Liralen > Liralen's Quotes

“The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.”
― Terry Pratchett, Diggers

“Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH', the paint wouldn't even have time to dry.”
― Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

“Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.”
― Terry Pratchett

“A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read.”
― Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!

“Just erotic. Nothing kinky. It's the difference between using a feather and using a chicken.”
― Terry Pratchett, Eric

“Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.”
― Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

“If you have enough book space, I don't want to talk to you.”
― Terry Pratchett

“Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“No! Please! I'll tell you whatever you want to know!" the man yelled.
"Really?" said Vimes. "What's the orbital velocity of the moon?"
"What?"
"Oh, you'd like something simpler?”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

“I'd rather be a rising ape than a falling angel.”
― Terry Pratchett

“Always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual.”
― Terry Pratchett, Jingo

“Albert grunted. "Do you know what happens to lads who ask too many questions?"
Mort thought for a moment.
"No," he said eventually, "what?"
There was silence.
Then Albert straightened up and said, "Damned if I know. Probably they get answers, and serve 'em right.”
― Terry Pratchett, Mort

“And what would humans be without love?"
RARE, said Death.”
― Terry Pratchett, Sourcery

“Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
Elves are terrific. They beget terror.
The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.
No one ever said elves are nice.
Elves are bad.”
― Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies

“Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can. Of course, I could be wrong.”
― Terry Pratchett

“Chaos is found in greatest abundance wherever order is being sought. It always defeats order, because it is better organized.”
― Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times: The Play

“I do note with interest that old women in my books become young women on the covers... this is discrimination against the chronologically gifted.”
― Terry Pratchett

“She was already learning that if you ignore the rules people will, half the time, quietly rewrite them so that they don't apply to you.”
― Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites

“Joy is to fun what the deep sea is to a puddle. It’s a feeling inside that can hardly be contained.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“We taste and feel and see the truth. We do not reason ourselves into it.”
― William Butler Yeats

“No, you can't deny women their basic rights and pretend it's about your 'religious freedom'. If you don't like birth control, don't use it. Religious freedom doesn't mean you can force others to live by your own beliefs.”
― Barack Obama

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou

“In Blackwater Woods

Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders

of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is

nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.”
― Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems, Volume One

“Forgiveness is giving up all hope of having had a better past.”
― Anne Lamott

“Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.”
― Anne Lamott

“A fallen blossom
returning to the bough, I thought --
But no, a butterfly.”
― Arakida Moritake, Traditional Japanese Poetry: An Anthology

“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.”
― Philip K. Dick, I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon

“Pronin had them fill in the blank spaces: Emily Pronin et al., “You Don’t Know Me, But I Know You: The Illusion of Asymmetric Insight,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 81, no. 4 (2001): 639–56, APA PsychNET. I quoted part of Pronin’s conclusion. But the whole paragraph is worth considering: The conviction that we know others better than they know us—and that we may have insights about them they lack (but not vice versa)—leads us to talk when we would do well to listen and to be less patient than we ought to be when others express the conviction that they are the ones who are being misunderstood or judged unfairly. The same convictions can make us reluctant to take advice from others who cannot know our private thoughts, feelings, interpretations of events, or motives, but all too willing to give advice to others based on our views of their past behavior, without adequate attention to their thoughts, feelings, interpretations, and motives. Indeed, the biases documented here may create a barrier to the type of exchanges of information, and especially to the type of careful and respectful listening, that can go a long way to attenuating the feelings of frustration and resentment that accompany interpersonal and intergroup conflict.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know

“A little fragrance always clings to the hand that gives the roses.”
― Chinese Proverb