Allegra Insalaco > Allegra's Quotes

“I watched him spread out his arms with a smile before he crashed through the table in a beautiful crescendo, the glass sounding like tinkles from a piano as its shavings glittered across the floor and sliced through his face and body.”
― Lee Matthew Goldberg, Slow Down

“On days like this I mourned the way the sheltering walls kept off the low sunlight but today I had resolved this by working from the middle. Just caught in sunlight the rays were strong and intense - not those of a distant weakening star. Still the frosty air and the spirit of our breathing told the truth: that at the height of his strength the sun struggled to fully protect us from the bitter iced heart of the universe. ”
― Aaron D. Key, Damon Ich

“I remember seeing a sign in a bar that said, “Alcohol may not solve your problems, but neither will water or milk.” Well, that is very true. Having a drink or two takes the edge off. Happy hour is the perfect way to do so. You’ll find inspiration, and sometimes even enlightenment, during happy hour. It’s a time to make plans, to share dreams, to envision success, and to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Happy hour also helps get you through the tough times because it gives you a designated space to hash things out and put them in perspective. Conversely, you can use happy hour as a time not to hash things out, but to laugh and remember, which also gives good perspective.”
― Art Rios, Let's Talk: ...About Making Your Life Exciting, Easier, And Exceptional

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

“Embedded in their psyche was the story of what had happened to the world, and the boys felt glorious to be on the other side of the madness”
― Pernell Plath Meier, In Our Bones

“better keep your mouth shut and seem stupid than open it and remove all doubt.”
― Emma Donoghue, Frog Music

“In times of war, you often hear leaders-Christian, Jewish, and Muslim-saying'God is on our side.' But that isn't true. In war, God is on the side of refugees, widows, and orphans.”
― GREG MORTENSON

“Sometimes I wonder, what do people do when they have no extended family and no church? In times of crisis, where does their support come from?”
― Todd Burpo, Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back

“Prohibition... goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes... A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.”
― Anonymous

“Don't eat anything incapable of rotting.”
― Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

“That day I learned something essential: We can only fell sorry for ourselves when our misfortunes are still supportable...once this limit is crossed, the only way to bear the unbearable is to laugh at it.”
― Marjane Satrapi

“And now I was lonelier, I supposed, than anyone else in the world. Even Defoe's creation, Robinson Crusoe, the prototype of the ideal solitary, could hope to meet another human being. Crusoe cheered himself by thinking that such a thing could happen any day, and it kept him going. But if any of the people now around me came near I would need to run for it and hide in mortal terror. I had to be alone, entirely alone, if I wanted to live.”
― Władysław Szpilman, The Pianist: The Extraordinary Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939–45

“Almost all the joyful things of life are outside the measure of IQ tests.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, A Circle of Quiet

“bind with”
― Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage

“I have to keep going to find out ultimately what is the matter with it in the end.”
― Richard P. Feynman, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character

“A pig painted gold is still a pig.”
― Robert Jordan, The Great Hunt

“You can’t blame anyone else, not the plan’s architect, not your commanding officer, no one but yourself. You have to make your own choices and live every agonizing day with the consequences of those choices.”
― Max Brooks, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

“And what if it were only a story?” said Mrs. May quickly, “so long as it was a good story? Keep your sense of wonder, child, and don’t be so literal. Anything we haven’t experienced for ourselves sounds like a story. All we can ever do is sift the evidence.”
― Mary Norton, The Borrowers

“We must not remind them that giants walk the Earth.”
― Frank Miller, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns

“Words were different when they lived inside of you.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“Once the queen’s head is severed, he walks away. A sharp pang of appetite reminds him that it is time for a second breakfast, or perhaps an early dinner. The morning’s circumstances are new and there are no rules to guide us. The witnesses, who have knelt for the passing of the soul, stand up and put on their hats. Under the hats, their faces are stunned.”
― Hilary Mantel, The Mirror & the Light

“This world we live in is confusing, overwhelming and painful because he has a condition known as autism.”
― Tina Traverse, Forever, Christian

“Tomas did not realize at the time that metaphors are dangerous. Metaphors are not to be trifled with. A single metaphor can give birth to love.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“Tis very strange Men should be so fond of being thought more wicked than they are.”
― Daniel Defoe, A system of magick

“Even when you are happy to see your friends again and laugh at their jokes, the relief is mixed with sadness and, maybe, guilt. It”
― Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss

“Existence and non-existence, pleasure and pain all have Time for their root. Time createth all things and Time destroyeth all creatures. It is Time that burneth creatures and it is Time that extinguisheth the fire. All states, the good and the evil, in the three worlds, are caused by Time. Time cutteth short all things and createth them anew. Time alone is awake when all things are asleep: indeed, Time is incapable of being overcome. Time passeth over all things without being retarded. Knowing, as thou dost, that all things past and future and all that exist at the present moment, are the offspring of Time, it behoveth thee not to throw away thy reason.”
― Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, The Mahābhārata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

“When you look around Addis and see children barefoot and shivering in the rain, when you see the lepers begging for their next morsel, does any of that Monophysitic nonsense matter the least bit?” Matron”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

“Who are you calling?" (claire)
Pizza hut" (shane)
Loser" (claire)”
― Rachel Caine, Feast of Fools

“...I have this one nasty habit. Makes me hard to live with. I write...

...writing is antisocial. It's as solitary as masturbation. Disturb a writer when he is in the throes of creation and he is likely to turn and bite right to the bone... and not even know that he's doing it. As writers' wives and husbands often learn to their horror...

...there is no way that writers can be tamed and rendered civilized. Or even cured. In a household with more than one person, of which one is a writer, the only solution known to science is to provide the patient with an isolation room, where he can endure the acute stages in private, and where food can be poked in to him with a stick. Because, if you disturb the patient at such times, he may break into tears or become violent. Or he may not hear you at all... and, if you shake him at this stage, he bites...”
― Robert Heinlen

“I know what happiness and what despair are, and I never make a jest of such feelings. Take it, then, but in exchange — ”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo