Emily Wright > Emily's Quotes

“Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale

“But who can remember pain, once it’s over? All that remains of it is a shadow, not in the mind even, in the flesh. Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

“But remember that forgiveness too is a power. To beg for it is a power, and to withhold or bestow it is a power, perhaps the greatest.
Maybe none of this is about control. Maybe it isn't really about who can own whom, who can do what to whom and get away with it, even as far as death. Maybe it isn't about who can sit and who has to kneel or stand or lie down, legs spread open. Maybe it's about who can do what to whom and be forgiven for it. Never tell me it amounts to the same thing.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

“The more difficult it was to love the particular man beside us, the more we believed in Love, abstract and total. We were waiting, always, for the incarnation. That word, made flesh.
And sometimes it happened, for a time. That kind of love comes and goes and is hard to remember afterwards, like pain. You would look at the man one day and you would think, I loved you, and the tense would be past, and you would be filled with a sense of wonder, because it was such an amazing and precarious and dumb thing to have done (...)”
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

“Nearly everything I know about love, I've learnt from my long-term friendships with women.”
― Dolly Alderton, Everything I Know About Love

“To choose to love is to take a risk”
― Dolly Alderton, Everything I Know About Love

“I gave almost all of my energy away to other people when no one had asked it of me.”
― Dolly Alderton, Everything I Know About Love

“I know what it is to love someone and accept that you can’t change certain things about them;”
― Dolly Alderton, Everything I Know About Love

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

“When you’re looking for love and it seems like you might not ever find it, remember you probably have access to an abundance of it already, just not the romantic kind. This kind of love might not kiss you in the rain or propose marriage. But it will listen to you, inspire and restore you. It will hold you when you cry, celebrate when you’re happy, and sing All Saints with you when you’re drunk. You have so much to gain and learn from this kind of love. You can carry it with you forever. Keep it as close to you as you can.”
― Dolly Alderton, Everything I Know About Love

“I am always half in life, half in a fantastical version of it in my head.”
― Dolly Alderton, Everything I Know About Love

“Love is a quiet, reassuring, relaxing, pottering, pedantic, harmonious hum of a thing; something you can easily forget is there, even though its palms are outstretched beneath you in case you fall.”
― Dolly Alderton, Everything I Know About Love

“You are the sum total of everything that has happened to you.”
― Dolly Alderton, Everything I Know About Love

“It was at this time that I was reminded of the chain of support that keeps a sufferer afloat – the person at the core of a crisis needs the support of their family and best friends, while those people need support from their friends, partners and family. Then even those people twice removed might need to talk to someone about it too. It takes a village to mend a broken heart.”
― Dolly Alderton, Everything I Know About Love

“You only get to keep what you refuse to let go of.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Here I Am

“Our stories are so fundamental to us that it’s easy to forget that we choose them.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Here I Am

“It’s easy to be close, but almost impossible to stay close. Think about friends. Think about hobbies. Even ideas. They’re close to us—sometimes so close we think they are part of us—and then, at some point, they aren’t close anymore. They go away. Only one thing can keep something close over time: holding it there. Grappling with it. Wrestling it to the ground, as Jacob did with the angel, and refusing to let go. What we don’t wrestle we let go of. Love isn’t the absence of struggle. Love is struggle.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Here I Am

“In sickness and in sickness. That is what I wish for you. Don't seek or expect miracles. There are no miracles. Not anymore. And there are no cures for the hurt that hurts most. There is only the medicine of believing each other's pain, and being present for it.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Here I Am

“And what is love, in the end?" Alabaster said. "Except the irrational desire to put evolutionary competitiveness aside in order to ease someone else's journey through life?”
― Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

“If you're always aiming for perfection, you won't make anything at all.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

“There’s nowhere in existence you could go that I wouldn’t find you, Violence.”
― Rebecca Yarros, Fourth Wing

“Keep reaching out your hand.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A ​Court of Silver Flames

“I cannot survive without reading.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Silver Flames

“I believe the truth is only offensive when we're lying.”
― Matthew McConaughey, Greenlights

“We cannot fully appreciate the light without the shadows. We have to be thrown off balance to find our footing. It’s better to jump than fall. And here I am.”
― Matthew McConaughey, Greenlights

“Death, family crisis, and newborns—the end of a life, trying to keep a life, and welcoming in a new one—these are three things that will shake your floor, give you clarity, remind you of your mortality, and hence, give you courage to live harder, stronger, and truer. Three things that make you ask yourself, “What matters?” Three things that make you realize, “It all does.”
― Matthew McConaughey, Greenlights

“It’s okay to be the teacup with a chip in it. That’s the one with a story.”
― Matt Haig, The Comfort Book

“In order to get over a problem it helps to look at it. You can’t climb a mountain that you pretend isn’t there.”
― Matt Haig, The Comfort Book

“You can’t change the past. You can’t change other people. You can change you though. You narrate this story. So start to write a new chapter.”
― Matt Haig, The Comfort Book

“The sky isn’t more beautiful if you have perfect skin. Music doesn’t sound more interesting if you have a six-pack. Dogs aren’t better company if you’re famous. P izza tastes good regardless of your job title. The best of life exists beyond the things we are encouraged to crave.”
― Matt Haig, The Comfort Book