Shila Suggs > Shila's Quotes

“Inside he was hurt. Not so much with Linda, but his failure to impress women generally with his abilities. There she was, an example: lending – no, giving –thirty thousand pounds to a smooth-talking old bastard, but she would not part with a penny to him after living with him for a year or more.”
― Max Nowaz, Get Rich or Get Lucky

“Do you know the song Violet Crowned Athens?” he asked. Yellow hair like hers was rare among the Greeks. Though some people say that Helen of Troy . . .”
― Yvonne Korshak, Pericles and Aspasia: A Story of Ancient Greece

“A hush, a silence accompanied this dusting of snow until an odd whistling sound broke through the numbness, coming closer, growing louder. What was that?”
― Cricket Rohman, Wanted: An Honest Man

“He motioned for Elpidio to sit down after watching him pace the room in circles. Elpidio pulled out a chair and admitted, 'I've messed up in more ways than I can count.”
― Carolyn M. Bowen, Legacy of Shadows: An International Crime Thriller

“In a strange way we were free. We’d reached the end of the line. We had nothing more to lose. Our privacy, our liberty, our dignity: All of this was gone and we were stripped down to the bare bones of our selves.”
― Susanna Kaysen, Girl, Interrupted

“Be patient with him. If the same quality did not exist in you, you wouldn’t notice it in him.”
― Robyn Mundell, Brainwalker

“Just because a thing can't be logged, charted, and summarized doesn't mean it isn't real.”
― David Wroblewski, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

“Louie never saw a Chong diner finish his meal.”
― Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

“There has always been a sliver of panic in him, deeply buried, when it comes to his daughter: a fear that he is no good as a father, that he is doing everything wrong. That he never quite understood the rules. …There is pride, too, though–pride that he has done it alone. That his daughter is so curious, so resilient. There is the humility of being a father to someone so powerful, as if he were only a narrow conduit for another, greater thing. That’s how it feels right now, he thinks, kneeling beside her, rinsing her hair: as though his love for his daughter will outstrip the limits of his body. The walls could fall away, even the whole city, and the brightness of that feeling would not wane.”
― Anthony Doeer, All the Light We Cannot See

“His remains consigned to the elements and wolves, would scattered across the March.”
― Gabriel F.W. Koch, Steel Blood

“Time and space are incalculable, there measure is infinite. The formulas that explicate their workings, have all but been explained away. But there is one thing that remains, and always will.
‘The occurrence of events in the absence of any obvious intention or cause.’
Chance.”
― A.R. Merrydew, Inara

“Them that’s gots, gets.” My uncle replied.”
― R. Gerry Fabian, Just Out Of Reach

“Employees are savvy. They know the difference between disguising and remedying unfairness at work”
― Hanna Hasl-Kelchner, Seeking Fairness at Work: Cracking the New Code of Greater Employee Engagement, Retention & Satisfaction

“What follows is the first in a collection of tales, primarily of one tixie family, who recorded their exploits more than two thousand years ago. Originally written in their own language, these stories have been translated into modern English for the first time.”
― Jack Borden, The Vultures of Doom

“Thus a translation of a translation brought us together, but I can see now that we were still very far apart, farther apart indeed than languages, even though we had laughed together, for our laugher was cruel, as laughter often is. I was laughing at the awkwardness of a Chinese mind, the translator's; Su-ling at the awkwardness of a Western mind, mine.”
― John Hersey, A Single Pebble

“And don’t limit poetry to the word.
Poetry can be found in music, a photograph, in the way a meal is prepared
—anything with the stuff of revelation in it. It can exist in the most
everyday things but it must never, never be ordinary. By all means, write
about the sky or a girl’s smile, but when you do, let your poetry conjure up
salvation day, doomsday, any day. I don’t care, as long as it enlightens us,
thrills us and—if it’s inspired—makes us feel a bit immortal.”
― N.H. Kleinbaum, Dead Poets Society

“I dinna know what's a sadist. And if I forgive you for this afternoon, I reckon you'll forgive me, too, as soon as ye can sit down again."
"As for my pleasure..." His lip twitched. "I said I would have to punish you. I did not say I wasna going to enjoy it." He crooked a finger at me.
"Come here.”
― Diana Gabaldon, Outlander

“The biggest adjustment I had to make on moving from New Guinea to the U.S. was my lack of freedom. Children have much more freedom in New Guinea. In the U.S. I was not allowed to climb trees. I was always climbing trees in New Guinea; I still like to climb trees. When my brother and I came back to California and moved into our house there, one of the first things we did was to climb a tree and build a tree house; other families thought that was weird. The U.S. has so many rules and regulations, because of fear of being sued, that kids give up on the opportunity for personal exploration. A pool has to be fenced so that it’s not an ‘attractive nuisance.’ Most New Guineans don’t have pools, but even the rivers that we frequented didn’t have signs saying ‘Jump at your own risk,’ because it’s obvious. Why would I jump unless I’m prepared for the consequences? Responsibility in the U.S. has been taken from the person acting and has been placed on the owner of the land or the builder of the house. Most Americans want to blame someone other than themselves as much as possible. In New Guinea I was able to grow up, play creatively, and explore the outdoors and nature freely, with the obligatory element of risk, however well managed, that is absent from the average risk-averse American childhood. I had the richest upbringing possible, an upbringing inconceivable for Americans.” “A frustration”
― Jared Diamond, The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies?

“I am me, a unique individual who aspires to be happier than she already is.”
― L.C. Conn

“Dostoevsky was writing about losers. The main character of The Iliad, Hector, is a loser. It’s very boring to talk about winners. The real literature always talks about losers. Madame Bovary is a loser. Julien Sorel is a loser. I am doing only the same job. Losers are more fascinating. Winners are stupid … because usually they win by chance”
― Umberto Eco