Mary > Mary's Quotes

“You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.”
― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

“Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, but only saps today of its strength.”
― A.J. Cronin

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”
― Mae West

“No matter what he does, every person on earth plays a central role in the history of the world. And normally he doesn't know it.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.”
― John Locke

“Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.”
― Confucius

“None of us really changes over time. We only become more fully what we are.”
― Anne Rice, The Vampire Lestat

“There was another life that I might have had, but I am having this one.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro

“I believe in the power of the imagination to remake the world, to release the truth within us, to hold back the night, to transcend death, to charm motorways, to ingratiate ourselves with birds, to enlist the confidences of madmen.”
― J.G. Ballard

“Books should go where they will be most appreciated, and not sit unread, gathering dust on a forgotten shelf, don't you agree?”
― Christopher Paolini

“Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”
― William Blake

“S wonderful! 'S marvelous!
That you should care for me!”
― Ira Gershwin

“The way you wear your hat,
The way you sip your tea,
The mem'ry of all that --
No, no! They can't take that away from me!”
― Ira Gershwin

“There's a somebody I'm longing to see,
I hope that he, turns out to be,
someone to watch over me.”
― Ira Gershwin

“I get a warm feeling among my books.”
― Anthony Powell

“Funny, when you finally faced reality, it was amazing how clearly you could see things.”
― Mary Higgins Clark, Loves Music, Loves to Dance

“Reading was my escape and my comfort, my consolation, my stimulant of choice: reading for the pure pleasure of it, for the beautiful stillness that surrounds you when you hear an author's words reverberating in your head.”
― Paul Auster, The Brooklyn Follies

“Biology gives you a brain. Life turns it into a mind.”
― Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex

“Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing.”
― August Wilson

“The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear”
― Aung San Suu Kyi

“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

“If you do a good job for others, you heal yourself at the same time, because a dose of joy is a spiritual cure. It transcends all barriers.”
― Ed Sullivan

“Do not read as children do to enjoy themselves, or, as the ambitious do to educate themselves. No, read to live.”
― Gustave Flaubert

“Do you think that I count the days? There is only one day left, always starting over: it is given to us at dawn and taken away from us at dusk.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre

“. . . when it comes down to it, that’s what life is all about: showing up for the people you love, again and again, until you can’t show up anymore.”
― Rebecca Walker, Baby Love: Choosing Motherhood After a Lifetime of Ambivalence

“It seems to me, that this, too, is how memory works. What we remember of what was done to us shapes our view, molds us, sets our stance. But what we remember is past, it no longer exists, and yet we hold on to it, live by it, surrender so much control to it. What do we become when we put down the scripts written by history and memory, when each person before us can be seen free of the cultural or personal narrative we've inherited or devised?
When we, ourselves, can taste that freedom.”
― Rebecca Walker

“Happiness is something that comes into our lives through doors we don't even remember leaving open.”
― Rose Wilder Lane

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

“The world is a possibility if only you'll discover it.”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“There is an odd synchronicity in the way parallel lives veer to touch one another, change direction, and then come close again and again until they connect and hold for whatever it was that fate intended to happen.”
― Ann Rule