Thomas > Thomas's Quotes

“O God — please give him back! I shall keep asking You.”
― John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany

“If you care about something you have to protect it – If you’re lucky enough to find a way of life you love, you have to find the courage to live it.”
― John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany

“In this dirty minded world, you are either someone's wife or someone's whore. And if you're not either people think there is something wrong with you....but there is nothing wrong with me”
― John Irving, The World According to Garp

“If you are careful,' Garp wrote, 'if you use good ingredients, and you don't take any shortcuts, then you can usually cook something very good. Sometimes it is the only worthwhile product you can salvage from a day; what you make to eat. With writing, I find, you can have all the right ingredients, give plenty of time and care, and still get nothing. Also true of love. Cooking, therefore, can keep a person who tries hard sane.”
― John Irving, The World According to Garp

“Kids are perfect people till grownups get their hands on them.”
― John Irving

“I'm not so weird to me.”
― Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“...the tenure of friendships has never been governed by the passage of time.”
― Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow

“For better or worse, there are few things so disarming as one who laughs well at her own expense.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“the wise man celebrates what he can.”
― Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow

“In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.
"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“You can't live forever; you can't live forever.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.”
― Charles Dickens

“We need never be ashamed of our tears.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“In a word, I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“Ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“Never," said my aunt, "be mean in anything; never be false; never be cruel. Avoid those three vices, Trot, and I can always be hopeful of you.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield