Julie > Julie's Quotes

“If we are the greatest nation the sun ever shone upon, it would seem to be mainly because we have been able to goad our wage-earners to this pitch of frenzy.”
― Upton Sinclair, The Jungle

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
― Upton Sinclair, I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked

“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature -- the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.”
― Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

“If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in.”
― Rachel Carson

“Those who dwell, as scientists or laymen, among the beauties and mysteries of the earth, are never alone or weary of life.”
― Rachel Carson

“The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.”
― Rachel Carson

“But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.”
― Rachel Carson

“Give me a man or woman who has read a thousand books and you give me an interesting companion. Give me a man or woman who has read perhaps three and you give me a very dangerous enemy indeed.”
― Anne Rice, The Witching Hour

“I knelt and prayed, and the strongest truth came over me. Didn't matter if God in his heaven was a Catholic or a Protestant God, or the God of the Hindus. What mattered was something deeper and older and more powerful than any such image - it was a concept of goodness based upon the affirmation of life, the turning away from destruction, from the perverse, from man using and abusing man. It was the affirmation of the human and the natural.”
― Anne Rice

“Listen up - there's no war that will end all wars.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“In dreams begin responsibilities.”
― William Butler Yeats, Responsibilities

“It's everybody, I mean. Everything everybody does is so — I don't know — not wrong, or even mean, or even stupid necessarily. But just so tiny and meaningless and — sad-making. And the worst part is, if you go bohemian or something crazy like that, you're conforming just as much only in a different way.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“That's what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you to another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It's geometrically progressive - all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment.”
― Mary Ann Shaffer, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

“Perhaps there is some secret sort of homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers. How delightful if that were true.”
― Mary Ann Shaffer, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

“I hadn't been out to the hives before, so to start off she gave me a lesson in what she called 'bee yard etiquette'. She reminded me that the world was really one bee yard, and the same rules work fine in both places. Don't be afraid, as no life-loving bee wants to sting you. Still, don't be an idiot; wear long sleeves and pants. Don't swat. Don't even think about swatting. If you feel angry, whistle. Anger agitates while whistling melts a bee's temper. Act like you know what you're doing, even if you don't. Above all, send the bees love. Every little thing wants to be loved.”
― Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees

“All good research-whether for science or for a book-is a form of obsession.”
― Mary Roach

“Instead, I quietly excused myself and went to the bar, to commune with spirits I know how to relate to.”
― Mary Roach, Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife

“I cannot emphasize enough how wrongheaded this is. Withholding criticism and ignoring differences are racism in its purest form. Yet these cultural experts fail to notice that, through their anxious avoidance of criticizing non-Western countries, they trap the people who represent these cultures in a state of backwardness. The experts may have the best of intentions, but as we all know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
― Ayaan Hirsi Ali, The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam

“However, some things must be said, and there are times when silence becomes an accomplice to injustice.”
― Ayaan Hirsi Ali

“...Bear true witness, even if it be against yourselves, your parents or your family.”
― Ayaan Hirsi Ali

“Drinking wine and wearing trousers were nothing compared to reading the history of ideas.”
― Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Infidel

“I would like to be judged on the validity of my arguments, not as a victim.”
― Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Infidel

“God doesn’t need to punish us. He just grants us a long enough life to punish ourselves.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible

“Don’t try to make life a mathematics problem with yourself in the center and everything coming out equal. When you’re good, bad things can still happen. And if you’re bad, you can still be lucky.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible

“Everything you're sure is right can be wrong in another place.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible

“Your dreams, what you hope for and all that, it's not separate from your life. It grows right up out of it. ”
― Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams

“It's what you do that makes your soul.”
― Barbara Kingsolver

“A mother's body remembers her babies-the folds of soft flesh, the softly furred scalp against her nose. Each child has it's own entreaties to body and soul.”
― Barbara Kingsolver

“There were two things about Mama. One is she always expected the best out of me. And the other is that then no matter what I did, whatever I came home with, she acted like it was the moon I had just hung up in the sky and plugged in all the stars. Like I was that good.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, The Bean Trees