Belén > Belén's Quotes

“The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them--words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were In your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear.”
― Stephen King, The Body

“Paint it as you see it,' he had said in his lifetime. 'Even if it's a sunny day but you see darkness and shadows. Paint it as you see it”
― Ruta Sepetys, Between Shades of Gray

“Anyone whose goal is 'something higher' must expect someday to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear of falling? No, Vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“You never know what's around the corner. It could be everything. Or it could be nothing. You keep putting one foot in front of the other, and then one day you look back and you've climbed a mountain.”
― Tom Hiddleston

“Some people turn sad awfully young. No special reason, it seems, but they seem almost to be born that way. They bruise easier, tire faster, cry quicker, remember longer and, as I say, get sadder younger than anyone else in the world. I know, for I'm one of them.”
― Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

“I think when you are truly stuck, when you have stood still in the same spot for too long, you throw a grenade in exactly the spot you were standing in, and jump, and pray. It is the momentum of last resort.”
― Renata Adler, Speedboat

“You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever.”
― Jane Austen, Persuasion

“The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“La muerte no se reparte como si fuera un bien. Nadie anda en busca de tristezas.”
― Juan Rulfo, Pedro Páramo

“Me acordé de lo que me había dicho mi madre: "Allá me oirás mejor. Estaré más cerca de ti. Encontrarás más cercana la voz de mis recuerdos que la de mi muerte, si es que alguna vez la muerte ha tenido alguna voz." Mi madre... La viva.”
― Juan Rulfo, Pedro Páramo

“A wrongdoing doesn't give us the right to do wrong.”
― Ruta Sepetys, Between Shades of Gray

“Don't look forward to the day you stop suffering, because when it comes you'll know you're dead.”
― Tennessee Williams

“No existe ningún recuerdo por intenso que sea que no se apague...”
― Juan Rulfo, Pedro Páramo

“Oía de vez en cuando el sonido de las palabras, y notaba la diferencia. Porque las palabras que había oído hasta entonces, hasta entonces lo supe, no tenían ningún sonido, no sonaban; se sentían; pero sin sonido, como las que se oyen durante los sueños.”
― Juan Rulfo, Pedro Páramo

“Was it harder to die, or harder to be the one who survived? I was sixteen, an orphan in Siberia, but I knew. It was the one thing I never questioned. I wanted to live. I wanted to see my brother grow up. I wanted to see Lithuania”
― Ruta Sepetys, Between Shades of Gray

“Cada suspiro es como un sorbo de vida del que uno se deshace.”
― Juan Rulfo, Pedro Páramo

“The axiom of equality states that x always equals x: it assumes that if you have a conceptual thing named x, that it must always be equivalent to itself, that it has a uniqueness about it, that it is in possession of something so irreducible that we must assume it is absolutely, unchangeably equivalent to itself for all time, that its very elementalness can never be altered. But it is impossible to prove. Always, absolutes, nevers: these are the words, as much as numbers, that make up the world of mathematics. Not everyone liked the axiom of equality––Dr. Li had once called it coy and twee, a fan dance of an axiom––but he had always appreciated how elusive it was, how the beauty of the equation itself would always be frustrated by the attempts to prove it. It was the kind of axiom that could drive you mad, that could consume you, that could easily become an entire life.

But now he knows for certain how true the axiom is, because he himself––his very life––has proven it. The person I was will always be the person I am, he realizes. The context may have changed: he may be in this apartment, and he may have a job that he enjoys and that pays him well, and he may have parents and friends he loves. He may be respected; in court, he may even be feared. But fundamentally, he is the same person, a person who inspires disgust, a person meant to be hated.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

“Por suerte uno tiene madre, el buen lugar al que parece que siempre queremos volver.”
― Osvaldo Bazán, Y un día Nico se fue

“My husband, Andrius, says that evil will rule until good men or women choose to act. I believe him. This testimony was written to create an absolute record, to speak in a world where our voices have been extinguished. These writing may shock or horrify you, but that is not my intention. It is my greatest hope that the pages in this jar stir your deepest well of human compassion. I hope they prompt you to do something, to tell somone. Only then can we ensure that this kind of evil is never allowed to repeat itself.”
― Ruta Sepetys, Between Shades of Gray

“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”
― Mark Twain

“La terapia vendría después, cuando él intentara saber por qué me había dejado y yo intentase superar la angustia de haber sido abandonado; cuando viniesen todas las preguntas que no nos hicimos en ese momento y los comentarios sesudos, y el intento de racionalizar cada cosa que nos pasó. Y la comprobación asombrosa de que uno es un verdadero ignorante sobre su propia vida y que entonces, cómo pretender entender mínimamente a alguien que no es uno por más cerca que esté. Que vos sos vos, él es él y no hay manera de que él seas vos o viceversa. De que eso de "sos mi vida" es una mentira tan grande como un globo que se infla más allá de lo posible. Y explota. En tu cara.”
― Osvaldo Bazán, Y un día Nico se fue

“A guilty conscience is not worth extra food.”
― Ruta Sepetys, Between Shades of Gray

“Whether love of friend, love of country, love of God, or even love of enemy—love reveals to us the truly miraculous nature of the human spirit.”
― Ruta Sepetys, Between Shades of Gray

“People I didn't know formed a circle around me, sheltering me from view. They escorted me safely back to our jurta, undetected. They didn't ask for anything. They were happy to help someone, to succeed at something, even if they weren't to benefit. We'd been trying to touch the sky from the bottom of the ocean. I realized that if we boosted one another, maybe we'd get a little closer.”
― Ruta Sepetys, Between Shades of Gray

“But how can they just decide that we're animals? They don't even know us," I said.
"We know us," said Mother. "They're wrong. And don't ever allow them to convince you otherwise. Do you understand?”
― Ruta Sepetys, Between Shades of Gray

“November 20. Andrius's birthday. I had counted the days carefully. I wished him a happy birthday when I woke and thought about him while hauling logs during the day. At night, I sat by the light of the stove, reading Dombey and Son. Krasivaya. I still hadn't found the word. Maybe I'd find it if I jumped ahead. I flipped through some of the pages. A marking caught my eye. I leafed backward. Something was written in pencil in the margin of 278.
Hello, Lina. You've gotten to page 278. That's pretty good!
I gasped, then pretened I was engrossed in the book. I looked at Andrius's handwritting. I ran my finger over this elongated letters in my name. Were there more? I knew I should read onward. I couldn't wait. I turned though the pages carefully, scanning the margins.
Page 300:
Are you really on page 300 or are you skipping ahead now?
I had to stifle my laughter.
Page 322:
Dombey and Son is boring. Admit it.
Page 364:
I'm thinking of you.
Page 412:
Are you maybe thinking of me?
I closed my eyes.
Yes, I'm thinking of you. Happy birthday, Andrius.”
― Ruta Sepetys, Between Shades of Gray

“Was it harder to die, or harder to be the one who survived?”
― Ruta Sepetys, Between Shades of Gray

“Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. But neighbors give in return. We never put back into the tree what we took out of it: we had given him nothing, and it made me sad.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“Andrius, I'm...scared."

He stopped and turned to me. "No. Don't be scared. Don't give them anything Lina, not even your fear.”
― Ruta Sepetys, Between Shades of Gray

“Y, por lo que más quieran, no se detengan, no dejen de leer ahora simplemente porque se nos hayan terminado las páginas.”
― Santiago Posteguillo, La sangre de los libros: Enigmas y libros de la literatura universal