Hans Zahniser > Hans's Quotes

“We conclude this joyous ceremony with the traditional breaking of the glass. The fragility of this glass suggests the frailty of human relationships. The glass is broken to protect this marriage with prayer . . . May your bond of love be as difficult to break as it would be to put together the pieces of this glass.”
― Mark M. Bello, Betrayal of Justice

“Believing doesn't make God real. Unbelief doesn't make Him disappear. Your opinion doesn’t change reality.”
― Randy Loubier, Slow Brewing Tea

“she told me to be my own hero. Inside of all of us was the potential for greatness—all it took was a change in perspective. “You can burn brighter than they can, if you have too.”
― M. R. Noble, Karolina Dalca, Dark Eyes

“You’ve been here the whole time!” I could see it clearly. 
 
The calm, glowing One smiled, and all of a sudden, I knew. It hadn’t been fear telling me not to get on the boat, scaring me away from the fun. It was Jesus trying to spare me the agony of this trip because . . . because He loves me? Yes, He loves me! 
 
And there I’d stood, as if I’d had my hand on His chest, pushing Him away. What was I doing? Seeing Him now, I realized we’d been stuck in this pose a long time. I hadn’t wanted Him to go in case I needed Him, but I hadn’t wanted Him to come inside and control me. 
 
Ever so patiently—suspended in time, but oh-so-very present—Jesus held out His hand and invited me to dance. 
 
“Yes,” I yielded, and something so much more peaceful than peace settled inside even though the storm still raged, and the circumstances hadn’t budged. “Let’s dance.” 
 
Embraced in His arms, I fell asleep—even in the midst of those crazy waves. ”
― Elizabeth Bristol, Mary Me: One Woman’s Incredible Adventure with God

“Circling below her outstretched hand, the three cats eagerly lick their lips, vocalising in anticipation.”
― Trevor Alan Foris, The Octunnumi Fosbit Files Prologue

“To wódka?- słabym głosem zapytała Małgorzata. Kot poczuł się dotknięty i aż podskoczył na krześle. -Na litość boską, królowo - zachrypiał - czy ośmieliłbym się nalać damie wódki ? To czysty spirytus.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“Detectives discovered gross contradictions to Eric’s insta-profile already cemented in the media. In Plattsburgh, friends described a sports enthusiast hanging out with minorities. Two of Eric’s best friends turned out to be Asian and African American. The Asian boy was a jock to boot. Eric played soccer and Little League. He followed the Rockies even before the family moved to Colorado, frequently sporting their baseball cap. By junior high he had grown obsessed with computers, and eventually with popular video games.”
― Dave Cullen, Columbine

“Stay gold, Ponyboy. Stay gold . . .” The pillow seemed to sink a little, and Johnny died.”
― S.E. Hinton, The Outsiders

“I have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.' That's T.S. Eliot, in case you were wondering. An oldie but a goodie. When it came to existential exhaustion, the man was one smart cookie.”
― Justin Cronin, The City of Mirrors

“Some people's affability is more deadly than the violence of coarser souls.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Illustrious Client

“All at once I felt so vain, like a girl posturing for the crowds as she walks along, only to discover the street is empty.”
― Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha

“أنا أشبه أنا
واحِدُنا يُشبِهُ الآخر.”
― جلال الدين الرومي

“The pleasure of despair. But then, it is in despair that we find the most acute pleasure, especially when we are aware of the hopelessness of the situation...
...everything is a mess in which it is impossible to tell what's what, but that despite this impossibility and deception it still hurts you, and the less you can understand, the more it hurts.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground

“The Light and the Darkness both flow in to Delhi. Gurgaon, where Mr. Ashok lived, is the bright, modern end of the city, and this place. Old Delhi is the other end. Full of things that the modern world forget all about rickshaws, old stone buildings and Muslims. On a Sunday, though, there is something more: if you keep pushing through the crowd that is always there, go past the men clearing the other men’s ears by poking rusty metal rods into them, past the men selling small fish trapped in green bottles full of brine, past the cheap shoe market and the cheap shirt market, you come great secondhand book market Darya Ganj.
You may have heard of this market, sir, since it is one of the wonders of the world. Tens of thousands of dirty, rotting, blackened books on every subject- Technology, Medicine, Sexual Pleasure, Philosophy, Education, and Foreign Countries — heaped upon the pavement from Delhi Gate onwards all the way until you get to the market in front of the Red Fort. Some books are so old they crumble when you touch them; some have silverfish feasting on them- some look like they were retrieved from a flood, or from a fire. Most shops on the pavement are shuttered down; but the restaurants are still open, and the smell of fried food mingles with the smell of rotting paper. Rusting exhaust fans turn slowly in the ventilators of the restaurants like the wings of giant moths.
I went amid the books and sucked in the air; it was like oxygen after the stench of the brothel.”
― Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger

“Inside me are the real things that give me strength—my thoughts, the small stones of my own choosing. They tumble in my mind, some polished from frequent turning, some new and rough, some that cut.”
― Ally Condie, Reached

“But how you'd please me, night! without those stars
Whose light speaks in a language I have known!
Since I seek for the black, the blank, the bare!”
― Charles Baudelaire, Flowers of Evil: A Selection

“I'm not married,” he said softly, “because I can't stomach the idea of marrying a woman inferior to me in mind and spirit. It would mean the death of my soul.”
― Sarah J. Maas, Throne of Glass

“The central theme of Anna Karenina," he said, "is that a rural life of moral simplicity, despite its monotony, is the preferable personal narrative to a daring life of impulsive passion, which only leads to tragedy."

"That is a very long theme," the scout said.

"It's a very long book," Klaus replied.

[...]

"Or maybe a daring life of impulsive passion leads to something else," the scout said, and in some cases this mysterious person was right. A daring life of impulsive passion is an expression which refers to people who follow what is in their hearts, and like people who prefer to follow their head, or follow a mysterious man in a dark blue raincoat, people who lead a daring life of impulsive passion end up doing all sorts of things.”
― Lemony Snicket, The Slippery Slope

“Courage is confused with picking up arms and cowardness is confused with laying them down.”
― Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven

“You bury your childhood here and there. It waits for you, all your life, to come back and dig it up.”
― Anthony Doerr

“Flucht ist hier nicht die Beschäftigung mit der Vergangenheit, sondern gerade die entschlossene Konzentration auf Gegenwart und Zukunft, die blind ist für das Erbe der Vergangenheit, von dem wir geprägt sind und mit dem wir leben müssen”
― Bernhard Schlink

“All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or back gammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its obli­gation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority.”
― Henry David Thoreau, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience

“You don't want to let go, but don't want to be hurt, either.”
― Junot Díaz, This Is How You Lose Her

“Little Engine That Could - "I think I can. I think I can. I think I can. I know I can.”
― Watty Piper, The Little Engine That Could

“because if you can’t kill then you are always subject to those who can, and nothing and no one will ever save you.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game

“The only sensible ends of literature are, first, the pleasurable toil of writing; second, the gratification of one's family and friends; and lastly, the solid cash.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne

“If I read this right, Gunther had not come to offer me congratulations. I will not give him the satisfaction of thinking me scared or insecure. I will fake calm, confident, and regal.” 
”
― Tricia Copeland, To Be a Fae Queen

“I write about revenge because it presupposes love, honor, justice: things that matter.”
― J.K. Franko, Eye for Eye Trilogy: Boxset 1-3

“Cairo. An inter-services game of cricket was in progress in the lush grounds behind him as Powell made his way through the grand portal of the Gezira Sporting Club. It was a hot and humid day and Powell was dripping with sweat. A fellow officer had given him a lift for part of the way but he had had to walk the last mile. Uniformed Egyptian attendants bowed and guided him through the lobby towards the bar, where he could see his host with a drink already in hand.”
― Mark Ellis, The French Spy

“We were left with nothing because of a love like acid that ate its way through our entire family.”
― R.D. Ronald, The Elephant Tree