Robyn Abbott > Robyn's Quotes

“Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant filled with odd little waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don't always like.”
― Lemony Snicket

“Do not be afraid; our fate
Cannot be taken from us; it is a gift.”
― Dante Alighieri, Inferno

“It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.”
― William Ernest Henley, Echoes of Life and Death

“Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together,but do so with all your heart.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Amor Fati – “Love Your Fate”, which is in fact your life.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“You often meet your fate on the road you take to avoid it.”
― Goldie Hawn

“We are all subject to the fates. But we must act as if we are not, or die of despair.”
― Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass

“Fate loves the fearless.”
― James Russell Lowell

“Oh, I am fortune's fool!”
― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

“It's no good crying over spilt milk, because all the forces of the universe were bent on spilling it.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage

“Now is the dramatic moment of fate, Watson, when you hear a step upon the stair which is walking into your life, and you know not whether for good or ill.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle

“A man does not make his destiny: he accepts it or denies it.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Farthest Shore

“We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
― Anaïs Nin

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

“The soul is like a wild animal—tough, resilient, savvy, self-sufficient and yet exceedingly shy. If we want to see a wild animal, the last thing we should do is to go crashing through the woods, shouting for the creature to come out. But if we are willing to walk quietly into the woods and sit silently for an hour or two at the base of a tree, the creature we are waiting for may well emerge, and out of the corner of an eye we will catch a glimpse of the precious wildness we seek.”
― Parker J. Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life : Welcoming the soul and weaving community in a wounded world

“The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.”
― Soren Kierkegaard

“People who do this type of work talk about the rupture we feel on our return, an irreconcilable invisible difference between us and others. We talk about how difficult it is to assimilate, to assume routine, to sample familiar pleasures. The rift, of course, is not in the world: it is within us....The world is a hard place -- a beautiful place, but so too an urgent one. ... Once that urgency takes hold, it never completely lets go.”
― James Maskalyk, Six Months in Sudan: A Young Doctor in a War-torn Village

“He had thought that to pray was to talk; he learned that to pray is not only to keep silent, but to listen. And that is how it is: to pray is not to listen to oneself speak, but is to come to keep silent, and to continue keeping silent, to wait, until the person who prays hears God.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air: Three Godly Discourses

“The bird keeps silent and suffers. However much heartache it has, it keeps silent. It does not complain; it accuses no one; it sighs only to fall silent again. The bird is not free from suffering, but the silent bird frees itself from what makes the suffering more burdensome: from the misunderstood sympathy of others; frees itself from what makes the suffering last longer: from all the talk of suffering; frees itself from what makes the suffering into something worse than suffering: from the sin of impatience and sadness.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air: Three Godly Discourses

“Precisely because a human being has the ability to speak, for this very reason the ability to keep silent is an art; and precisely because this advantage of his tempts him so easily, the ability to keep silent is a great art.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air: Three Godly Discourses

“The bird keeps silent and waits: it knows, or rather it fully and firmly believes, that everything takes place at its appointed time. Therefore the bird waits, but it knows that it is not granted to it to know the hour or the day; therefore it keeps silent. Then, when the moment comes, the silent bird understands that this is the moment; it makes use of it and is never put to shame.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air: Three Godly Discourses

“The person whose joy is dependant upon certain conditions is not himself joyful; his joy, after all, is that of the conditions and is conditional upon them.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air: Three Godly Discourses

“I think we ought to live happily ever after.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, Howl’s Moving Castle

“Yesterday's gone on down the river and you can't get it back.”
― Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

“The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

“Can you add a quote from yourself? That would be pointless, what sort of fool would do that?”
― R.J. Barker

“Bad friends are worse than no friends,”
― R.J. Barker, Age of Assassins

“We are cursed to be the sum of our deeds, black as they may be. They are like an arrow: once the shot is made, there is no escaping the consequences.”
― R.J. Barker, Blood of Assassins

“I am not one of those for whom faith is simply fear of judgement. How do I pray? I study a rose, I count the stars, I marvel at the beauty of creation and how perfectly ordered it is, at man, the most beautiful work of the Creator, his brain thirsting for knowledge, his heart for love, and his senses, all his senses alert or gratified.”
― Amin Maalouf, Samarkand

“You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can't control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations