Jillian L > Jillian's Quotes

“It's never the changes we want that change everything.”
― Junot Diaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

“I would believe only in a God that knows how to dance.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“I wrote the story myself. It's about a girl who lost her reputation and never missed it.”
― Mae West

“I missed you even when I was with you. That’s been my problem. I miss what I already have, and I surround myself with things that are missing.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

“People always clap for the wrong reasons.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“Don't pay any attention to what they write about you. Just measure it in inches.”
― Andy Warhol

“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.”
― Mary Oliver

“When someone shows you who they are believe them the first time.”
― Maya Angelou

“The higher we soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

“If you don't live by the praise of men you won't die by their criticism.”
― Bill Johnson

“The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice --
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life you could save.”
― Mary Oliver

“The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“I'm no model lady. A model's just an imitation of the real thing.”
― Mae West

“Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness.”
― Anne Frank

“I think and think and think, I‘ve thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer

“to live in this world

you must be able
to do three things
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go”
― Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems, Volume One

“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”
― Maya Angelou

“Ten men waiting for me at the door? Send one of them home, I'm tired.”
― Mae West

“If I had known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself.”
― Mae West

“I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“You travel here and you travel there, trying to get out from under the cloud, and nothing works, and then one day you realize you've been carrying the weather around with you.”
― Chris Cleave, Little Bee

“I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“There are no beautiful surfaces without a terrible depth.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“Success is most often achieved by those who don't know that failure is inevitable.”
― Coco Chanel, Believing in Ourselves: The Wisdom of Women

“The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“Be careful, lest in casting out your demon you exorcise the best thing in you.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.”
― Albert Camus

“It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them!”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“Why didn't I learn to treat everything like it was the last time. My greatest regret was how much I believed in the future.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close