Bethany > Bethany's Quotes

“And I know I can do this because I went to London on my own, and because I solved the mystery…and I was brave and I wrote a book and that means I can do anything.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

“Heart and head are contrary historians.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Stargirl

“He wished he could've explained some of this. How he had been braver than he ever thought possible, but how he had not been so brave as he wanted to be. The distinction was important.”
― Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried

“That's what fiction is for. It's for getting at the truth when the truth isn't sufficient for the truth.”
― Tim O'Brien

“But in a story, which is a kind of dreaming, the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return to the world.”
― Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried

“A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done. If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie. There is no rectitude whatsoever. There is no virtue. As a first rule of thumb, therefore, you can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil.”
― Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried

“He had said, "I am a man," and that meant certain things to Juana. It meant that he was half insane and half god. It meant that Kino would drive his strength against a mountain and plunge his strength against the sea. Juana, in her woman's soul, knew that the mountain would stand while the man broke himself; that the sea would surge while the man drowned in it. And yet it was this thing that made him a man, half insane and half god, and Juana had need of a man; she could not live without a man.”
― John Steinbeck, The Pearl

“Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the same horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.

Now, women forget all those things they don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.”
― Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

“All you have the right to ask of life is to choose a battle in this war, make the best you can, and leave the field with honor.”
― Leon Uris, Mila 18

“Why do we have to make such terrible decisions for our whole lives when we are too young to know what we are doing? The big mistakes are hung around your neck and you have to wear them forever.”
― Oswald Wynd, The Ginger Tree

“Laughter between two is sometimes a closer act of love than any other.”
― Oswald Wynd, The Ginger Tree

“O, let me kiss that hand!

KING LEAR: Let me wipe it first; it smells of mortality.”
― William Shakespeare, King Lear

“The prince of darkness is a gentleman!”
― William Shakespeare, King Lear

“Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise.”
― William Shakespeare, King Lear

“I am officially Jewish, but I’m Jewish in the same way the Olive Garden is an Italian restaurant.”
― A.J. Jacobs, The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible

“I'm still agnostic. But in the words of Elton Richards, I'm now a reverant agnostic. Which isn't an oxymoron, I swear. I now believe that whether or not there's a God, there is such a thing as sacredness. Life is sacred. The Sabbath can be a sacred day. Prayer can be a sacred ritual. There is something transcendent, beyond the everyday. It's possible that humans created this sacredness ourselves, but that doesn't take away from its power or importance.”
― A.J. Jacobs, The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible

“It is easier to act yourself into a new way of thinking, than it is to think yourself into a new way of acting.”
― Millard Fuller

“I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

“Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.”
― Louisa May Alcott

“She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Work: A Story of Experience

“Good books, like good friends, are few and chosen; the more select, the more enjoyable.”
― Amos Bronson Alcott, Tablets

“For there is but one essential justice which cements society, and one law which establishes this justice. This law is right reason, which is the true rule of all commandments and prohibitions. Whoever neglects this law, whether written or unwritten, is necessarily unjust and wicked.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero, Yasalar Üzerine

“When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years, which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you'll not talk about the joy of words. I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?”
― C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces

“There is a legend about a bird which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree, and does not rest until it has found one. Then, singing among the savage branches, it impales itself upon the longest, sharpest spine. And, dying, it rises above its own agony to outcarol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world stills to listen, and God in His heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at the cost of great pain… Or so says the legend.”
― Colleen McCullough, The Thorn Birds

“Americans do seem to say things which make the English notice England.”
― Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle

“It came to me that Hyde Park has never belonged to London - that it has always been , in spirit, a stretch of countryside; and that it links the Londons of all periods together most magically - by remaining forever unchanged at the heart of a ever-changing town.”
― Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle

“I am glad it cannot happen twice, the fever of first love. For it is a fever, and a burden, too, whatever the poets may say.”
― Daphne duMaurier, Rebecca

“I wish I was a woman of about thirty-six dressed in black satin with a string of pearls.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

“Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, Eleonora

“Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives. - John Adams”
― David McCullough, John Adams