Y > Y's Quotes

“I lie to myself all the time. But I never believe me.”
― S.E. Hinton, The Outsiders

“It seemed funny to me that the sunset she saw from her patio and the one I saw from the back steps was the same one. Maybe the two different worlds we lived in weren't so different. We saw the same sunset.”
― S.E. Hinton, The Outsiders

“They grew up on the outside of society. They weren't looking for a fight. They were looking to belong.”
― S.E. Hinton, The Outsiders

“Our Negro problem, therefore, is not of the Negro's making. No group in our population is less responsible for its existence. But every group is responsible for its continuance.... Both races need to understand that their rights and duties are mutual and equal and their interests in the common good are idential.... There is no help or healing in apparaising past responsibilities or in present apportioning of praise or blame. The past is of value only as it aids in understanding the present; and an understanding of the facts of the problem--a magnanimous understanding by both races--is the first step toward its solution.”
― Isabel Wilkerson, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration

“It occurred to me that no matter where I lived, geography could not save me.”
― Isabel Wilkerson, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration

“Love is the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.”
― Iris Murdoch, Existentialists and Mystics: Writings on Philosophy and Literature

“Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck.”
― Iris Murdoch

“I hate solitude, but I'm afraid of intimacy. The substance of my life is a private conversation with myself which to turn into a dialogue would be equivalent to self-destruction. The company which I need is the company which a pub or a cafe will provide. I have never wanted a communion of souls. It's already hard enough to tell the truth to oneself.”
― Iris Murdoch, Under the Net

“People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.”
― Iris Murdoch

“Education doesn’t make you happy. Nor does freedom. We don’t become happy just because we’re free – if we are. Or because we’ve been educated – if we have. But because education may be the means by which we realize we are happy. It opens our eyes, our ears, tells us where delights are lurking, convinces us that there is only one freedom of any importance whatsoever, that of the mind, and gives us the assurance – the confidence – to walk the path our mind, our educated mind, offers.”
― Iris Murdoch

“I know how much you grieve over those who are under your care: those you try to help and fail, those you cannot help. Have faith in God and remember that He will is His own way and in His own time complete what we so poorly attempt. Often we do not achieve for others the good that we intend but achieve something, something that goes on from our effort. Good is an overflow. Where we generously and sincerely intend it, we are engaged in a work of creation which may be mysterious even to ourselves - and because it is mysterious we may be afraid of it. But this should not make us draw back. God can always show us, if we will, a higher and a better way; and we can only learn to love by loving. Remember that all our failures are ultimately failures in love. Imperfect love must not be condemned and rejected but made perfect. The way is always forward, never back.”
― Iris Murdoch, The Bell

“We can only learn to love by loving.”
― Iris Murdock

“Falling out of love is chiefly a matter of forgetting how charming someone is.”
― Iris Murdoch

“Every artist is an unhappy lover. And unhappy lovers want to tell their story.”
― Iris Murdoch, The Black Prince