Catherine > Catherine's Quotes

“I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“I always say a little prayer when I put cakes in the oven,” remarked Eve, as she stopped to kiss Rose good-bye.

“What do you say?”

“I say, ‘Please, God, don’t let me forget I’ve put that cake in the oven.”
― Hilary McKay, Permanent Rose

“If most of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again

“There is one terrible weakness you can have if you amusedly and self-deprecatingly describe yourself as an artist and become famous. One letdown if you become loved by millions and your work is meaningful work and that is if some of the millions that know you and love you are teenage girls. There is nothing more shaming than to be loved by teenage girls. The love of teenage girls is not merely substandard or worthless it is an active mortification to an artist. Our language is full of how little we think of artists that are loved by teenage girls, we talk of mad fans and teenyboppers and little girls wetting their knickers. Ohh, you can take those girls' money and become elevated on their devotion and enjoy them putting you at number one. You can do all those things, no band ever refused them but you do not respect those girls, you do not want to talk to them or look them in the eye, or hang out with them or love them back. You do not talk about them unless it is to turn to your cool fans, the men, and mouth "Sorry, these mad girls have crushed the party. So embarrassing!" (...)Men are the right fans to have. This is why rock is cooler than pop, acid house is cooler than disco, prog is cooler than boy bands. Things boys love are cooler than things girls love. That is a simple fact. Boys love clever things cleverly, girls love foolish things foolishly. How awful it would be love bands like teenage girls do? How awful it would be to be the wrong kind of fan? A girl. How awful it would be to be a dumb, hysterical, screaming teenage girl? How amazing it is to be a dumb, hysterical, screaming teenage girl? ...”
― Caitlin Moran, How to be Famous

“I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.”
― Jane Austen, Jane Austen's Letters

“My pet, the world can forgive practically anything except people who mind their own business" - Rhett Butler”
― Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind

“There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“Laugh as much as you choose, but you will not laugh me out of my opinion.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“We all know him to be a proud, unpleasant sort of man; but this would be nothing if you really liked him.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman's inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman's fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men."

"Perhaps I shall. Yes, yes, if you please, no reference to examples in books. Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything.”
― Jane Austen, Persuasion

“I wish, as well as everybody else, to be perfectly happy; but, like everybody else, it must be in my own way.”
― Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

“Friendship ... is born at the moment when one man says to another "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“Crying is all right in its way while it lasts. But you have to stop sooner or later, and then you still have to decide what to do.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair

“Aravis immediately began, sitting quite still and using a rather different tone and style from her usual one. For in Calormen, story-telling (whether the stories are true or made up) is a thing you're taught, just as English boys and girls are taught essay-writing. The difference is that people want to hear the stories, whereas I never heard of anyone who wanted to read the essays.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy

“It's the job that's never started as takes longest to finish.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

“It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end… because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing… this shadow. Even darkness must pass.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

“It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“Life is sometimes sad and often dull, but there are currants in the cake, and here is one of them.”
― Nancy Mitford, The Pursuit of Love

“I have often noticed that when women look at themselves in every reflection, and take furtive peeps into their looking-glasses, it is hardly ever, as is generally supposed, from vanity, but much more often from a feeling that all is not quite as it should be”
― Nancy Mitford, The Pursuit of Love

“Any man who was fool enough to fall for a simper, a faint and an 'Oh how wonderful you are!' wasn't worth having. But they all seemed to like it.”
― Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind

“Elinor agreed to it all, for she did not think he deserved the compliment of rational opposition.”
― Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

“I never wish to offend, but I am so foolishly shy, that I often seem negligent, when I am only kept back by my natural awkwardness. [...] Shyness is only the effect of a sense of inferiority in some way or other. If I could persuade myself that my manners were perfectly easy and graceful, I should not be shy.”
― Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

“It’s true I do have time and freedom and I love it, sometimes. But the notion that I should be “making the most of it”, travelling the world or out every night, there’s a kind of tyranny in that too, that life has to be full, like your life’s a hole that you have to keep filling, a leaky bucket, and not just fulfilled but seen to be fulfilled. “You don’t have kids, why can’t you speak Portuguese?” Do I have to have hobbies and projects and lovers? Do I have to excel? Can’t I just be happy, or unhappy, just mess about and read and waste time and be unfulfilled by myself?”
― David Nicholls, You Are Here

“Perhaps there can be too much making of cups of tea, I thought, as I watched Miss Statham filling the heavy teapot. Did we really need a cup of tea? I even said as much to Miss Statham and she looked at me with a hurt, almost angry look, 'Do we need tea? she echoed. 'But Miss Lathbury...' She sounded puzzled and distressed and I began to realise that my question had struck at something deep and fundamental. It was the kind of question that starts a landslide in the mind. I mumbled something about making a joke and that of course one needed tea always, at every hour of the day or night.”
― Barbara Pym, Excellent Women

“If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

“It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

“Is it true that you shouted at Professor Umbridge?"
"Yes."
"You called her a liar?"
"Yes."
"You told her He Who Must Not Be Named is back?"
"Yes."
"Have a biscuit, Potter.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

“You know, Minister, I disagree with Dumbledore on many counts...but you cannot deny he's got style...”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

“Dumbledore says people find it far easier to forgive others for being wrong than being right.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince