H.D. > H.D.'s Quotes

“A single dream is more powerful than a thousand realities.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, Fanshawe

“If I were dead and buried And I heard your voice, Beneath the sod My heart of dust Would still rejoice.”
― Dalton Trumbo

“What makes the desert beautiful,' said the little prince, 'is that somewhere it hides a well...”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

“Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It's a way of understanding it.”
― Lloyd Alexander

“One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.”
― Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums

“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“You can only come to the morning through the shadows.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“Quand tu veux construire un bateau, ne commence pas par rassembler du bois, couper des planches et distribuer du travail, mais reveille au sein des hommes le desir de la mer grande et large.

If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince

“In one thing you have not changed, dear friend," said Aragorn: "you still speak in riddles."
"What? In riddles?" said Gandalf. "No! For I was talking aloud to myself. A habit of the old: they choose the wisest person present to speak to; the long explanations needed by the young are wearying.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

“did anybody ever come back from the dead any single one of the millions who got killed did any one of them ever come back and say by god i'm glad i'm dead because death is always better than dishonor? did they say i'm glad i died to make the world safe for democracy? did they say i like death better than losing liberty? did any of them ever say it's good to think i got my guts blown out for the honor of my country? did any of them ever say look at me i'm dead but i died for decency and that's better than being alive? did any of them ever say here i am i've been rotting for two years in a foreign grave but it's wonderful to die for your native land? did any of them say hurray i died for womanhood and i'm happy see how i sing even though my mouth is choked with worms?”
― Dalton Trumbo, Johnny Got His Gun

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“Of course a lot of guys were ashamed. Somebody said let's go out and fight for liberty and so they went out and got killed without ever once thinking of liberty. And what kind of liberty were they fighting for anyway? How much liberty and whose kind of liberty? Were they fighting for the liberty of eating free ice cream cones all their lives or for the liberty of robbing anybody they pleased whenever they wanted to or what? You tell a man he can't rob and you take away some of his liberty. You've got to. What the hell does liberty mean anyhow? It's a word like house or table or any other word. Only it's a special kind of word. A guy says house and he can point to a house to prove it. But a guy says come on let's fight for liberty and he can't show you liberty. He can't prove the thing he's talking about so how in the hell can he be telling you to fight for it? No sir anybody who went out and got into the front line trenches to fight for liberty was a goddamn fool and the guy who got him there was a liar.”
― Dalton Trumbo, Johnny Got His Gun

“They are talking like fools. They are saying that two and two make nothing. They are saying that a man will have to die to in order to protect his life. If you agree to fight you agree to die. Now if you die to protect your life you aren't alive anyhow so how is there any sense in a thing like that? A man doesn't say I will starve myself to death to keep from starving. He doesn't say I will spend all my money in order to save money. He doesn't say I will burn my house to down in order to keep it from burning. Why then should he be willing to die for the privilege of living?”
― Dalton Trumbo, Johnny Got His Gun

“It is such a mysterious place, the land of tears.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

“Love consists of not looking each other in the eye, but of looking outwardly in the same direction.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Airman's Odyssey

“You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

“On ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.”
― Saul Bellow

“You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.”
― Madeleine L'Engle

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

“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.”
― Robert Frost

“Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”
― Anton Chekhov

“No matter how long the night lasts, the sun will always rise.”
― H.D. Hunter, Risin' Sun

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”
― George Eliot