Kristen Taber > Kristen's Quotes

“Life has a way of going in circles. Ideally, it would be a straight path forward––we'd always know where we were going, we'd always be able to move on and leave everything else behind. There would be nothing but the present and the future. Instead, we always find ourselves where we started. When we try to move ahead, we end up taking a step back. We carry everything with us, the weight exhausting us until we want to collapse and give up.
We forget things we try to remember. We remember things we'd rather forget. The most frightening thing about memory is that it leaves no choice. It has mastered an incomprehensible art of forgetting. It erases, it smudges, it fills in blank spaces with details that don't exist.
But however we remember it––or choose to remember it––the past is the foundation that holds our lives in place. Without its support, we'd have nothing for guidance. We spend so much time focused on what lies ahead, when what has fallen behind is just as important. What defines us isn't where we're going, but where we've been. Although there are places and people we will never see again, and although we move on and let them go, they remain a part of who we are.
There are things that will never change, things we will carry along with us always. But as we venture into the murky future, we must find our strength by learning to leave things behind.”
― Brigid Gorry-Hines

“The first thing you find out when yer dog learns to talk is that dogs don't got nothing much to say.
About anything.
"Need a poo, Todd."
"Shutup, Manchee."
"Poo. Poo, Todd."
"I said shut it.”
― Patrick Ness, The Knife of Never Letting Go

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye.”
― Jim Henson

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

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

“He can run faster than Severus Snape confronted with shampoo.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

“Surviving is important. Thriving is elegant.”
― Maya Angelou

“In order to be wildly popular you had to make people believe that you were fun and interesting I just wasn't that much of a con artist.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“For the music to be over so soon. For the music to be over when it had just begun. That was really sad.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“I hated being volunteered. The problem with my life was that it was someone else's idea.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“Maybe we just lived between hurting and healing.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“I got to thinking that poems were like people. Some people you got right off the bat. Some people you just didn't get--and never would get.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

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

“And for about the millionth time in her life she felt an overwhelming gratitude for her best friend. Because she knew he wouldn't mention this afterward; she knew he wouldn't take it as a sign that she was losing her nerve or was in too deep. There weren't many people in this world who would let you be vulnerable and still believe you were strong.”
― Rob Thomas, The Thousand-Dollar Tan Line

“It was as if my eyes were a camera and I was photographing the moment, knowing that I would keep the photograph forever.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“Words were not things you could control. Not always.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“Words were different when they lived inside of you.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“One of the secrets of the universe was that our instincts were sometimes stronger than our minds.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“Another secret of the universe: Sometimes pain was like a storm that came out of nowhere. The clearest summer could end in a downpour. Could end in lightning and thunder.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“Without a filter, a man is just chaos walking.”
― Patrick Ness, The Knife of Never Letting Go

“Our hearts, they need a mirror, Tessa. We see our better selves in the eyes of those who love us. And there is a beauty that brevity alone provides.” He dropped his gaze, then raised it to hers. “I would give you everything of myself,” he said. “I would give you more in two weeks than most men would give you in a lifetime.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Princess

“The most important part of religion isn't in any church. It's down in your own heart. Religion is in your thoughts, and in the way you act from day to day, in the way you treat other people. It's honesty, and unselfishness, and kindness. Especially kindness.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Heaven to Betsy

“Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”
― Carter Crocker

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the road less traveled by and they CANCELLED MY FRIKKIN' SHOW. I totally shoulda took the road that had all those people on it. Damn.”
― Joss Whedon

“I like a woman with a head on her shoulders. I hate necks.”
― Steve Martin

“Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives - choice, not chance, determines your destiny.”
― Aristotle

“Death does not scare me, for when it takes me, my existence is over. What terrifies me is what I will become on my way to death.”
― Elora Mitchell, Redemption

“The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird