Cj Grens > Cj's Quotes

“Name one hero who was happy."
I considered. Heracles went mad and killed his family; Theseus lost his bride and father; Jason's children and new wife were murdered by his old; Bellerophon killed the Chimera but was crippled by the fall from Pegasus' back.
"You can't." He was sitting up now, leaning forward.
"I can't."
"I know. They never let you be famous AND happy." He lifted an eyebrow. "I'll tell you a secret."
"Tell me." I loved it when he was like this.
"I'm going to be the first." He took my palm and held it to his. "Swear it."
"Why me?"
"Because you're the reason. Swear it."
"I swear it," I said, lost in the high color of his cheeks, the flame in his eyes.
"I swear it," he echoed.
We sat like that a moment, hands touching. He grinned.
"I feel like I could eat the world raw.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“I rose too high, loved too hard, dared too much. I tried to grasp a star, overreached, and fell.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“Foes and false friends are all around me, Lord Davos. They infest my city like roaches, and at night I feel them crawling over me.” The fat man’s fingers coiled into a fist, and all his chins trembled. “My son Wendel came to the Twins a guest. He ate Lord Walder’s bread and salt, and hung his sword upon the wall to feast with his friends. And they murdered him. Murdered, I say, and may the Freys choke upon their fables. I drink with Jared, jape with Symond, promise Rhaegar the hand of my own beloved granddaughter…but never think that means I have forgotten. The north remembers, Lord Davos. The north remembers, and the mummer’s farce is almost done. My son is home.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“Not all men were meant to dance with dragons.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“He'll be down with the books. My old septon used to say books are dead men talking. Dead men should keep quiet is what I say. No one wants to hear a dead man's yabber.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“Men's lives have meaning, not their deaths.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“I think the power of books is that - that they teach us to care about others. It's a power that gives people courage and also supports them in turn. [. . .] Empathy - that's the power of books.”
― Sōsuke Natsukawa, The Cat Who Saved Books

“Books can't live your life for you. The reader who forgets to walk on his own two feet is like an old encyclopaedia, his head stuffed with out-of-date information. Unless someone else opens it up, it's nothing but a useless antique.”
― Sōsuke Natsukawa, Il gatto che voleva salvare i libri

“If you find it difficult, it's because it contains something that is new to you. Every difficult book offers us a brand-new challenge.”
― Sōsuke Natsukawa, The Cat Who Saved Books

“Books are filled with human thoughts and feelings. People suffering, people who are sad or happy, laughing with joy. By reading their words and their stories, by experiencing them together, we learn about the hearts and minds of other people besides ourselves. Thanks to books, it’s possible to learn not only about the people around us every day, but people living in totally different worlds.”
― Sōsuke Natsukawa, The Cat Who Saved Books

“Don’t hurt anyone. Never bully people weaker than yourself. Help out those in need. Some would say that these rules are obvious. But the truth is, the obvious is no longer obvious in today’s world. What’s worse is that some people even ask why. They don’t understand why they shouldn’t hurt other people. It’s not a simple thing to explain. It’s not logical. But if they read books they will understand. It’s far more important than using logic to explain something. Human beings don’t live alone, and a book is a way to show them that.”
― Sōsuke Natsukawa, The Cat Who Saved Books

“This world throws all kinds of obstacles at us, we are forced to endure so much that is absurd. Our best weapon for fighting all the pain and trouble in the world isn't logic or violence. It's humour.”
― Sōsuke Natsukawa, Il gatto che voleva salvare i libri

“In the same way that music is made up of more than notes, books are more than just words.”
― Sōsuke Natsukawa, The Cat Who Saved Books

“Being able to express shallow words of sympathy in a sweet voice doesn't make someone a caring, compassionate soul. What's important is the ability to have empathy for another human being--to be able to feel their pain, to walk alongside them in their suffering.”
― Sōsuke Natsukawa, The Cat Who Saved Books

“Books have tremendous power. But take care. It’s the book that holds the power, not you.”
― Sōsuke Natsukawa, The Cat Who Saved Books

“Reading a book is a lot like climbing a mountain.” “What do you mean?” His curiosity piqued, Rintaro had finally looked up from his book. His grandfather wafted his teacup slowly under his nose as if savoring the aroma of the tea. “Reading isn’t only for pleasure or entertainment. Sometimes you need to examine the same lines deeply, read the same sentences over again. Sometimes you sit there, head in hands, only progressing at a painstakingly slow pace. And the result of all this hard work and careful study is that suddenly you’re there and your field of vision expands. It’s like finding a great view at the end of a long climbing trail.”
― Sōsuke Natsukawa, The Cat Who Saved Books

“In our stifling daily lives, we’re all so occupied with ourselves that we stop thinking about others. When a person loses their own heart, they can’t feel another’s pain. They lie, hurt others, use weaker people as stepping stones to get ahead – they stop feeling anything. The world has become full of those kinds of people.”
― Sōsuke Natsukawa, The Cat Who Saved Books

“Suddenly the cat spoke
' Books have a soul'

' A book that sits on a shelf is nothing but a bundle of paper. Un less it is opened, a book possessing great power an epic story is a mere scrap of paper. but a book that has been cherished and loved , filled with human thoughts has been endowed with a soul”
― Sōsuke Natsukawa, The Cat Who Saved Books

“Like dry ground welcoming the rain, he let the solitude, silence, and loneliness soak in.”
― Haruki Murakami, Men Without Women

“So in the end maybe that’s the challenge: to look inside your own heart as perceptively and seriously as you can, and to make peace with what you find there. If we hope to truly see another person, we have to start by looking within ourselves.” Takatsuki”
― Haruki Murakami, Men Without Women

“Music has that power to revive memories, sometimes so intensely that they hurt. But”
― Haruki Murakami, Men Without Women

“There were times he thought it would have been far better to never have known. Yet he continued to return to his core principle: that, in every situation, knowledge was better than ignorance. However agonizing, it was necessary to confront the facts. Only through knowing could a person become strong.”
― Haruki Murakami, Men Without Women

“I wish there was a machine that could accurately measure sadness, and display it in numbers that you could record. And it would be great if that machine could fit in the palm of your hand. I think of this every time I measure the air in my tires.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hombres sin mujeres

“I've finally experienced what the poet felt. The deep sense of loss after you've met the woman you love, have made love, then said goodbye. Like you're suffocating. The same emotion hasn't changed at all in a thousand years.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hombres sin mujeres

“When I thought of how I’d been living, how I’d been approaching life, it was all so trite, so miserably pointless. Unimaginative middle-class rubbish, and I wanted to gather it all up and stuff it away in some drawer. Or else light it on fire and watch it go up in smoke (though what kind of smoke it would emit I had no idea).”
― Haruki Murakami, Men Without Women

“Women are all born with a special, independent organ that allows them to lie. This was Dr. Tokai's personal opinion. It depends on the person, he said about the kind of lies they tell, what situation they tell them in, and how the lies are told. But at a certain point in their lives, all women tell lies, and they lie about important things. They lie about unimportant things, too, but they also don't hesitate to lie about the most important things. And when they do, most women's expressions and voices don't change at all, since it's not them lysing, but this independent organ they're equipped with that's acting on its own. That's why - except for a few special cases - they can still have a clear conscience and never lose sleep over anything they say.”
― Haruki Murakami, Men Without Women

“It's strange, isn't it?' the woman said in a pensive voice. 'Everything is blowing up around us, but there are still those who care about a broken lock, and others who are dutiful enough to try to fix it... But maybe that's the way it should be. Maybe working on the little things as dutifully and honestly as we can is how we stay sane when the world is falling apart.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hombres sin mujeres

“The proposition that we can look into another person's heart with perfect clarity strikes me as a fool's game. I don't care how well we think we should understand them, or how much we love them. All it can do is cause us pain. Examining your own heart, however, is another matter. I think it's possible to see what's in there if you work hard enough at it. So in the end maybe that’s the challenge: to look inside your own heart as perceptively and seriously as you can, and to make peace with what you find there. If we hope to truly see another person, we have to start by looking within ourselves.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hombres sin mujeres

“When I should have felt real pain, I stifled it. I didn’t want to take it on, so I avoided facing up to it. Which is why my heart is so empty now.”
― Haruki Murakami, Men Without Women