Andrea > Andrea's Quotes

“We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“In order to rise
From its own ashes
A phoenix
First
Must
Burn.”
― Octavia Butler, Parable of the Talents

“If you want a thing--truly want it, want it so badly that you need it as you need air to breathe, then unless you die, you will have it. Why not? It has you. There is no escape. What a cruel and terrible thing escape would be if escape were possible”
― Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Talents

“I will no longer mutilate and destroy myself in order to find a secret behind the ruins.”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

“To survive,
Let the past
Teach you--
Past customs,
Struggles,
Leaders and thinkers.
Let
These
Help you.
Let them inspire you,
Warn you,
Give you strength.
But beware:
God is Change.
Past is past.
What was
Cannot
Come again.

To survive,
know the past.
Let it touch you.
Then let
The past
Go.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Talents

“I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

“When your rage is choking you, it is best to say nothing.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Fledgling

“The half-life of love is forever.”
― Junot Díaz, This Is How You Lose Her

“. . . gentleness is stronger than severity, water is stronger than rock, love is stronger than force.”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“Luck is where preparation meets opportunity. ”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“What could I become if I stopped worrying about death, about pain, about anything? If I stopped trying to belong? Instead of being afraid, I could become something to fear.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“Adults constantly raise the bar on smart children, precisely because they're able to handle it. The children get overwhelmed by the tasks in front of them and gradually lose the sort of openness and sense of accomplishment they innately have. When they're treated like that, children start to crawl inside a shell and keep everything inside. It takes a lot of time and effort to get them to open up again. Kids' hearts are malleable, but once they gel it's hard to get them back the way they were.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“She wanted to die, but she also wanted to live in Paris.”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“If all you ever see is reality, you just want to die.”
― Durian Sukegawa, Les délices de Tokyo

“I know you may not be able to hear anything now, even if you try, but please don't give up. I fee sure that one day you will find whatever it is you seek, and that the spark that leads to it will come from hearing some kind of voice. People's lives never stay the same colour forever. There are times when the colour of life changes completely.”
― Durian Sukegawa, Sweet Bean Paste

“In America, one of my professors said once that the best art comes from an unbearable life—if you live through it, that is.”
― Frances Cha, If I Had Your Face

“I want them to think I’m stupid,” she said to me once. “No expectation is nice. It gives you a lot of time to think.”
― Frances Cha, If I Had Your Face

“IN THE ORIGINAL STORY, the little mermaid endures unspeakable pain to gain her human legs. The Sea Witch warns her that her new feet will feel as if she is walking on whetted blades, but she will be able to dance like no human has ever danced before. And so she drinks the witch’s potion, which slices through her body like a sword.
What I want to say, is that she danced divinely with her beautiful legs, even through the pain of a thousand knives. She was able to walk and run and stay close to her beloved prince, and even when things didn’t work out with him, that wasn’t the point.
And in the end, after she said goodbye to her prince and flung herself into the sea, expecting to disintegrate into sea foam, she was carried away by the children of light and air.
ISN’T THAT a beautiful story?”
― Frances Cha, If I Had Your Face

“Never settle for anything less. The greatest injustice you can do to yourself is to be mediocre. Do your best, even if you have to make a lot of sacrifices, even if you're afraid of failing, even if people discourage you and say otherwise. When you know that you have done all that you can, there will be no room for regret, shame, anger, humiliation, and frustration, no matter what.”
― Ronnie E. Baticulon, Some Days You Can’t Save Them All

“Everybody is in such a hurry to achieve something or become someone, that we forget to be thankful for what we have in the now. We are always where we are meant to be.”
― Ronnie E. Baticulon, Some Days You Can’t Save Them All

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“sometimes," said the horse.
"sometimes what?" asked the boy.
"Sometimes just getting up and carrying on is brave and magnificent.”
― Charlie Mackesy, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

“When the dark clouds come...

...keep going”
― Charlie Mackesy, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

“Satisfy your mind by responding to your senses.
We need to be actively conscious of them and not going about aimlessly in our daily lives. Note the differences between the following:
The passive state of seeing and the active state of looking.
The passive state of hearing and the active state of listening.
The passive state of noticing a smell and the active state of smelling something.
The passive state of tasting something and the active state of savouring it.
The passive state of touching something and the active state of feeling it.”
― Ryūnosuke Koike, The Practice of Not Thinking

“It didn't matter that there was a war on our doorstep. She had things to do, places to be.”
― Trevor Noah, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood

“I have spent all my life resisting the desire to end it.”
― Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena

“I’m doing badly, I’m doing well, whichever you prefer.”
― Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena

“Milena, if a million loved you, I am one of them, and if one loved you, it was me, if no one loved you then know that I am dead.”
― Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena