Fernanda > Fernanda's Quotes

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“I want to do something splendid...something heroic or wonderful that won't be forgotten after I'm dead. I don't know what, but I'm on the watch for it and mean to astonish you all someday.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

“There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! -- When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“but for my own part, if a book is well written, I always find it too short.”
― Jane Austen

“Run mad as often as you choose, but do not faint!”
― Jane Austen, Love and Freindship

“It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy;—it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others.”
― Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

“I like good strong words that mean something…”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

“She is probably by this time as tired of me, as I am of her; but as she is too Polite and I am too civil to say so, our letters are still as frequent and affectionate as ever, and our Attachment as firm and sincere as when it first commenced.”
― Jane Austen, Love and Freindship

“There is so much I hope to teach you, little one. I hope that I may do so by example, but I feel the need
to put the words to
paper as well. It is a quirk of mine, one which I expect you will recognize and find amusing by the time
you read this letter.
Be strong.
Be diligent.
Be conscientious. There is never anything to be gained by taking the easy road. (Unless, of course, the
road is an easy one to begin with. Roads sometimes are. If that should be the case, do not forge a new,
more difficult one. Only martyrs go out
looking for trouble.)
Love your siblings. You have two already, and God willing, there will be more. Love them well, for they
are your blood,
and when you are unsure, or times are difficult, they will be the ones to stand by your side.
Laugh. Laugh out loud, and laugh often. And when circumstances call for silence, turn your laugh into a
smile.
Don't settle. Know what you want and reach for it. And if you don't know what you want, be patient.
The answers will
come to you in time, and you may find that your heart s desire has been right under your nose all the
while.
And remember, always remember that you have a mother and a father who love each other and love
you.
I feel you growing restless. Your father is making strange gasping sounds and will surely lose his temper
altogether if I
do not move from my escritoire to my bed.
Welcome to the world, little one. We are all so delighted to make your acquaintance.”
― Julia Quinn, To Sir Phillip, With Love

“I had to do something," she said. "I couldn't just sit and wait for life to happen to me any longer.”
― Julia Quinn, To Sir Phillip, With Love

“Be strong. Be diligent. Be conscientious. There is never anything to be gained by taking the easy road.”
― Julia Quinn, To Sir Phillip, With Love

“I hate ordinary people!”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

“she was explaining to me that I had won nothing, that in the world there is nothing to win, that her life was full of varied and foolish adventures as much as mine, and that time simply slipped away without any meaning, and it was good just to see each other every so often to hear the mad sound of the brain of one echo in the mad sound of the brain of the other.”
― Elena Ferrante, The Story of a New Name

“Unlike stories, real life, when it has passed, inclines toward obscurity, not clarity.”
― Elena Ferrante, The Story of the Lost Child

“We told each other everything, even the little things, and were happy.”
― Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend

“The universe is big, its vast and complicated, and ridiculous. And sometimes, very rarely, impossible things just happen and we call them miracles. And that's the theory. Nine hundred years, never seen one yet, but this would do me.”
― Steven Moffat

“I've never been free in my whole life. Inside I've always chased myself. I've become intolerable to myself. I live in a lacerating duality. I'm seemingly free, but I'm a prisoner inside of me.”
― Clarice Lispector, A Breath of Life

“You see? In the fairy tales one does as one wants, and in reality one does what one can.”
― Elena Ferrante, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

“I would always be afraid: afraid of saying the wrong thing, of using an exaggerated tone, of dressing unsuitably, of revealing petty feelings, of not having interesting thoughts.”
― Elena Ferrante, The Story of a New Name

“Please, in all this muddle of life, continue to be a bright and constant star. Just a few things remain as beacons: poetry, and you, and solitude.”
― Vita Sackville-West, Love Letters: Vita and Virginia

“Don't mind being as miserable as you like with me - I have a great turn that way myself - [VW]”
― Vita Sackville-West, The Letters of Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf

“No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own / Three Guineas

“I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse, perhaps, to be locked in.”
― Virginia Woolf

“She had the perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, out, far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very, dangerous to live even one day.”
― Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

“I have lost friends, some by death...others by sheer inability to cross the street.”
― Virginia Woolf

“Talk of solitude (...). It is the last resort of the civilised: our souls are so creased and soured in meaning we can only unfold them when we are alone. (5/4/1927 - From a Letter to Vita Sackville-West)”
― Virginia Woolf, The Letters of Virginia Woolf: Volume Three, 1923-1928

“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke