Donna > Donna's Quotes

“Everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else.”
― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

“He never went out without a book under his arm, and he often came back with two.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.”
― Helen Keller

“Today is a gift from God. Don't waste it!”
― Ruth Kyser

“may you kiss
the wind then turn from it
certain that it will
love your back”
― Lucille Clifton

“I am running into a new year and the old years blow back like a wind that I catch in my hair like strong fingers like all my old promises and it will be hard to let go of what I said to myself about myself when I was sixteen and twenty-six and thirty-six but I am running into a new year and I beg what i love and I leave to forgive me.”
― Lucille Clifton

“the lesson of the falling leaves

the leaves believe
such letting go is love
such love is faith
such faith is grace
such grace is god
i agree with the leaves”
― Lucille Clifton

“You might as well answer the door, my child,
the truth is furiously knocking.”
― Lucille Clifton, Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980

“won't you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my other hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.”
― Lucille Clifton

“the lost women

I need to know their names
those women I would have walked with,
jauntily the way men go in groups
swinging their arms, and the ones
those sweating women whom I would have joined
After a hard game to chew the fat
what would we have called each other laughing
joking into our beer? where are my gangs,
my teams, my mislaid sisters?
all the women who could have known me,
where in the world are their names?
”
― Lucille Clifton

“don’t write out of what I know; I write out of what I wonder. I think most artists create art in order to explore, not to give the answers. Poetry and art are not about answers to me; they are about questions.”
― Lucille Clifton

“There is a limit to the amount of misery and disarray you will put up with, for love, just as there is a limit to the amount of mess you can stand around a house. You can't know the limit beforehand, but you will know when you've reached it. I believe this.”
― Alice Munro

“Never underestimate the meanness in people's souls... Even when they're being kind... especially when they're being kind.”
― Alice Munro

“I may never know when an answer to prayer is going to arrive, but I know that God will never fail me.”
― Suzanne Elizabeth Anderson, Waiting with God: 31 Days to Finding Answers for Unanswered Prayers

“Do you have faith in your faith?”
― Suzanne Elizabeth Anderson, Waiting with God: 31 Days to Finding Answers for Unanswered Prayers

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
― Mary Oliver

“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.”
― Mary Oliver

“Make your mistakes, take your chances, look silly, but keep on going. Don’t freeze up.”
― Thomas Wolfe, You Can't Go Home Again

“Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself”
― Khalil Gibran, The Prophet