arwaa > arwaa's Quotes

“I keep thinking about this river somewhere, with the water moving really fast. And these two people in the water, trying to hold onto each other, holding on as hard as they can, but in the end it's just too much. The current's too strong. They've got to let go, drift apart. That's how it is with us. It's a shame, Kath, because we've loved each other all our lives. But in the end, we can't stay together forever.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“The true value of man is not determined by his possession, supposed or real, of Truth, but rather by his sincere exertion to get to the Truth. It is not possession of Truth by which he extends his powers and in which his ever-growing perfectability is to be found. Possession makes one passive, indolent and proud. If God were to hold all Truth concealed in his right hand, and in his left only the steady and diligent drive for Truth, albeit with the proviso that I would always and forever err in the process, and to offer me the choice, I would with all humility take the left hand. ”
― Gotthold Lessing

“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

“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”
― Socrates

“What is society but an individual? [...] The ocean is not society; it is individuals. This was how I managed to gain a modicum of freedom from my terror at the illusion of the ocean called the world.”
― Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human

“Everything passes.”
― Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human

“A society has no chance of success if its women are uneducated...”
― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

“It’s his father’s fault,” she said unemotionally. “The Yozo we knew was so easy-going and amusing, and if only he hadn’t drunk—no, even though he did drink—he was a good boy, an angel.”
― Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human

“Carpe Diem”
― Tom Schulman, Dead Poets Society

“Now I have neither happiness nor unhappiness.

Everything passes.

That is the one and only thing that I have thought resembled a truth in the society of human beings where I have dwelled up to now as in a burning hell.

Everything passes.”
― Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human

“Tell your secret to the wind, but don’t blame it for telling the trees.”
― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

“You won’t understand what I mean now, but someday you will: the only trick of friendship, I think, is to find people who are better than you are—not smarter, not cooler, but kinder, and more generous, and more forgiving—and then to appreciate them for what they can teach you, and to try to listen to them when they tell you something about yourself, no matter how bad—or good—it might be, and to trust them, which is the hardest thing of all. But the best, as well.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

“The search for truth is more precious than its possession.”
― Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

“A man's heart is a wretched, wretched thing. It isn't like a mother's womb. It won't bleed. It won't stretch to make room for you.”
― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

“I used to comfort myself with the belief that it was only certain individuals and their peculiar notions that spoilt things for the rest of us. But how many individuals does it take before it's not the individuals who are prejudiced but society itself?”
― Malorie Blackman, Noughts & Crosses

“I hadn't fully realized just how powerful words could be before this. Whoever came up with the saying 'sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me' was talking out of his or her armpit.”
― Malorie Blackman, Noughts & Crosses

“...how affectless his voice became when he switched into the language, that he recognized that he had unconsciously learned to adopt a certain tone when he talked to his parents, one emotionless and blunt, that was meant to echo their own.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

“Learn this now and learn it well. Like a compass facing north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman. Always. You remember that, Mariam.”
― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

“Write what you know. That should leave you with a lot of free time.”
― Howard Nemerov

“Excessively passionate characters have a tendency to behave poorly.”
― Osamu Dazai, Schoolgirl

“I have become lost to the world / In which I otherwise wasted so much time / It means nothing to me / Whether the world believes me dead / I can hardly say anything to refute it / For truly, I am no longer a part of the world.
[Jude's translation of Mahler's romantic lied 'Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen'.]”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

“I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race - that rarely do I ever simply estimate it.”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

“I am haunted by humans.”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

“Of course, winning is much better than losing. No argument there. But winning or losing doesn’t affect the weight and value of the time. It’s the same time, either way. A minute is a minute, an hour is an hour. We need to cherish it. We need to deftly reconcile ourselves with time, and leave behind as many precious memories as we can—that’s what’s the most valuable.”
― Haruki Murakami, First Person Singular: Stories

“I miss him.

With every breath and every heartbeat, I miss him.”
― Malorie Blackman, Knife Edge

“these memories return to me sometimes, traveling down a very long passageway to arrive. and when they do, their unexpected power shakes me to the core. like an autumn wind that gusts at night, swirling fallen leaves in a forest, flattening the pampas grass in fields, and pounding hard on the doors to people's homes, over and over again.”
― Haruki Murakami, First Person Singular: Stories

“Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

“I will follow you to the ends of the world.”
― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

“i read on nonetheless, partly out of duty, partly out of habit.”
― Haruki Murakami, First Person Singular: Stories

“This year I am twenty-seven. My hair has become much greyer. Most people would take me for over forty.”
― Osamu dazai, No Longer Human