your hair is just like you like it and your direct deposit kicks in twice a month. But the character of a marriage is forged in the difficult times, when you’re grappling with heartbreak or illness or disappointment or maybe even betrayal.”
― Sophie Hudson, A Little Salty to Cut the Sweet: Southern Stories of Faith, Family, and Fifteen Pounds of Bacon

“If this was her idea of flirting, she must have a lot of older brothers.”
― Rachel Harris, The Natural History of Us

“His heart’s been tucked away for eighteen years, so when he takes it out of his pocket and offers to share it with you, don’t treat it like some shiny new toy that will only be forgotten when you’re done playing with it. And don’t take more than your share unless you’re willing to trade your own for it. ”
― Kim Holden, Bright Side

“Go out in the woods, go out. If you don't go out in the woods nothing will ever happen and your life will never begin.”
― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves