Justin > Justin's Quotes

“The steps leading to the porch looked worn, cracked, and unpainted, ready for a nice hot fire.”
― Gabriel F.W. Koch, Death Leaves a Shadow

“I’d fallen captive to those expressive dark eyes again. I blamed my inappropriate behavior last night on champagne, but in the sobering light of day, I’d fallen into the same drugged stupor. She was soft. Strong. Real. And seriously curvy.”
― J.J. Sorel, A Taste of Peace

“Our world is not safe. It is a toxic swamp populated by predators and parasites. The odds are stacked against us from the moment of conception. We survive only because we fight the elements, hunger, disease, each other. And, although civilization promises us safe harbor, that promise is a fairy tale. Only the storm is real. It comes for each of us. And we cannot win. We can only choose how we will suffer our defeat.

We can meekly take our beatings, and die like lemmings, finding solace in the belief that we shall one day inherit the earth.

Or, we can plunge into the chaos with eyes wide open, taking comfort instead from the bruises, scars, and broken bones which prove that we fought to live and die as gods.”
― J.K. Franko, Life for Life

“I worked hard at fitting in and becoming an American, but then I discovered that being an American was not enough. I had to be a Black American because that’s how Americans, especially whites, saw me.”
― Maria Nhambu, America's Daughter

“Your own setbacks aren’t what they first appear to be; rather than viewing them as failures, view them as learning opportunities that are the building blocks for future preparation.”
― Steve Pemberton, The Lighthouse Effect: How Ordinary People Can Have an Extraordinary Impact in the World

“Believing doesn't make God real. Unbelief doesn't make Him disappear. Your opinion doesn’t change reality.”
― Randy Loubier, Slow Brewing Tea

“Comics are a gateway drug to literacy.”
― Art Spiegelman

“sadness we did not have to work on. It came, as sadness usually does, as soon as I sat down and began to listen. The small press had a correspondingly”
― Rebecca Wells, Little Altars Everywhere

“Look with kindness and you will always find wonder.”
― R.J. Palacio, We're All Wonders

“The greater the ambiguity, the greater the pleasure.”
― Milan Kundera

“Harry was left to ponder in silence the depths to which girls would sink to get revenge.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

“Often I'd take out my magnifying glass and stare into the chaos that was her face.”
― David Sedaris

“For their part, the savage men appear to spend an inordinate amount of time lounging around their lodges, smoking and gossiping among themselves...so that it occurs to me that perhaps our cultures are not so different after all: the women do all the work while the men do all the talking.”
― Jim Fergus

“We ain't giving up," I said. "We done gone this far.”
― Ernest J. Gaines, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman

“As to religion, I hold it to be the indispensible duty of all government, to protect all conscientious professors thereof, and I know of no other business which government hath to do therewith.”
― Thomas Paine, Common Sense

“The library was a little old shabby place. Francie thought it was beautiful. The feeling she had about it was as good as the feeling she had about church. She pushed open the door and went in. She liked the combined smell of worn leather bindings, library paste and freshly inked stamping pads better than she liked the smell of burning incense at high mass.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn