Izzy S > Izzy's Quotes

“The world is merciless, and it's also very beautiful.”
― Hajime Isayama

“The only thing we're allowed to believe is that we won't regret the choice we made.”
― Hajime Isayama

“THERE'S NOTHING FURTHER REMOVED FROM FREEDOM THAN IGNORANCE.”
― Hajime Isayama

“In order to rise
From its own ashes
A phoenix
First
Must
Burn.”
― Octavia Butler, Parable of the Talents

“First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you're inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won't. Habit is persistence in practice.”
― Octavia Butler, Bloodchild and Other Stories

“You don't start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it's good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it.
That's why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.”
― Octavia E. Butler

“Choose your leaders
with wisdom and forethought.
To be led by a coward
is to be controlled
by all that the coward fears.
To be led by a fool
is to be led
by the opportunists
who control the fool.
To be led by a thief
is to offer up
your most precious treasures
to be stolen.
To be led by a liar
is to ask
to be told lies.
To be led by a tyrant
is to sell yourself
and those you love
into slavery.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Talents

“I'm a pessimist if I'm not careful, a feminist, a Black,...an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty, and drive.”
― Octavia E. Butler

“Embrace diversity.
Unite—
Or be divided,
robbed,
ruled,
killed
By those who see you as prey.
Embrace diversity
Or be destroyed.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower

“Kindness eases change.
Love quiets fear.
And a sweet and powerful
Positive obsession
Blunts pain,
Diverts rage,
And engages each of us
In the greatest,
The most intense
Of our chosen struggles.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Talents

“Life is too short to be lived badly.”
― Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return

“In life you'll meet a lot of jerks. If they hurt you, tell yourself that it's because they're stupid. That will help keep you from reacting to their cruelty. Because there is nothing worse than bitterness and vengeance... Always keep your dignity and be true to yourself.”
― Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood

“It's fear that makes us lose our conscience. It's also what transforms us into cowards.”
― Marjane Satrapi, The Complete Persepolis

“Drowning people
Sometimes die
Fighting their rescuers.”
― Octavia Butler

“Create no images of God. Accept the images that God has provided. They are everywhere, in everything. God is Change— Seed to tree, tree to forest; Rain to river, river to sea; Grubs to bees, bees to swarm. From one, many; from many, one; Forever uniting, growing, dissolving— forever Changing. The universe is God’s self-portrait.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower

“That’s all anybody can do right now. Live. Hold out. Survive. I don’t know whether good times are coming back again. But I know that won’t matter if we don’t survive these times.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower

“Forever is composed of nows.”
― Emily Dickinson

“That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet.”
― Emily Dickinson

“I dwell in possibility…”
― Emily Dickinson

“If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain.”
― Emily Dickinson

“Every man is a king so long as he has someone to look down on.”
― Sinclair Lewis, It Can't Happen Here

“I think perhaps we want a more conscious life. We're tired of drudging and sleeping and dying. We're tired of seeing just a few people able to be individualists. We're tired of always deferring hope till the next generation. We're tired of hearing politicians and priests and cautious reformers... coax us, 'Be calm! Be patient! Wait! We have the plans for a Utopia already made; just wiser than you.' For ten thousand years they've said that. We want our Utopia now — and we're going to try our hands at it.”
― Sinclair Lewis, Main Street

“The Senator was vulgar, almost illiterate, a public liar easily detected, and in his "ideas" almost idiotic, while his celebrated piety was that of a traveling salesman for church furniture, and his yet more celebrated humor the sly cynicism of a country store.
Certainly there was nothing exhilarating in the actual words of his speeches, nor anything convincing in his philosophy. His political platforms were only wings of a windmill.”
― Sinclair Lewis, It Can't Happen Here

“He loved the people just as much as he feared and detested persons.”
― Sinclair Lewis, It Can't Happen Here

“I don't want to see religious bigotry in any form. It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it.”
― Billy Graham

“A sex symbol becomes a thing. I hate being a thing.”
― Marilyn Monroe

“No woman gets an orgasm from shining the kitchen floor. ”
― Betty Friedan

“I have no objection to anyone’s sex life as long as they don’t practice it in the street and frighten the horses.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Usually when you see females in movies, they feel like they have these metallic structures around them, they are caged by male energy.”
― Björk

“Love him,’ said Jacques, with vehemence, ‘love him and let him love you. Do you think anything else under heaven really matters? And how long, at the best, can it last, since you are both men and still have everywhere to go? Only five minutes, I assure you, only five minutes, and most of that, helas! in the dark. And if you think of them as dirty, then they will be dirty— they will be dirty because you will be giving nothing, you will be despising your flesh and his. But you can make your time together anything but dirty, you can give each other something which will make both of you better—forever—if you will not be ashamed, if you will only not play it safe.’ He paused, watching me, and then looked down to his cognac. ‘You play it safe long enough,’ he said, in a different tone, ‘and you’ll end up trapped in your own dirty body, forever and forever and forever—like me.”
― James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room