Annie > Annie's Quotes

“But the stars that marked our starting fall away.
We must go deeper into greater pain,
for it is not permitted that we stay.”
― Dante Alighieri, Inferno

“I shall go on shining as a brilliantly meaningless figure in a meaningless world.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned

“keep eternal springtime on thy face”
― William Shakespeare , Titus Andronicus

“A feeling of tenderness filled my heart. My heroine would be myself, only in disguise.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

“When I was all set to go, when I had my bags and all, I stood for a while next to the stairs and took a last look down the goddam corridor. I was sort of crying. I don't know why. I put my red hunting hat on, and turned the peak around to the back, the way I liked it, and then I yelled at the top of my goddam voice, "Sleep tight, ya morons!" I'll bet I woke up every bastard on the whole floor. Then I got the hell out. Some stupid guy had thrown peanut shells all over the stairs, and I damn near broke my crazy neck.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“Punishment, then, will tend to become the most hidden part of the penal process. This has several consequences: it leaves the domain of more or less everyday perception and enters that of abstract consciousness; its effectiveness is seen as resulting from its inevitability, not from its visible intensity; it is the certainty of being punished and not the horrifying spectacle of public punishment that must discourage crime; the exemplary mechanics of punishment changes its mechanisms. As a result, justice no longer takes public responsibility for the violence that is bound up with its practice.”
― Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison

“The punishment must proceed from the crime; the law must appear to be a necessity of things, and power must act while concealing itself beneath the gentle force of nature.”
― Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison

“I have realized that we all have plague, and I have lost my peace. And today I am still trying to find it; still trying to understand all those others and not to be the enemy of anyone. I only know that one must do what one can to cease being plague-stricken, and that's the only way in which we can hope for some peace or, failing that, a decent death. This, and only this, can bring relief to men and, if not save them, at least do them the least harm possible and even, sometimes, a little good.”
― Albert Camus, The Plague

“To state quite simply what we learn in time of pestilence: that there are more things to admire in men than to despise.”
― Albert Camus, The Plague

“Dare I say I miss him? I do. I miss him. I still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love. Such is the strangeness of the human heart.”
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi

“Resolved not to waste further time on account of this childish affair, I contemplated departure via the french windows.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day

“Perhaps, then, there is something to his advice that I should cease looking back so much, that I should adopt a more positive outlook and try to make the best of what remains of my day.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day

“We were right for each other once. Whether we always will be, that’s anyone’s guess.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“They say nothing lasts forever but they're just scared it will last longer than they can love it.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“When does a war end? When can I say your name and have it mean only your name and not what you left behind?”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“In a world myriad as ours, the gaze is a singular act: to look at something is to fill your whole life with it, if only briefly.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“Ma. You once told me that memory is a choice. But if you were god, you'd know it's a flood.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“I was just learning how to read and was reading every sign out loud, practising, and when I saw Cockburn Avenue I said Cock Burn Avenue and then asked what's that? And Elf, she must have been eleven or twelve, said that's from too much sex and my mother said shhhh from the front passenger seat and we didn't dare look over at my dad who clutched the wheel and peered out the windshield like a sniper tracking his target. There were two things he didn't ever want to talk about and they were sex and Russia.”
― Miriam Toews, All My Puny Sorrows

“That is the one unforgivable sin in any society. Be different and be damned!”
― Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind

“You have eternity in which to explain and only one night to be a martyr in the amphitheater Get out, darling, and let me see the lions eat you.”
― Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind

“Now from his breast into the eyes the ache
of longing mounted, and he wept at last,
his dear wife, clear and faithful, in his arms,
longed for as the sunwarmed earth is longed for by a swimmer
spent in rough water where his ship went down
under Poseidon's blows, gale winds and tons of sea.
Few men can keep alive through a big serf
to crawl, clotted with brine, on kindly beaches
in joy, in joy, knowing the abyss behind:
and so she too rejoiced, her gaze upon her husband,
her white arms round him pressed as though forever.”
― Homer, The Odyssey

“down from his brow
she ran his curls
like thick hyacinth clusters
full of blooms”
― Homer, The Odyssey

“With a dark glance
wily Odysseus shot back, “Indecent talk, my friend.
You, you’re a reckless fool —I see that. So,
the gods don’t hand out all their gifts at once,
not build and brains and flowing speech to all.
One man may fail to impress us with his looks
but a god can crown his words with beauty, charm,
and men look on with delight when he speaks out.
Never faltering, filled with winning self-control,
he shines forth at assembly grounds and people gaze at him like a god when he walks through the streets.
Another man may look like a deathless one on high
but there’s not a bit of grace to crown his words.
Just like you, my fine, handsome friend. Not even
a god could improve those lovely looks of yours
but the mind inside is worthless.”
― Homer, The Odyssey

“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“I am determined that only the deepest love will induce me into matrimony. So, I shall end an old maid, and teach your ten children to embroider cushions and play their instruments very ill.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“I felt that I could swim for miles, out into the ocean: a desire for freedom, an impulse to move, tugged at me as though it were a thread fastened to my chest. It was an impulse I knew well, and I had learned that it was not the summons from a larger world I used to believe it to be. It was simply a desire to escape from what I had.”
― Rachel Cusk, Outline

“Stronger than lover's love is lover's hate. Incurable, in each, the wounds they make.”
― Euripides, Medea

“Yes, I deserve a spring–I owe nobody nothing.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary

“I must have flowers, always, and always.”
― Claude Monet