jasmin > jasmin's Quotes

“Because that was a parent’s job: to provide shoulders. Shoulders for your children to sit on when they’re little so they can see the world, then stand on when they get older so they can reach the clouds, and sometimes lean against whenever they stumble and feel unsure.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

“He is not elegant enough for a sonnett, too well-thought-out for a free write, taking too much space in my thoughts to ever be a haiku.”
― Elizabeth Acevedo, The Poet X

“If I were on fire
who could I count on
to water me down?

If I were a pile of ashes
who could I count on
to gather me in a pretty urn?

If I were nothing but dust
would anyone chase the wind
trying to piece me back together?”
― Elizabeth Acevedo, The Poet X

“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

“She wished she could visit Mariam's grave, to sit with her awhile, leave a flower or two. But she sees now that it doesn't matter. Mariam is never very far.... Mariam is in her own heart, where she shines with the bursting radiance of a thousand suns.”
― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

“Laila remembered Mammy telling Babi once that she had married a man who had no convictions. Mammy didn't understand. She didn't understand that if she looked into a mirror, she would find the one unfailing conviction of his life looking right back at her. ”
― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

“Mariam wished for so much in those final moments. Yet as she closed her eyes, it was not regret any longer but a sensation of abundant peace that washed over her. She thought of her entry into this world, the harami child of a lowly villager, an unintended thing, a pitiable, regrettable accident. A weed. And yet she was leaving the world as a woman who had loved and been loved back. She was leaving it as a friend, a companion, a guardian. A mother. A person of consequence at last. No. It was not so bad, Mariam thought, that she should die this way. Not so bad. This was a legitimate end to a life of illegitimate belongings”
― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

“You know what I noticed when I was with Jacob? In your world, people can reach each other in an instant. There's the telephone, and the fax - and on the computer you can talk to someone all the way around the world. You've got people telling their secrets on TV talk shows, and magazines that publish pictures of movie stars trying to hide their homes. All those connections, but everyone there seems so lonely.”
― Jodi Picoult, Plain Truth

“The English judged a person so that they'd be justified in casting her out. The Amish judged a person so that they'd be justified in welcoming her back. Where I'm from, if someone is accused of sinning, it's not so that others can place blame. It's so that the person can make amends and move on.”
― Jodi Picoult, Plain Truth

“Once upon a time there were two sisters. One of them was really, really strong, and one of them wasn't.' You looked at me. 'Your turn.'

I rolled my eyes. 'The strong sister went outside into the rain and realized the reason she was strong was because she was made out of iron, but it was raining and she rusted. The end.'

No, because the sister who wasn't strong went outside into the rain when it was raining, and hugged her really tight until the sun came out again.”
― Jodi Picoult, Handle with Care

“Do you know what the worst thing about being a parent is? That you're always judged by your worst moments. You can do a million things right, but if you do one single thing wrong you're forever that parent who was checking his phone in the park when your child was hit in the head by a swing. We don't take our eyes off them for days at a time, but then you read just one text message and it's as if all your best moments never happened. No one goes to see a psychologist to talk about all the times they weren't hit in the head by a swing as a child. Parents are defined by their mistakes.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“He was my echo. Everything I do is quieter now," she said to the other women in the closet.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“A little girl shouldn’t have to worry about her entire family,’ Grandpa says to me one afternoon….

‘What?’ I ask, not because I didn’t hear what he said, but because I’m confused. Of course a little girl should worry about her entire family. That’s what little girls do.

