Z > Z's Quotes

“Certainly paradise, whatever, wherever it be, contains flaws. (Paradisical flaws, if you like.) If it did not, it would be incapable of drawing the hearts of men or angels.”
― Henry Miller, Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch

“people can die of mere imagination”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

“I love everything that is old; old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wines.”
― Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield

“I armed her against the censures of the world, shewed her that books were sweet unreproaching companions to the miserable, and that if they could not bring us to enjoy life, they would at least teach us to endure it.”
― Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield

“…The more enormous our wealth, the more extensive our fears, all our possessions are paled up with new edicts every day, and hung round with gibbets to scare every invader.”
― Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield

“Villain, what hast thou done?
Aaron: That which thou canst not undo.
Chiron: Thou hast undone our mother.
Aaron: Villain, I have done thy mother.”
― William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus

“Instead of chopping yourself down to fit the world, chop the world down to fit yourself. ”
― D.H. Lawrence, Women in Love

“Forgiveness is not a feeling; it is a commitment.”
― Gary Chapman, The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate

“People tend to criticize their spouse most loudly in the area where they themselves have the deepest emotional need.”
― Gary Chapman, The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate

“Inside every child is an 'emotional rani's waiting to be filled with love. When a child really feels loved, he will develop normally but when the love tank is empty, the child will misbehave. Much of the misbehavior of children is motivated by the cravings of an empty 'love tank”
― Gary Chapman, The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate

“Most of us have more potential than we will ever develop. What holds us back is often a lack of courage.”
― Gary Chapman, The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate

“Psychologist William James said that possibly the deepest human need is the need to feel appreciated.”
― Gary Chapman, The Five Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts

“Third, one who is "in love" is not genuinely interested in fostering the personal growth of the other person. "If we have any purpose in mind when we fall in love it is to terminate our own loneliness and perhaps ensure this result through marriage.”
― Gary Chapman, The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate

“I am amazed by how many individuals mess up every new day with yesterday. They insist on bringing into today the failures of yesterday and in so doing, they pollute a potentially wonderful day.”
― Gary Chapman, The Five Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts

“It is not as a child that I believe and confess Jesus Christ. My hosanna is born of a furnace of doubt.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“Love is or it ain't. Thin love ain't love at all.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“You are your best thing”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“Me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“In this here place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard. Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despise it. They don't love your eyes; they'd just as soon pick em out. No more do they love the skin on your back. Yonder they flay it. And O my people they do not love your hands. Those they only use, tie, bind, chop off and leave empty. Love your hands! Love them. Raise them up and kiss them. Touch others with them, pat them together, stroke them on your face 'cause they don't love that either. You got to love it, you! And no, they ain't in love with your mouth. Yonder, out there, they will see it broken and break it again. What you say out of it they will not heed. What you scream from it they do not hear. What you put into it to nourish your body they will snatch away and give you leavins instead. No, they don't love your mouth. You got to love it. This is flesh I'm talking about here. Flesh that needs to be loved. Feet that need to rest and to dance; backs that need support; shoulders that need arms, strong arms I'm telling you. And O my people, out yonder, hear me, they do not love your neck unnoosed and straight. So love your neck; put a hand on it, grace it, stroke it and hold it up. and all your inside parts that they'd just as soon slop for hogs, you got to love them. The dark, dark liver--love it, love it and the beat and beating heart, love that too. More than eyes or feet. More than lungs that have yet to draw free air. More than your life-holding womb and your life-giving private parts, hear me now, love your heart. For this is the prize.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“Let me tell you something. A man ain’t a goddamn ax. Chopping, hacking, busting every goddamn minute of the day. Things get to him. Things he can’t chop down because they’re inside.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“You looking good."
"Devil's confusion. He lets me look good long as I feel bad.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“Risky, thought Paul D, very risky. For a used-to-be-slave woman to love anything that much was dangerous, especially if it was her children she had settled on to love. The best thing, he knew, was to love just a little bit, so when they broke its back, or shoved it in a croaker sack, well, maybe you'd have a little love left over for the next one.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“Whitepeople believed that whatever the manners, under every dark skin was a jungle. Swift unnavigable waters, swinging screaming baboons, sleeping snakes, red gums ready for their sweet white blood. In a way, he thought, they were right. The more coloredpeople spent their strength trying to convince them how gentle they were, how clever and loving, how human, the more they used themselves up to persuade whites of something Negroes believed could not be questioned, the deeper and more tangled the jungle grew inside. But it wasn’t the jungle blacks brought with them to this place from the other (livable) place. It was the jungle whitefolks planted in them. And it grew. It spread. In, through and after life, it spread, until it invaded the whites who had made it. Touched them every one. Changed and altered them. Made them bloody, silly, worse than even they wanted to be, so scared were they of the jungle they had made. The screaming baboon lived under their own white skin; the red gums were their own.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“But her brain was not interested in the future. Loaded with the past and hungry for more, it left her no room to imagine, let alone plan for, the next day.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“Sweet, she thought. He must think I can't bear to hear him say it. That after all I have told him and after telling me how many feet I have, "goodbye" would break me to pieces. Ain't that sweet.

"So long," she murmured from the far side of the trees.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“It’s gonna hurt, now,” said Amy. “Anything dead coming back to life hurts.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“If an offense come out of the truth, better is it that the offense come than that the truth be concealed.”
― Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles

“The greatest sorrow and burden you can lay on the Father, the greatest unkindness you can do to him is not to believe that he loves you.”
― John Owen, Communion with God