Ann Devalk > Ann's Quotes

“Everyone, including Robbin’ Robin, dashed for the house as rain hammered down on them, Mary slammed the back door shut just as the sky split open.”
― Susan Rowland, The Swan Lake Murders

“While Bonnie may love her books, her favorite thing of all is when kids from the school come over to visit.”
― Coco Calvoz Cordon, Debbie Wants No Words

“After the road reached the fjord, it continued to hug it all the way along until the waves of the North Sea started appearing.”
― David Øybo, Julebord: The Holiday Party

“Hope you’re not prone to nose bleeds. The course sits at the highest elevation in Texas. It’s flat as a pancake, but one day a guy in the group ahead of us had his superglued toupee ripped right off his head. Rumor was it rode the Rio Grande River all the way into Mexico,” Patrick said with a wink and a nod.”
― JoDee Neathery, A Kind of Hush

“Learning Is Light, and Ignorance Is Twilight”
― Alexander Morpheigh, The Pythagorean

“Few comprehend celibacy.
”
― K. Ritz, Sheever's Journal, Diary of a Poison Master

“Since there are many IE events in Madrid, networking opportunities abound”
― Pilar Calvoz Cordón, Shape Your Path at IE University : What to expect from Spain’s Instituto de Empresa University

“Ngo Diem was heard to say, “I want a repressive machine controlling the whole of the country of South Vietnam from Saigon to the remotest villages. You shall apply massacres, torture, deportations, and mass imprisonment while conducting constant raids. You shall make the population so fearful of this government that no-one shall ever dare to become a revolutionary or any other kind of outlaw!”

(A Gracious Enemy & After the War Volume Two)”
― Michael G. Kramer

“I saw a meme the other day with a picture of Marilyn Manson and Robin Williams. It said about the former, this isn’t the face of depression, and about the latter, this is. This really struck a chord and it’s been on my mind since then. As someone who has continuously dipped in and out of chronic depression and anxiety for close to three decades now, and I’ve never previously spoken about the subject, I finally thought it was time I did.
These days it’s trendy for people to think they’re cool and understanding about mental illness, posting memes and such to indicate so. But the reality is far different to that. It seems most people think if they publicly display such understanding then perhaps a friend will come to them, open up, and calmly discuss their problems. This will not happen. For someone in that seemingly hopeless void of depression and anxiety the last thing they are likely to do is acknowledge it, let alone talk about it. Even if broached by a friend they will probably deny there is a problem and feel even more distanced from the rest of the world.
So nobody can do anything to help, right? No. If right now you suspect one of your friends is suffering like this then you’re probably right. If right now you think that none of your friends are suffering like this then you’re probably wrong. By all means make your public affirmations of understanding, but at least take on board that an attempt to connect on this subject by someone you care about could well be cryptic and indirect.
When we hear of celebrities who suffered and finally took their own lives the message tends to be that so many close friends had no idea. This is woeful, but it’s also great, right? Because by not knowing there was a problem there is no burden of responsibility on anyone else. This is another huge misconception, that by acknowledging an indirect attempt to connect on such a complex issue that somehow you are accepting responsibility to fix it. This is not the case. You don’t have to find a solution. Maybe just listen. Many times over the years I’ve seen people recoil when they suspect that perhaps that is the direct a conversation is about to turn, and they desperately scramble for anything that can immediately change the subject. By acknowledging you’ve heard and understood doesn’t mean you are picking up their burden and carrying it for them.
Anyway, I’ve said my piece. And please don’t think this is me reaching out for help. If this was my current mindset the last thing I’d ever do is write something like this, let alone share it.”
― R.D. Ronald

“I hear I'm stronger than I look.”
― J. Rose Black, The Real Ones

“The grass was plush under his feet as he flew down the right flank of the field.”
― J L MARRAIN, THE GRIDD: PERILS OF THE LIGHTHOLDER

“Guess this ain’t the best time to shake hands.”
― Laurie Loveman, Memories

“We may be undermined by our survival instincts, honed over eons to help us deny, defy, or ignore catastrophic portents lest they paralyze us with fright.”
― Alan Weisman, The World Without Us

“Some people look like they sound better than they actually sound, because they look confident and have good posture," once musician, a veteran of many auditions, says. "Other people look awful when they play but sound great. Other people have that belabored look when they play, but you can't hear it in the sound. There is always this dissonance between what you see and hear" (p.251).”
― Malcolm Gladwell, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

“Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn't there. Theologians can persuade themselves of anything.”
― Robert A. Heinlein

“إن القصص تخبرنا كيف ينبغي لنا أن نعيش ..”
― Lisa See, Peony in Love

“I understand my parents quite well. They think of a wife as a man’s luxury, which he can afford only when he is making a comfortable living. I have a low opinion of this view of the relationship between man and wife, because it makes the wife and the prostitute distinguishable only insofar as the former is able to secure a lifelong contract from the man because of her more favourable social rank . . . Which”
― Robyn Arianrhod, Young Einstein: And the story of E=mc²

“People who make things also have an ambiguous relationship with time. Painters, writers, wood-carvers, knitters, weavers and, yes, glassmakers: creators often enter an absorbed state that psychologists call flow, in which hours pass without their noticing. Readers, too.”
― Tracy Chevalier, The Glassmaker