Ilona Malygin > Ilona's Quotes

“The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.”
― Elie Wiesel

“And, by the way, I adore you.... in frightening, dangerous ways.”
― Stephenie Meyer, Midnight Sun [2008 Draft]

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”
― Stephen King

“You should date a girl who reads.
Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.”
― Rosemarie Urquico

“She loved the guy. She did it for him. She would’ve done anything for him. Some people are like that. Some loves are like that. Most loves are like that, from what I can see. Your heart starts to feel like an overcrowded lifeboat. You throw your pride out to keep it afloat, and your self-respect and your independence. After a while you start throwing people out—your friends, everyone you used to know. And it’s still not enough. The lifeboat is still sinking, and you know it’s going to take you down with it. I’ve seen that happen to a lot of people here. I think that’s why I’m sick of love.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“A man has to find a good woman, and when he finds her he has to win her love. then he has to earn her respect. then he has to cherish her trust. and then he has to, like, go on doing that for as long as they live. Until they both die. That's what it's all about. That's the most important thing in the world. That's what a man is, Yaar. A man is truly a man when he wins the love of a good woman, earns her respect, and keeps her trust. Until you do that, you're not a man.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“You know the difference between news and gossip, don't you? News tells you what people did. Gossip tells you how much they enjoyed it.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“Food is music to the body, music is food to the heart.”
― Gregory David Roberts

“Luck is what happens to you when fate gets tired of waiting”
― Gregory David Roberts

“Friendship is an Algebra test that nobody passes.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“Powerful people have no regrets.”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“Love is a one-way street. Love, like respect isn't something you get; it's something you give”
― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

“I am a forest, and a night of dark trees: but he who is not afraid of my darkness, will find banks full of roses under my cypresses.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

“There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.”
― Nietzsche, Friedrich, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

“نحن نحب الحياة، لا لأننا تعودنا على الحياة، بل لأننا تعودنا على الحب”
― فريدريش نيتشه, هكذا تكلم زرادشت: كتاب للجميع ولغير أحد

“But the worst enemy you can meet will always be yourself; you lie in wait for yourself in caverns and forests. Lonely one, you are going the way to yourself! And your way goes past yourself, and past your seven devils! You will be a heretic to yourself and witch and soothsayer and fool and doubter and unholy one and villain. You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame: how could you become new, if you had not first become ashes?”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

“I change too quickly: my today refutes my yesterday. When I ascend I often jump over steps, and no step forgives me that.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

“But it is the same with man as with the tree. The more he seeks to rise into the height and light, the more vigorously do his roots struggle earthword, downword, into the dark, the deep - into evil.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.”
― Dr. Seuss

“True forgiveness is when you can say, "Thank you for that experience.”
― Oprah Winfrey

“Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure. ”
― Oprah Winfrey

“You get in life what you have the courage to ask for.”
― Oprah Winfrey

“What I love most about reading: It gives you the ability to reach higher ground. And keep climbing.”
― Oprah Winfrey, What I Know for Sure

“«The happiest people don't have the best of everything, they make the best of everything.»”
― Oprah Winfrey

“Lesson no. 17: Happiness is caring about the happiness of those you love.”
― François Lelord, Hector and the Search for Happiness

“He had realised that it was Clara he loved, and that he loved her in many different ways. (Because there are even more ways of loving than there are ways of being happy, but it would take another book to explain them all.)”
― François Lelord, Hector and the Search for Happiness

“Be vary wary of people who declare that they're going to create heaven on earth, they almost invariably create hell.”
― François Lelord, Hector and the Search for Happiness

“Knowing and feeling are two different things, and feeling is what counts.”
― François Lelord, Hector and the Search for Happiness

“I have never voted in my life... I have always known and understood that the idiots are in a majority so it's certain they will win.”
― Louis-Ferdinand Céline