Laura > Laura's Quotes

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Christians are not perfect, by any means, but they can be people made fully alive.”
― Philip Yancey, Soul Survivor: How My Faith Survived the Church

“We admit that we will never reach our ideal in this life, a distinctive the church claims that most other human institutions try to deny.”
― Philip Yancey, Soul Survivor: How My Faith Survived the Church

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
― T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets

“People who read your ideas tend to think that your writings reflect your life.”
― Henri Nouwen

“Great balls of fire. Don't bother me anymore, and don't call me sugar.”
― Margaret Mitchell

“In a weak moment, I have written a book.”
― Margaret Mitchell

“I was never one to patiently pick up broken fragments and glue them together again and tell myself that the mended whole was as good as new. What is broken is broken - and I'd rather remember it as it was at its best than mend it and see the broken places as long as I lived. ”
― Margaret Mitchell

“With enough courage, you can do without a reputation.”
― Margaret Mitchell

“Patriotic'? Dear, dear me!" Scarlett covered her mouth in mock astonishment. "I didn't know that was 'patriotism.' I believe what you intended has ruder names, though no well-bred Georgia lady would admit to knowing them.”
― Donald McCaig, Rhett Butler's People

“I'm afraid, Belle, that being a lady is more than proper clothes. It is an attitude. From your...experience, you may know more of business and politics than ladies are supposed to know. Gentlemen are pleased to think ladies are ornamental, and it is an ill-advised ornament who contradicts her gentleman.”
― Donald McCaig, Rhett Butler's People

“You'll want to read books - novels, because ladies are frivolous; poetry because ladies are sentimental; and sermons, because we are pious. If you must read essays, Mr. Emerson might be best. Your gentleman may have a nodding acquaintance with his works.”
― Donald McCaig

“Now I wept: Helen Burns was not here; nothing sustained me; left to myself I abandoned myself, and my tears watered the boards.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be.”
― J.D. Salinger

“What do girls do who haven't any mothers to help them through their troubles?”
― Louisa May Alcott

“Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ballads and Other Poems

“This is the effect of panic, a natural effect, you could say that animal nature is like this, plant life would behave in exactly the same way, too, if it did not have all those roots to hold it in the ground, and how nice it would be to see the trees of the forest fleeing the flames.”
― Jose Saramgo

“From childhood's hour I have not been. As others were, I have not seen. As others saw, I could not awaken. My heart to joy at the same tone. And all I loved, I loved alone.”
― Edgar Allan Poe

“I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active - not more happy - nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago.”
― Edgar Allan Poe

“We tend to think, 'Life should be fair because God is fair.' But God is not life. And if I confuse God with the physical reality of life- by expecting constant good health for example- then I set myself up for crashing disappointment.”
― Philip Yancey, Disappointment with God

“[Home Economics Textbook from 1950]: "Prepare yourself. Take fifteen minutes to rest so you'll look refreshed when hubby comes home from work. Touch up makeup and put a ribbon in your hair. He's just been with work-weary people. Be a little gay. His boring day needs a lift."

Mama Celia: "Get knee-walking drunk. You've earned it. You've been with four kids under the age of seven all day. Put a ribbon in your nose and try to pull it out of your mouth. You're wasted, after all. Announce you're gay. The look on his face will give you a lift.”
― Celia Rivenbark, Bless Your Heart, Tramp: And Other Southern Endearments

“I really loathe [the bumper sticker] 'Proud Parent of a Terrific Kid!'

Why not a bumper sticker for the unlucky parents, something like: 'My Fifteen-Year-Old's in Detox and Not Speaking to Any of Us' or 'My Kid Robbed a 7-Eleven and is in a Center for Youthful Offenders.”
― Celia Rivenbark, Bless Your Heart, Tramp: And Other Southern Endearments

“Severe isn't a word normally associated with a cold. Severe is for weather or third-degree burns...No one responds 'severe' when someone asks how her cold is.

In fact, nine out of ten Americans respond to 'How's your cold' with 'It sucks.' So there should be an It Sucks cold formula.”
― Celia Rivenbark, Bless Your Heart, Tramp: And Other Southern Endearments

“My breath caught in wonder and surprise and I remembered that during the darkest of hours, God is. ”
― Lisa Samson, Songbird

“Although I doubt He [Jesus] said "believeth" as He was Jewish and not a fancy-pants English fellow.”
― Lisa Samson, Songbird

“I've met the folk that have the perfect garlands and sprays and wreaths, the folk that live in Williamsburg-style houses. And I've met the folk that live at the edge of town in two-bedroom ranch houses that have Frosty the Snowman, lights playing tag around the roof, and a Rudolph stuck askew somewhere on the lawn. I'd rather sit in the home of the atter with and errant couch spring poking my derriere because, truthfully, they're glad to have me, and they never look at my shoes and wonder where I'd been before I got there. ”
― Lisa Samson, Songbird

“I'm not saying we shouldn't grieve. Just, why don't we put it in God's hands? she said. Why haven't we learned this, after all the evidence of all the dead? We're supposed to believe in God but then why don't we obey the laws of God's universe, which teach us how small we are and where we're all going to end up?”
― Don DeLillo, Falling Man

“On the average day, we live caught up in ourselves. On the average day, we don’t consider God very much. On the average day, we forget that our life truly is a vapor.”
― Francis Chan, Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God