anne > anne's Quotes

“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 moments like this, I'm brought face to face with the ruthlessness of life. One hill after another after another. Climbing at first with hope and then gradually in resignation. But life never goes easy. A foe without mercy or magnanimity. A losing battle. A fight that ends only with defeat.”
― Kim Hye-Jin, Concerning My Daughter

“Labor without end. The thought that no one can save me from this exhausting work. Concern over what will happen when the moment comes when I cannot work anymore. In other words, what worries me isn’t death, but life. I must do whatever needs to be done to withstand this suffocating uncertainty that will be with me for as long as I am living. I learned this too late.”
― Kim Hye-Jin, Concerning My Daughter: A Novel

“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

“Unhealthy love is two people stoking a shared fantasy of desperate beauty, weaponizing passion and desire.”
― Qiu Miaojin, Notes of a Crocodile

“The fact is, most people go through life without ever living. They say you have to learn how to construct a self who remains free in spite of the system. And you have to get used to the idea that it's every man for himself in this world. It requires a strange self-awareness, whereby everything down to the finest detail must be performed before the eyes of the world.”
― Qiu Miaojin, Notes of a Crocodile

“No one will ever know about your tragedy, and the world eluded its responsibility ages ago.”
― Qiu Miaojin, Notes of a Crocodile

“Being in college gave me a sense of vocation. It exempted me from an oppressive system of social and personal responsibility- from going through the motions like a cog, from being whipped and beaten by everyone for not having worked hard enough and then having to put on a repentant face afterward.”
― Qiu Miaojin, Notes of a Crocodile

“In the end, the world didn't owe me anything, not even half a chance. That was the hand I'd been dealt in life, and while detachment was enough for me to withstand hatred, extricating myself from the jaws of suffering called for enough detachment to exercise cruelty.”
― Qiu Miaojin, Notes of a Crocodile

“My time was gradually consumed by tears. The whole world loves me, but what does it matter since I hate myself?”
― Qiu Miaojin, Notes of a Crocodile

“Only healthy people are capable of being in love. Using love to treat an illness just makes the illness even worse.”
― Qiu Miaojin, Notes of a Crocodile

“Secretly though, I did sort of enjoy being a fucked-up mess. Apart from that, I didn't have a whole lot going on.”
― Qiu Miaojin, Notes of a Crocodile

“People in this city are manufactured and canned, raised for the sole purpose of taking tests and making money, The eighteen-year-old me went through the high-grade production line and was processed in three years, despite the fear that I was pure carrion inside.”
― Qiu Miaojin, Notes of a Crocodile

“Like death, college serves as a kind of escape hatch. But while death takes you straight to the morgue, college is a single rope dangling loose from the inescapable net of society.”
― Qiu Miaojin, Notes of a Crocodile

“I don’t want to become myself. I know the answer to the riddle, but I can’t stand to have it revealed. The first time I saw you, I knew I would fall in love with you.”
― Qiu Miaojin, Notes of a Crocodile

“All grown-ups were once children... but only few of them remember it.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

“It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

“The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

“Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

“It is such a mysterious place, the land of tears.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

“You're beautiful, but you're empty...One couldn't die for you. Of course, an ordinary passerby would think my rose looked just like you. But my rose, all on her own, is more important than all of you together, since she's the one I've watered. Since she's the one I put under glass, since she's the one I sheltered behind the screen. Since she's the one for whom I killed the caterpillars (except the two or three butterflies). Since she's the one I listened to when she complained, or when she boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing at all. Since she's my rose.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

“You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

“You're beautiful, but you're empty. No one could die for you.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

“So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near--

Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."

It is your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you . . ."

Yes, that is so," said the fox.

But now you are going to cry!" said the little prince.

Yes, that is so," said the fox.

Then it has done you no good at all!"

It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the color of the wheat fields.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

“Grown-ups love figures... When you tell them you've made a new friend they never ask you any questions about essential matters. They never say to you "What does his voice sound like? What games does he love best? Does he collect butterflies? " Instead they demand "How old is he? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father make? " Only from these figures do they think they have learned anything about him.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

“To forget a friend is sad. Not everyone has had a friend.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

“I am who I am and I have the need to be.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

“No one is ever satisfied where he is.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

“Words are the source of misunderstandings.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

“To say that straight men are heterosexual is only to say that they engage in sex (fucking exclusively with the other sex, i.e., women). All or almost all of that which pertains to love, most straight men reserve exclusively for other men. The people whom they admire, respect, adore, revere, honor, whom they imitate, idolize, and form profound attachments to, whom they are willing to teach and from whom they are willing to learn, and whose respect, admiration, recognition, honor, reverence and love they desire… those are, overwhelmingly, other men. In their relations with women, what passes for respect is kindness, generosity or paternalism; what passes for honor is removal to the pedestal. From women they want devotion, service and sex.

Heterosexual male culture is homoerotic; it is man-loving.”
― Marilyn Frye, The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory