Avid Reader > Avid Reader's Quotes

“There is no perfection, only beautiful versions of brokenness.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“Oh, love isn't there to make us happy. I believe it exists to show us how much we can endure.”
― Hermann Hesse, Wer lieben kann, ist glücklich. Über die Liebe

“I, myself, am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.”
― Augusten Burroughs

“to live in this world

you must be able
to do three things
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go”
― Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems, Volume One

“There is a road from the eye to the heart that does not go through the intellect.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“Love is never wasted, for its value does not rest on reciprocity.”
― C.S. Lewis

“And a mistake repeated more than once is a decision.”
― Paulo Coelho

“I weep because you cannot save people. You can only love them. You can’t transform them, you can only console them.”
― Anaïs Nin, Nearer the Moon: From "A Journal of Love": The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1937-1939

“Everything I've ever let go of has claw marks on it. (on the wall of a bedroom at a recovery house for alcoholics and drug addicts)”
― David Foster Wallace

“Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said.”
― Voltaire

“We must never forget that we may also find meaning in life even when confronted with a hopeless situation, when facing a fate that cannot be changed. For what then matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential at its best, which is to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph, to turn one’s predicament into a human achievement. When we are no longer able to change a situation—just think of an incurable disease such as inoperable cancer—we are challenged to change ourselves.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“Just in case you ever foolishly forget; I'm never not thinking of you.”
― Virginia Woolf, Selected Diaries

“Go all the way with it. Do not back off. For once, go all the goddamn way with what matters.”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway

“Whatever you're meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible.”
― Doris Lessing

“When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.”
― Anonymous

“What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“I hold a beast, an angel, and a madman in me, and my enquiry is as to their working, and my problem is their subjugation and victory, down throw and upheaval, and my effort is their self-expression.”
― Dylan Thomas

“I used to pray that God would feed the hungry, or do this or that, but now I pray that he will guide me to do whatever I'm supposed to do, what I can do. I used to pray for answers, but now I'm praying for strength. I used to believe that prayer changes things, but now I know that prayer changes us and we change things.”
― Mother Teresa

“Occasionally weep deeply over the life you hoped would be. Grieve the losses. Then wash your face. Trust God. And embrace the life you have.”
― John Piper

“May you never forget what is worth remembering, nor ever remember what is best forgotten.” – Irish Blessing”
― Kevin Horsley, Unlimited Memory: How to Use Advanced Learning Strategies to Learn Faster, Remember More and be More Productive

“I may not have amazing victories, but I can amaze you with the defeats that I came out of alive.”
― Anton Chekhov

“Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“It's not the stab in the back that kills you. It's when you turn around and see who's holding the knife!”
― Kendrick Perkins

“Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.”
― Robert Frost

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“Why are you looking around for help? Do you believe that help will come from outside? What is to come is created in you and from you. Hence look into yourself. Do not compare, do not measure. No other way is like yours. All other ways deceive and tempt you. You must fulfil the way that is in you.”
― C.G. Jung

“The only intelligent tactical response to life’s horror is to laugh defiantly at it”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“God can save the sinner you are, but not the saint you pretend to be.”
― Anthony Bloom

“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.”
― William Arthur Ward

“The heart sometimes blindly seeks suffering.”
― Daisy Chaseley, Mated to Another