Ella H > Ella's Quotes

“He had not breathed a word of love, or dropped one hint of tenderness or affection, and yet I had been supremely happy. To be near him, to hear him talk as he did talk, and to feel that he thought me worthy to be so spoken to - capable of understanding and duly appreciating such discourse - was enough.”
― Anne Brontë, Agnes Grey

“The best thing about the bedroom was the bed. I liked to stay in bed for hours, even during the day with covers pulled up to my chin. It was good in there, nothing ever occurred in there, no people, nothing.”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“She believes Marianne lacks ‘warmth’, by which she means the ability to beg for love from people who hate her.”
― Sally Rooney, Normal People

“Marianne had the sense that her real life was happening somewhere very far away, happening without her, and she didn't know if she would ever find out where it was or become part of it.”
― Sally Rooney, Normal People

“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“A little sacrifice, he thought, just a little sacrifice. For this will calm her, a hug, a kiss, calm caresses. She doesn’t want anything more. And even if she did, what of it? For a little sacrifice, a very little sacrifice, is beautiful and worth… Were she to want more… It would calm her. A quiet, calm, gentle act of love. And I… Why, it doesn’t matter, because Essi smells of verbena, not lilac and gooseberry, doesn’t have cool, electrifying skin. Essi’s hair is not a black tornado of gleaming curls, Essi’s eyes are gorgeous, soft, warm and cornflower blue; they don’t blaze with a cold, unemotional, deep violet. Essi will fall asleep afterwards, turn her head away, open her mouth slightly, Essi will not smile in triumph. For Essi… Essi is not Yennefer.”
― Andrzej Sapkowski, Sword of Destiny

“What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“It was strange, I reflected.. that even in the weirdest circumstances, the most troubling episodes of one's life, the greatest divides from home and familiarity, there were these moments of undeniable joy.”
― Elizabeth Kostova, The Historian

“I like to see flowers growing, but when they are gathered, they cease to please. I look on them as things rootless and perishable; their likeness to life makes me sad. I never offer flowers to those I love; I never wish to receive them from hands dear to me.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“He who ruled scent ruled the hearts of men.”
― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

“Does such a thing as 'the fatal flaw,' that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature? I used to think it didn't. Now I think it does. And I think that mine is this: a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“It is is better to know one book intimately than a hundred superficially.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“I've read there is no such thing as a single tear, that old poetic trope. And perhaps there isn't, since hers was simply a companion to my own.”
― Elizabeth Kostova, The Historian

“What a fool you must be," said my head to my heart, or my sterner to my softer self.”
― Anne bronte, Agnes Grey

“If you would have your son to walk honorably through the world, you must not attempt to clear the stones from his path, but teach him to walk firmly over them - not insist upon leading him by the hand, but let him learn to go alone.”
― Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

“The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike”
― Christopher Marlowe, Dr. Faustus

“God damn it, there are nice things in the world – and I mean nice things. We're all such morons to get so sidetracked.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“Oh, it's lovely to see you!' Franny said as the cab moved off. 'I've missed you.' The words were no sooner out than she realized that she didn't mean them at all.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“I don't exactly know what I mean by that, but I mean it.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“Make sure you marry someone who laughs at the same things you do.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“I like good strong words that mean something…”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

“There are many Beths in the world, shy and quiet, sitting in corners till needed, and living for others so cheerfully that no one sees the sacrifices till the little cricket on the hearth stops chirping, and the sweet, sunshiny presence vanishes, leaving silence and shadow behind.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

“You're lucky if you get time to sneeze in this goddam phenomenal world.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“[...] don't you know who that Fat Lady really is? ... Ah, buddy. Ah, buddy. It's Christ Himself. Christ Himself, buddy.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting.”
― Edmund Burke

“The inhumanity of it is what makes Nazism so horrible—that's what people always say. Sure. But there's no denying the obvious: part of being human is the inhumanity of it. As long as we refuse to admit that inhumanity is completely human, we'll just be telling ourselves pious lies.”
― Romain Gary, The Kites

“She had a horror of mathematics, as she found that numbers had the annoying habit of proclaiming that two and two are four, which to her seemed somehow contrary to the very spirit of Poland.”
― Romain Gary, The Kites

“[Dean] “My dear fellow, who will let you?”

[Roark] “That’s not the point. The point is, who will stop me?”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“Any capitalist . . . who had made sixty thousand pounds out of sixpence, always professed to wonder why the sixty thousand nearest Hands didn't each make sixty thousand pounds out of sixpence, and more or less reproached them every one for not accomplishing the little feat. What I did you can do. Why don't you go and do it?”
― Charles Dickens, Hard Times