‘I just…’ He steps closer to me. ‘I just think…you deserve to be a kid.”
― Jennette McCurdy, I'm Glad My Mom Died

“We laughed about all the kids who believed in the Santa Clause myth and got nothing but a bunch of cheap plastic toys. 'Years from now, when all the junk they got is broken and long forgotten,' Dad said, ' you'll still have your stars.”
― Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

“Why am I trying to become what I don’t want to be … when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am.”
― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“Figure it out. Work a lifetime to pay off a house. You finally own it, and there's nobody to live in it.”
― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“I am not a dime a dozen! I am Willy Loman, and you are Biff Loman!”
― Arthur Miller , Death of a Salesman

“The only thing you got in this world is what you can sell.”
― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman: Certain Private Conversations in Two Acts and a Requiem

“Does it take more guts to stand here the rest of my life ringing up a zero?”
― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“At another time she asked,'what is a soul?'
' No one knows,'I replied; 'but we know it is not the body, and it is that part of us which thinks and loves and hopes'...[and] is invisible...'But if I write what my soul thinks,'she said, 'then it will be visible, and the words will be its body.”
― William Gibson, The Miracle Worker: A Play

“Seeing her sitting there unresponsive makes me realize that silence has a sound.”
― Jodi Picoult, My Sister's Keeper

“Africa.
That bird came from Africa.
But you mustn't cry for that bird, Paulie, because after a while it forgot about how the veldt smelled at noonday, and the sounds of the wildebeests at the waterhole, and the high acidic smell of the ieka-ieka trees in the great clearing north of the Big road. After awhile it forgot the cerise color of the sun dying behind Kilimanjaro. After awhile it only knew the muddy, smogged-out sunsets of Boston, that was all it remembered and all it wanted to remember. After awhile it didn't want to go back anymore, and if someone took it back and set it free it would only crouch in one place, afraid and hurting and homesick in two unknown and terribly ineluctable directions until something came along and killed it.
'Oh Africa, oh, shit,' he said in a trembling voice.”
― Stephen King, Misery

“It was never for you, Annie, or all the other people out there who sign their letters “Your number-one fan.” The minute you start to write all those people are at the other end of the galaxy, or something. It was never for my ex-wives, or my mother, or for my father. The reason authors almost always put a dedication on a book, Annie, is because their selfishness even horrifies themselves in the end. But”
― Stephen King, Misery

“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

“She stopped and listened to him and somehow his cheerful, friendly little whistle gave her a pleased feeling--even a disagreeable little girl may be lonely, and the big closed house and big bare moor and big bare gardens had made this one feel as if there was no one left in the world but herself. If she had been an affectionate child, who had been used to being loved, she would have broken her heart, but even though she was "Mistress Mary Quite Contrary" she was desolate, and the bright-breasted little bird brought a look into her sour little face which was almost a smile. She listened to him until he flew away. He was not like an Indian bird and she liked him and wondered if she should ever see him again. Perhaps he lived in the mysterious garden and knew all about it.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, Secret Garden

“And they both began to laugh over nothing as children will when they are happy together. And they laughed so that in the end they were making as much noise as if they had been two ordinary healthy natural ten-year-old creatures—instead of a hard, little, unloving girl and a sickly boy who believed that he was going to die.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

“Mistress Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With Silver Bells, and Cockle Shells,
And marigolds all in a row.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

“Might I,” quavered Mary, “might I have a bit of earth?”

In her eagerness she did not realize how queer the words would sound and that they were not the ones she had meant to say. Mr. Craven looked quite startled.

“Earth!” he repeated. “What do you mean?”

“To plant seeds in—to make things grow—to see them come alive,” Mary faltered.

He gazed at her a moment and then passed his hand quickly over his eyes.

“Do you—care about gardens so much,” he said slowly.

“I didn’t know about them in India,” said Mary. “I was always ill and tired and it was too hot. I sometimes made little beds in the sand and stuck flowers in them. But here it is different.”

Mr. Craven got up and began to walk slowly across the room.

“A bit of earth,” he said to himself, and Mary thought that somehow she must have reminded him of something. When he stopped and spoke to her his dark eyes looked almost soft and kind.

“You can have as much earth as you want,” he said. “You remind me of some one else who loved the earth and things that grow. When you see a bit of earth you want,” with something like a smile, “take it, child, and make it come alive.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

“...if truth were everywhere to be shown, a scarlet letter would blaze forth on many a bosom...”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter