jenn > jenn's Quotes

“Jimmy Stewart is always and indisputably the best man in the world, unless Cary Grant should happen to show up.”
― Marisa de los Santos, Love Walked In

“One of the disadvantages of almost universal education was the fact that all kinds of persons acquired a familiarity with one's favorite writers. It gave one a curious feeling; it was like seeing a drunken stranger wrapped in one's dressing gown.”
― Stella Gibbons, Cold Comfort Farm

“You can only be in a bad mood for so long before you have to face up to the fact that it isn't a bad mood at all; it's just your sucky personality.”
― Megan McCafferty, Sloppy Firsts

“Uncompromising purpose and the search for eternal truth have an unquestionable sex appeal for the young and high-minded; but when a person loses the ability to take pleasure in the mundane--in the cigarette on the stoop or the gingersnap in the bath--she had probably put herself in unnecessary danger.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“—I probably shouldn’t tell you this, I said.
—Kay-Kay, those are my six favorite words in the English language.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“Really. Is there anything nice to be said about other people's vacations? I balled up the letter and threw it in the trash.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“I want men to admire me, but that's a trick you learn at school--a movement of the eyes, a tone of voice, a touch of the hand on the shoulder or the head. If they think you admire them, they will admire you because of your good taste, and when they admire you, you have an illusion for a moment that there's something to admire.”
― Graham Greene, The End of the Affair

“I couldn't have thought of her more. Even vacancy was crowded with her.”
― Graham Greene, The End of the Affair

“For him the universe did not extend beyond the circumference of her petticoat.”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“When a woman says, ‘I have nothing to wear!’, what she really means is, ‘There’s nothing here for who I’m supposed to be today.”
― Caitlin Moran, How to Be a Woman

“There must be those among whom we can sit down and weep and still be counted as warriors.”
― Adrienne Rich

“At the time I didn't realize their lie was a defense against the fear they had of losing their mother. I was still too young to understand that most lies were not about stealing or fighting or cheating but were just ways by which a person shrinks their whole world down to a size they can keep protected in the palm of one hand.”
― Jack Gantos, The Love Curse of the Rumbaughs

“I once jokingly told someone that every book is like a relationship. They're four or five years long - that's not so bad. They're serious. They demand a lot of attention. But I remember thinking that I wanted to have one with someone who's not so crazy and peculiar and demanding.”
― A.M. Homes

“Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“To this generation I would say:
Memorize some bit of verse of truth or beauty.”
― Edgar Lee Masters, Spoon River Anthology

“She had to give her teachers credit: they were right to insist all pupils carry scissors, handkerchiefs, perfume and hair ribbons at all times. At some point she'd learn why they also required a red lace doily and a lemon.”
― Gail Carriger, Etiquette & Espionage

“I went to collect the few personal belongings which...I held to be invaluable: my cat, my resolve to travel, and my solitude.”
― Colette

“You have everything needed for the extravagant journey that is your life.”
― Carlos Castaneda

“Never to lie is to have no lock to your door, you are never wholly alone”
― Elizabeth Bowen, The House in Paris

“Think you're escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home.”
― James Joyce, Ulysses

“The worst thing that being an artist could do to you would be that it would make you slightly unhappy constantly.”
― J.D. Salinger, Nine Stories