Cletus > Cletus's Quotes

“It was easy to make the obvious leap that the money was supposed to be my fee for whatever Lillian Holler wanted to expose. Sometimes my clients come with prepayment. I still questioned why she had picked me and how she had found me. But she was a wealthy woman and wealthy women have ways of finding out whatever it is they want to know.”
― Behcet Kaya, Treacherous Estate

“I marveled at the beauty of all life and savored the power and possibilities of my imagination. In these rare moments, I prayed, I danced, and I analyzed. I saw that life was good and bad, beautiful and ugly. I understood that I had to dwell on the good and beautiful in order to keep my imagination, sensitivity, and gratitude intact. I knew it would not be easy to maintain this perspective. I knew I would often twist and turn, bend and crack a little, but I also knew that…I would never completely break.”
― Maria Nhambu, Africa's Child

“Pay attention. The momentum of change is building.”
― C. Toni Graham

“The shoes always tell the story,' said the shoe poet.
'Not always,' I countered.
'Yes, always. Your boots, they are expensive, well made. That tells me that you come from a wealthy family. But the style is one made for and older woman. That tell me they probably belong to your mother. A mother sacrificed her boots for her daughter. That tells me you are loved, my dear. And your mother is not here, so that tells me that you are sad, my dear. The shoes tell the story.”
― Ruta Sepetys, Salt to the Sea

“It is a woman's business to get married as soon as possible, and a man's
to keep unmarried as long as he can.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“ain’t”
― Jean Craighead George, My Side of the Mountain

“Sendak is in search of what he calls a "yummy death". William Blake set the standard, jumping up from his death bed at the last minute to start singing. "A happy death," says Sendak. "It can be done." He lifts his eyebrows to two peaks. "If you're William Blake and totally crazy.”
― Maurice Sendak

“I was the only boy in our school what had asthma," said the fat boy with a touch of pride. "And I've been wearing specs since I was three.”
― William Golding, Barron's Book Notes: Lord of the Flies

“Sometimes I try to imagine what happens to characters in books - after the books finish, I mean.”
― Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle

“But we're no longer rain, I said, we're no longer seeds. We're men. Now we can stand and decide. This is our first chance to choose our own unknown. I'm so proud of everything we've done, my brothers, and if we're fortunate enough to fly and land again in a new place, we must continue. As impossible as it sounds, we must keep walking. And yes, there has been suffering, but now there will be grace. There has been pain, but now there will be serenity. No one has been tried the way we have been tried, and now this is our reward.”
― Dave Eggers, What Is the What

“She turned towards me immediately. The easy elegance of every movement of her limbs and body as soon as she began to advance from the far end of the room, set me in a flutter of expectation to see her face clearly. She left the window—and I said to myself, The lady is dark. She moved forward a few steps—and I said to myself, The lady is young. She approached nearer—and I said to myself (with a sense of surprise which words fail me to express), The lady is ugly! Never”
― Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

“It is said that in death, all things become clear.”
― Dan Brown, Digital Fortress

“You know Janus is where the word January comes from? It’s named after the same god as this island. He’s got two faces, back to back. Pretty ugly fellow.”
“What’s he god of?”
“Doorways. Always looking both ways, torn between two ways of seeing things. January looks forward to the new year and back to the old year. He sees past and future.”
― M.L. Stedman, The Light Between Oceans

“I don’t think that’s a fact. Look here, Mr. Charles, would you take your oath, or even just tell me straight out, that you’ve been emptying your pockets to me right along?” There was no use saying yes—he would not have believed me. I said: “Practically.” “Practically, yes,” he grumbled. “Everybody’s been telling me practically the whole truth. What I want’s some impractical son of a gun that’ll shoot the works.” I could sympathize with him: I knew how he felt. I said: “Maybe nobody you’ve found knows the whole truth.”
― Dashiell Hammett, The Thin Man

“He Who Marches Out Of Step Hears Another Drum”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

“Her hatred glittered irresistibly. I could see it, the jewel, it was sapphire, it was the cold lakes of Norway.”
― Janet Fitch, White Oleander

“And then, on September 11, the world fractured.
It's beyond my skill as a writer to capture that day and the days that would follow--the planes, like specters, vanishing into steel and glass; the slow-motion cascade of the towers crumbling into themselves; the ash-covered figures wandering the streets; the anguish and the fear. Nor do I pretend to understand the stark nihilism that drove the terrorists that day and that drives their brethren still. My powers of empathy, my ability to reach into another's heart, cannot penetrate the blank stares of those would murder innocents with abstract, serene satisfaction.”
― Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance

“Who watches the watchmen?”
― Alan Moore, Watchmen