Elise > Elise's Quotes

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
― Oscar Wilde

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.”
― Bernard M. Baruch

“To have nobody is to have not even yourself. Somebody loving you provides a certificate of existence. When a person feels alone, he can't exist without some small social fable.”
― Yasmina Reza, Babylone

“What there will be, unfortunately, on the one side is silence, and on the other, evidence of bitterness, evidence of injustice, lack of gentleness, lack of pity. An anatomy of melancholy.”
― Yasmina Reza, Desolation

“What did I do? I read books and studied. I listened to my parents and did what they asked me to. Even though, in the end, I never made them happy. I didn’t like myself, and something told me I’d end up alone.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, Whereabouts

“You always wanted calm seas. You used to claim you got along with everyone, that you kept to yourself, that you needed nothing from no one. But one can’t ask the sea to never swell into rage. And you asked a great deal from me.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, Whereabouts

“Solitude demands a precise assessment of time, I’ve always understood this. It’s like the money in your wallet: you have to know how much time you need to kill, how much to spend before dinner, what’s left over before going to bed.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, Whereabouts

“Each revelation was devastating. Everything she said. And yet, even as my life shattered in pieces, I felt as if I were finally coming up for air.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, Whereabouts

“Every time my surroundings change I feel enormous sadness. It’s not greater when I leave a place tied to memories, grief, or happiness. It’s the change itself that unsettles me, just as liquid in a jar turns cloudy when you shake it. —italo svevo, essays and uncollected writings”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, Whereabouts

“I might have said no, I might have just stayed put. But something’s telling me to push past the barrier of my life,”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, Whereabouts

“My dad’s point, I think, was that evil doesn’t take people by surprise. In order for it to really get you, a tiny piece of you has to want it.”
― Rachel Eve Moulton, Tinfoil Butterfly

“It’s amazing how quickly people make you into wallpaper.”
― Rachel Eve Moulton, Tinfoil Butterfly

“A structure is a living thing with a history and personality worth saving and, unlike a human being, can be stripped back to the studs, all the bad decisions peeled away to its point of origin, before being rebuilt.”
― Rachel Eve Moulton, The Insatiable Volt Sisters

“And madness in its simplest form is narcissism—a self stared at so long and so hard that any potential beauty in it becomes horrifying.”
― Rachel Eve Moulton, Tinfoil Butterfly

“And we all know love is a glass which makes even a monster appear fascinating.”
― Alberto Moravia, The Woman of Rome

“I gave up the unequal struggle against what appeared to be in my fate, indeed, I welcomed it with more affection. As one embraces a foe one can't defeat and I felt liberated.”
― Alberto Moravia, The Woman of Rome

“desire for normality; a longing to adapt to some recognized and general rule; a wish to be like everyone else, from the moment that being different meant being guilty.”
― Alberto Moravia, The Conformist: A Novel

“If you expect nothing from somebody you are never disappointed.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

“I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery—air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, "This is what it is to be happy.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

“I was supposed to be having the time of my life.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

“See, the problem is when you old, everybody think you satisfied with the livin you’ve done. They like to think of you as perfumed in dry piss waitin for your call to sunset. Never mind you could have a whole twenty years left. They’ll still act like your back is crooked. You think I just come out here to expire?”
― Sidik Fofana, Stories from the Tenants Downstairs

“Girl, every choice we make is a new tomorrow. Whole worlds waiting to be born.”
― P. Djèlí Clark, Ring Shout

“There were two brothers, Truth and Lie. One day they get to playing, throwing cutlasses up into the air. Them cutlasses come down and fast as can be-swish!-chop each of their faces clean off! Truth bed down, searching for his face. But with no eyes, he can't see. Lie, he sneaky. He snatch up Truth's face and run off! Zip! Now Lie go around wearing Truth's face, fooling everybody he meet.”
― P. Djèlí Clark, Ring Shout

“Reason and law don’t mean much when white folk want their way.”
― P. Djèlí Clark, Ring Shout

“Devil wouldn’t be the devil if he didn’t know how to tempt.”
― P. Djèlí Clark, Ring Shout

“I remember the songs that come with all those visions. Songs full of hurt. Songs of sadness and tears. Songs pulsing with pain. A righteous anger and cry for justice.

But not hate.

They ain’t the same thing. Never was.”
― P. Djèlí Clark, Ring Shout

“Socialism going to solve white folk?”
― P. Djèlí Clark, Ring Shout