Jess > Jess's Quotes

“Once upon a time in the dead of winter in the Dakota Territory, Theodore Roosevelt took off in a makeshift boat down the Little Missouri River in pursuit of a couple of thieves who had stolen his prized rowboat. After several days on the river, he caught up and got the draw on them with his trusty Winchester, at which point they surrendered. Then Roosevelt set off in a borrowed wagon to haul the thieves cross-country to justice. They headed across the snow-covered wastes of the Badlands to the railhead at Dickinson, and Roosevelt walked the whole way, the entire 40 miles. It was an astonishing feat, what might be called a defining moment in Roosevelt’s eventful life. But what makes it especially memorable is that during that time, he managed to read all of Anna Karenina. I often think of that when I hear people say they haven’t time to read.”
― David McCullough

“Claudia knew that she could never pull off the old-fashioned kind of running away. That is, running away in the heat of anger with a knapsack on her pack. She didn't like discomfort; even picnics were untidy and inconvenient: all those insects and the sun melting the icing on the cupcakes. Therefore, she decided that her leaving home would not be just running from somewhere but would be running to somewhere.”
― E.L. Konigsburg, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

“It was the look you get when facing a sudden and insurmountable danger: the errant truck, the shaky ladder, the crazy person who pins you to the linoleum and insists, with increasing urgency, that everything you know and love can be undone by a grape.”
― David Sedaris, When You Are Engulfed in Flames

“And that's the soulful thing about playing: you offer something to somebody. You don't know if they'll like it, but you offer it.”
― Wynton Marsalis, To a Young Jazz Musician: Letters from the Road

“To say I’m an overrated troll, when you have never even seen me guard a bridge, is patently unfair.”
― Tina Fey, Bossypants

“When someone is crying, of course, the noble thing to do is to comfort them. But if someone is trying to hide their tears, it may also be noble to pretend you do not notice them.”
― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid

“Lord Akeldama sighed. 'You lovebirds, how will I endure such flirtations constantly in my company? How déclassé, Lord Maccon, to love your own wife.”
― Gail Carriger, Heartless

“He was tall and abrupt and exactly the kind of guy you wanted to be walking the streets with.”
― Markus Zusak, Getting the Girl

“The soldier had stamped my passport FAMILY in heavy black capital letters and I checked it now for reassurance and because I liked how fierce the word looked”
― Meg Rosoff, How I Live Now

“I don't get nearly enough credit in life for the things I manage not to say.”
― Meg Rosoff, How I Live Now

“She looks just as music sounds, I think,' answered Anne.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea

“Why do you gotta be going somewhere? Seems like it should be enough that we had nachos. And we got meaningful jobs. We catch bad guys. If it wasn't for us, there'd be vampires and all kinds of shit running around loose.”
― Janet Evanovich, Explosive Eighteen

“Let's be friends based on mutual hate.”
― Bryan Lee O'Malley, Scott Pilgrim & The Infinite Sadness

“Everyone is happier if they have someone else to look down on, as well as someone to look up to, especially if they resent both.”
― Christopher Moore, A Dirty Job

“I'm not a drug salesman. I'm a writer."

"What makes you think a writer isn't a drug salesman?”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle

“But I can hardly sit still. I keep fidgeting, crossing one leg and then the other. I feel like I could throw off sparks, or break a window--maybe rearrange all the furniture.”
― Raymond Carver, Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories

“Can I be blunt on this subject? If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“Sometimes I see something so moving I know I’m not supposed to linger. See it and leave. If you stay too long, you wear out the wordless shock. Love it and trust it and leave.”
― Don DeLillio, Underworld

“And I like large parties. They’re so intimate. At small parties there isn’t any privacy.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“The sofa was lumpy enough to have had a body sewed into it; stuffing spilled out of the arms where the victim had tried to escape.”
― Christopher Moore, Coyote Blue

“That's a horrible plan."
"Yes, but I have chosen to ignore that.”
― Christopher Moore, Sacré Bleu: A Comedy d'Art

“I've become like one of those people I hate, the sort who go to the museum and, instead of looking at the magnificent Brueghel, take a picture of it, reducing it from art to proof. It's not "Look what Brueghel did, painted this masterpiece" but "Look what I did, went to Rotterdam and stood in front of a Brueghel painting!”
― David Sedaris, Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls: Essays, Etc.

“This is not how people behave in a Cracker Barrel!”
― Molly Harper, Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs

“I poked him in the chest. 'First of all, yes, it was. Lacy cards and love tokens were widely exchanged even in Victorian times. By now, you should know better than to screw with me on historical trivia.”
― Molly Harper, Nice Girls Don't Date Dead Men

“It was impossible to tame, like leeches.”
― Lemony Snicket, Who Could That Be at This Hour?

“Walking next to Talent, she felt the singular, cozy comfort that steals upon one who is with a good friend.”
― Kristen Callihan, Shadowdance

“Not being funny doesn’t make you a bad person. Not having a sense of humor does.”
― David Rakoff, Fraud

“I could make it not matter.”
― Ellen Kushner, The Privilege of the Sword

“To be careful with people and with words was a rare and beautiful thing.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“Even so, the land felt like it still does today—it filled the hollow in a satisfying way.”
― Arlo Crawford, A Farm Dies Once a Year