Barbee > Barbee's Quotes

“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.”
― Thomas Paine, Common Sense

“O Jesus, I could be a mule or plow the furrows with my hands if need be or hold those rickety walls up with my back if need be if I knew that somewhere in this world in the pocket of some night I could open my legs to some cowboy lean hips but you are trying to tell me no and O my sweet Jesus what kind of cross is that?”
― Toni Morrison, Sula

“Esperanza leaned around the side of the truck. As they rounded a curve, it appeared as if the mountains pulled away from each other, like a curtain opening on stage, revealing the San Joaquin Valley beyond. Flat and spacious, it spread out like a blanket of patchwork fields. Esperanza could see no end to the plots of yellow, brown, and shades of green. The road finally leveled out on the valley floor, and she gazed back at the mountains from where they'd come. They looked like monstrous lions' paws resting at the edge of ridge. ”
― Pam Munoz Ryan, Esperanza Rising

“Let me be, was all I wanted. Be what I am, no matter how I am.”
― Henry Miller, Stand Still Like the Hummingbird

“Everyone has his own reality in which, if one is not too cautious, timid or frightened, one swims. This is the only reality there is.”
― Henry Miller, Stand Still Like the Hummingbird

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.”
― Anais Nin

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.”
― Anais Nin

“What can I do with my happiness? How can I keep it, conceal it, bury it where I may never lose it? I want to kneel as it falls over me like rain, gather it up with lace and silk, and press it over myself again.”
― Anais Nin, Henry & June

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“People living deeply have no fear of death.”
― Anaïs Nin

“The role of a writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say.”
― Anais Nin

“Bees do have a smell, you know, and if they don't they should, for their feet are dusted with spices from a million flowers.”
― Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

“The nice thing about teamwork is that you always have others on your side.”
― Margaret Carty

“What do you mean less than nothing? I don't think there is any such thing as less than nothing. Nothing is absolutely the limit of nothingness. It's the lowest you can go. It's the end of the line. How can something be less than nothing? If there were something that was less than nothing, then nothing would not be nothing, it would be something - even though it's just a very little bit of something. But if nothing is nothing, then nothing has nothing that is less than it is.”
― E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web