Emily > Emily's Quotes

“And, on a wide view, I could see that it makes little difference whether one dies at the age of thirty or threescore and ten—since, in either case, other men and women will continue living, the world will go on as before. Also, whether I died now or forty years hence, this business of dying had to be got through, inevitably. Still, somehow this line of thought wasn't as consoling as it should have been; the idea of all those years of life in hand was a galling reminder!”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“Integrity is unity of the personality; it implies being brutally honest with ourselves about our intentionality. Since intentionality is inextricably bound up with the daimonic, this is never an easy, nor always pleasant pursuit. But being willing to admit our daimonic tendencies - to know them consciously and to wisely oversee them - brings with it the invaluable blessing of freedom, vigor, inner strength, and self-acceptance.”
― Stephen A. Diamond, Anger, Madness, and the Daimonic: The Psychological Genesis of Violence, Evil and Creativity

“Someday I'll give it to her. When everything is better. The natural history of her life, sketched out, because nothing means as much until it has vanished.”
― M.T. Anderson, Landscape with Invisible Hand

“The hand that records is also what makes everything unclear.”
― M.T. Anderson, Landscape with Invisible Hand

“Things change. And friends leave. Life doesn't stop for anybody.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“And in that moment, I swear we were infinite.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“I would die for you. But I won't live for you.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“So, I guess we are who we are for alot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even if we don't have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel okay about them.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“I think that if I ever have kids, and they are upset, I won't tell them that people are starving in China or anything like that because it wouldn't change the fact that they were upset. And even if somebody else has it much worse, that doesn't really change the fact that you have what you have.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“It's just that I don't want to be somebody's crush. If somebody likes me, I want them to like the real me, not what they think I am. And I don't want them to carry it around inside. I want them to show me, so I can feel it too.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“I don’t know if you’ve ever felt like that. That you wanted to sleep for a thousand years. Or just not exist. Or just not be aware that you do exist. Or something like that. I think wanting that is very morbid, but I want it when I get like this. That’s why I’m trying not to think. I just want it all to stop spinning.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“He's a wallflower. You see things. You keep quiet about them. And you understand.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“And I thought about how many people have loved those songs. And how many people got through a lot of bad times because of those songs. And how many people enjoyed good times with those songs. And how much those songs really mean. I think it would be great to have written one of those songs. I bet if I wrote one of them, I would be very proud. I hope the people who wrote those songs are happy. I hope they feel it's enough. I really do because they've made me happy. And I'm only one person.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“We didn't talk about anything heavy or light. We were just there together. And that was enough”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“Just tell me how to be different in a way that makes sense.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“Sometimes people use thought to not participate in life.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“Asleep by the Smiths
Vapour Trail by Ride
Scarborough Fair by Simon & Garfunkel
A Whiter Shade of Pale by Procol Harum
Dear Prudence by the Beatles
Gypsy by Suzanne Vega
Nights in White Satin by the Moody Blues
Daydream by Smashing Pumpkins
Dusk by Genesis (before Phil Collins was even in the band!)
MLK by U2
Blackbird by the Beatles
Landslide by Fleetwood Mac
Asleep by the Smiths (again!)

-Charlie's mixtape”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“I think the idea is that every person has to live for his or her own life and then make the choice to share it with other people. Maybe that is what makes people "participate.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“What about when someone doesn't need a shoulder? What if they need the arms?”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“I don't know how much longer I can keep going without a friend. I used to be able to do it very easily, but that was before I knew what having a friend was like.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“people who try to control situations all the time are afraid that if they don't, nothing will work out the way they want.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“To tell you the truth, I've just been avoiding everything.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“You have to be odd to be number one”
― Dr. Seuss

“Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent”
― Victor Hugo

“If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.”
― Albert Einstein

“People worry about kids playing with guns, and teenagers watching violent videos; we are scared that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands - literally thousands - of songs about broken hearts and rejection and pain and misery and loss.”
― Nick Hornby, High Fidelity

“Music is the strongest form of magic.”
― Marilyn Manson

“What came first – the music or the misery? Did I listen to the music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to the music? Do all those records turn you into a melancholy person?”
― Nick Hornby, High Fidelity

“Studies show:
Intelligent girls are more depressed
Because they know
What the world is really like
Don't think for a beat it makes it better
When you sit her down and tell her
Everything gonna be all right
She knows in society she either is
A devil or an angel with no in between
She speaks in the third person
So she can forget that she's me”
― Emilie Autumn

“We thought there was a great distance between the future and us, and now here we are, falling through it.”
― M.T. Anderson, Landscape with Invisible Hand