Tilda Guttmann > Tilda's Quotes

“One of the things that I believe defines kindness is making others feel important. And one of my big pet peeves in life is speaking badly of other people. I’m a big proponent of—“If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” If you want to start showing kindness, simply do not say anything negative about anyone.”
― Art Rios, Let's Talk: ...About Making Your Life Exciting, Easier, And Exceptional

“Mildred adjusted the papers and scribbled some more. When she was finished, she took off her glasses, leaving them to swing from the chain around her neck. She gave the women around the table a pointed look. “Now think hard, ladies, can you come up with anything else?”
― Kirsten Fullmer

“We don't have adoption issues, we have an issue with adoption.”
― Janine Myung-Ja, Adoptionland: From Orphans to Activists

“As I’ve learned from life, happiness sometimes only greets us in fits and starts. For tragedy often follows merriment. Without strife, we would not know the true meaning of gaiety. That’s what I like to tell myself to ease the pain.”
― Lee Matthew Goldberg, The Ancestor

“We’re fighting a form of institutional racism that dates back four hundred years, is embodied in our constitution, and is still alive and well here in the Detroit area.”
― Mark M. Bello, Betrayal In Black

“The whole book is posing a question. You think you've won a war - what you've done is finish a war. There was a crime committed in that war the like of which perhaps was never committed in human history. You think about it.”
― William Golding

“What do we find, here in America, in the field of 'politics?'

We find first a party system which is the technical arrangement to carry on a fight. It is perfectly conceivable that a flourishing democratic government be carried on without any parties at all; public functionaries being elected on their merits, and each proposed measure judged on its merits; though this sounds impossible to the androcentric mind.

'There has never been a democracy without factions and parties!" is protested.

There has never been a democracy, so far--only an androcracy.”
― Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Man-Made World

“Through it all, I stare at the boy on the throne. He maintains his mask. Jaw clenched, lips pressed into a thin, unforgiving line. Still fingers, straight back. But his gaze wavers. Something in his eyes has gone far away. And at his collar, the slightest gray flush rises, painting his neck and the tips of his ears.

He's terrified.

For a second, it makes me happy. Then I remember―monsters are most dangerous when they're afraid.”
― Victoria Aveyard, King's Cage

“Love of the head has doubtless more intelligence than true love, but it only has moments of enthusiasm. It knows itself too well, it sits in judgement on itself incessantly; far from distracting thought, it is made by sheer force of thought.”
― Stendhal, The Red and the Black

“am thirty-five years old, and it seems to me that I have arrived at the age of grief. Others arrive there sooner. Almost no one arrives much later.”
― Jane Smiley, The Age of Grief

“Never bet your money on another man's game.”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy

“The normal laws of development are inverted here in the Congo. The forest, not the town, offers the safest sanctuary and it is grandfathers who have been more exposed to modernity than their grandchildren. I can think of nowhere else on the planet where the same can be true.”
― Tim Butcher, Blood River: A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart

“If folks can’t do anything else, they’ll cook.”
― Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give

“The sense of despair has to remove those barriers one by one, and only then does despair penetrate to the heart of man who gradually recognises the enemy, calls it by name, and is horrified.”
― Irène Némirovsky, The Fires of Autumn

“»Erlaucht kennen doch die Geschichte von den Befestigungsanlagen in Südtirol, die in den letzten zehn Jahren auf Betreiben des Generalstabschefs hergestellt worden sind? Sie sollen tadellos und das Neueste in der Ausführung sein. Natürlich hat man sie auch mit elektrisch geladenen Hindernissen und großen Scheinwerferanlagen ausgestattet, und zu deren Belieferung mit Strom sind sogar versenkte Dieselmotoren eingebaut worden; man kann nicht sagen, daß wir hinter irgendetwas zurückstehn. Das Unglück ist nur, daß die Motoren durch die Artillerieabteilung bestellt worden sind, und das Brennmaterial liefert die Bauabteilung des Kriegsministeriums; das ist so nach der Vorschrift, und darum kann man die Anlagen nicht in Betrieb setzen, weil sich die beiden Abteilungen nicht darüber einigen können, ob das Zündholz, das man beim Anlaufenlassen braucht, als Brennmaterial aufzufassen und von der Bauabteilung beizustellen ist, oder ob es als Motorzubehör aufzufassen ist und in den Wirkungskreis der Artillerie gehört.«
»Reizend!« sagte Arnheim, obgleich er wußte, daß Tuzzi den Dieselmotor mit einem Gasmotor verwechselte und selbst bei einem solchen Zündllammen längst nicht mehr verwendet wurden; es war eine jener Geschichten, wie sie in den Büros kreisen, voll von liebenswürdiger Selbstironie, und der Sektionschef hatte sie mit einer Stimme vorgetragen, die dem Malheur, das sie berichtete, erfreut nachging.”
― Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities

“Sometimes I think illness sits inside every woman, waiting for the right moment to bloom.”
― Gillian Flynn, Sharp Objects

“There are some themes, some subjects, too large for adult fiction; they can only be dealt with adequately in a children’s book. In adult literary fiction, stories are there on sufferance. Other things are felt to be more important: technique, style, literary knowingness… The present-day would-be George Eliots take up their stories as if with a pair of tongs. They’re embarrassed by them. If they could write novels without stories in them, they would. Sometimes they do. We need stories so much that we’re even willing to read bad books to get them, if the good books won’t supply them. We all need stories, but children are more frank about it.”
― Philip Pullman

“A holiday would be a poor thing indeed without a great deal of game playing!”
― Catherine Marshall, A Man Called Peter

“And the wild things...gnashed their terrible teeth ...”
― Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are

“Middle Ages”
― Mary Norton, Bed-Knob and Broomstick

“He could not understand the wild quiver of his heart, nor the following sense of recklessness and grace that lingered after she was gone.”
― Carson McCullers

“The only thing worse than a liar is a liar that's also a hypocrite!”
― Tennessee Williams

“you should take your consciences with you, and leave your politics in the chamber.’ Lord”
― Jeffrey Archer, The Sins of the Father: A Gripping And Pulse-Pounding Clifton Chronicle From International Bestselling Author Jeffrey Archer

“Benevolence is the twin of pride.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne

“When it comes to dressing well, American culture is so self-fulfilled that it has not only disregarded this courtesy of self-presentation, but has turned that disregard into a virtue. "We are too superior/busy/cool/not-uptight to bother about how we look to other people, and so we can wear pajamas to school and underwear to the mall.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah

“I'm so scared of dying without ever being really seen. Can you understand?”
― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

“I have to force myself even to move my eyeballs. It's so easy just to stare.”
― Flora Rheta Schreiber, Sybil: The Classic True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Personalities

“I think Henry Kissinger grew up with that odd mix of ego and insecurity that comes from being the smartest kid in the class. From really knowing you're more awesomely intelligent than anybody else, but also being the guy who got beaten up for being Jewish.”
― Walter Isaacson

“Una buona reputazione professionale non è sempre garanzia di un intelletto equilibrato.”
― Joseph Conrad, The Shadow-Line

“Nothing in this world happens unless white folks says it happens. The lies they tell each other sound better to them than the truth does when it comes out of our mouths.”
― James McBride, Deacon King Kong