Nikki > Nikki's Quotes

“My hour for tea is half-past five, and my buttered toast waits for nobody.”
― Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

“If he be Mr. Hyde" he had thought, "I shall be Mr. Seek.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“The difference between treason and patriotism is only a matter of dates.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality.”
― Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

“Any woman who is sure of her own wits, is a match, at any time, for a man who is not sure of his own temper.”
― Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

“Son, the greatest trick the Devil pulled was convincing the world there was only one of him.”
― David Wong, John Dies at the End

“You can't imagine how stupid the whole world has grown nowadays.”
― Nikolai Gogol , Dead Souls

“Everyone dies. I just choose the time and place for some of them!”
― Gaston Leroux

“To love another person is to see the face of God.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“THERE were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.”
― Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

“Don't let the bastards grind you down.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

“You have been the last dream of my soul.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“I sat in the sun on a bench; the animal within me licking the chops of memory; the spiritual side a little drowsed, promising subsequent penitence, but not yet moved to begin.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

“You can't throw too much style into a miracle.”
― Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

“Beauty will save the world.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot

“Life is a slope. As long as you're going up you're always looking towards the top and you feel happy, but when you reach it, suddenly you can see the road going downhill and death at the end of it all. It's slow going up and quick going down.”
― Guy de Maupassant, Bel-Ami

“Vengeance and retribution require a long time; it is the rule.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“When shall we live if not now?”
― Shirley Jackson, The Sundial

“You see, Frank found out the hard way that the dark things lurking in the night don’t haunt old houses or abandoned ships. They haunt minds.”
― David Wong, John Dies at the End

“It's not difficult to appear bright, don't worry. The main thing is never to show obvious ignorance of anything. You prevaricate, avoid the difficulty, steer clear of the problem and then catch other people out by using a dictionary. All men are stupid oafs and ignorant nincompoops.”
― Guy de Maupassant, Bel-Ami

“The bathroom door burst open, and Molly came trotting out. The left half of her body had been shaved almost down to the skin. The right half was as shaggy as before. John emerged after her, brushing a layer of dog hair off his clothes.

John said, "Well, that's done... It was Molly's idea. She wants to look like two different dogs when she's coming and going. She thinks it will make it easier for her to steal food... That's one complicated dog, Dave. Have you started on the bomb?”
― David Wong, John Dies at the End

“However stupid a fool's words may be, they are sometimes enough to confound an intelligent man.”
― Nikolai Gogol, Dead Souls

“The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read. Not by any other person, and not even by yourself at some later date. Otherwise you begin excusing yourself. You must see the writing as emerging like a long scroll of ink from the index finger of your right hand; you must see your left hand erasing it.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

“How did I escape? With difficulty. How did I plan this moment? With pleasure.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“I saw that I’d get nowhere on the straight path, and that to go crookedly was straighter.”
― Nikolai Gogol, Dead Souls

“In fact living is dying.”
― Guy de Maupassant, Bel-Ami

“He never went out without a book under his arm, and he often came back with two.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“Death may beget life, but oppression can beget nothing other than itself.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities