Kayla Mclendon > Kayla's Quotes

“Preconceived notions are the locks on the door to wisdom.”
― Merry Brown

“If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.”
― Oscar Wilde

“It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.”
― Oscar Wilde

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.”
― Dr. Seuss, I Can Read with My Eyes Shut!

“A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading.”
― William Styron, Conversations with William Styron

“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.”
― Charles W. Eliot

“Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live.”
― Gustave Flaubert

“Oh, please. Everyone in this town always says that, like you have to be born here to understand things. I understand plenty. You're only as weird as you want to be.”
― Sarah Addison Allen, First Frost

“I was just telling Claire about a guy I met in bread class. I hate him, but he could be my soul mate.”
― Sarah Addison Allen, First Frost

“The Waverley sisters hadn't been close as children, but they were as thick as thieves now, the way adult siblings often are, the moment they realize that family is actually a choice.”
― Sarah Addison Allen, First Frost

“It looked like the world was covered in a cobbler crust of brown sugar and cinnamon.”
― Sarah Addison Allen, First Frost

“Sometimes its necessary to embrace the magic, to find out what's real in life, and in one's own heart.”
― Sarah Addison Allen, First Frost

“Books can be possessive, can't they? You're walking around in a bookstore and a certain one will jump out at you, like it had moved there on its own, just to get your attention. Sometimes what's inside will change your life, but sometimes you don't even have to read it. Sometimes it's a comfort just to have a book around. Many of these books haven't even had their spines cracked. 'Why do you buy books you don't even read?' our daughter asks us. That's like asking someone who lives alone why they bought a cat. For company, of course.”
― Sarah Addison Allen, The Sugar Queen

“Happiness is a risk. If you’re not a little scared, then you’re not doing it right.”
― Sarah Addison Allen, The Peach Keeper

“First frost meant letting go, so it was always reason to celebrate.”
― Sarah Addison Allen, First Frost

“Every life needs a little space. It leaves room for good things to enter it.”
― Sarah Addison Allen, The Peach Keeper

“Men of thoughtless actions are always surprised by consequences.”
― Sarah Addison Allen, The Girl Who Chased the Moon

“I needed to stop being what everyone thought I was.”
― Sarah Addison Allen

“She looked like autumn, when leaves turned and fruit ripened.”
― Sarah Addison Allen, Garden Spells

“People always say life is too short for regrets. But the truth is, it's too long.”
― Sarah Addison Allen, The Peach Keeper

“She accepted it from then on. Books liked her. Books wanted to look after her.”
― Sarah Addison Allen, The Sugar Queen

“It had taken her a long time to realize that a prison sometimes isn't a prison at all. Sometimes, it's simply a door you assume is locked because you've never tried to open it.”
― Sarah Addison Allen, First Frost

“Girls like us, when we love, it takes everything we have.”
― Sarah Addison Allen, The Sugar Queen

“She was so Southern that she cried tears that came straight from the Mississippi, and she always smelled faintly of cottonwood and peaches.”
― Sarah Addison Allen, Garden Spells

“We're connected, as women. It's like a spiderweb. If one part of that web vibrates, if there's trouble, we all know it, but most of the time we're just too scared, or selfish, or insecure to help. But if we don't help each other, who will?”
― Sarah Addison Allen, The Peach Keeper

“People fall in love all the time. And it's not always with the right people. And it's not always reciprocated.”
― Sarah Addison Allen, The Peach Keeper

“There was a strange but universal understanding among women. On some level all women knew, they all understood, the fear of being outnumbered, of being helpless. It throbbed in their chests when they thought about the times they left stores and were followed. The knocks on their car windows as they were sitting alone at red lights, and strangers asking for rides. Having too much to drink and losing their ability to be forceful enough to just say no. Smiling at strange men coming on to them, not wanting to hurt their feelings, not wanting to make a scene. All women remembered these things, even if they had never happened to them personally. It was a part of their collective unconscious.”
― Sarah Addison Allen, The Peach Keeper

“Just So You Know

You fall in love with every book you touch. You never break the spine or tear the pages. That would be cruel. You have secret favorites but, when asked, you say that you could never choose. But did you know that books fall in love with you, too?

They watch you from the shelf while you sleep. Are you dreaming of them, they wonder, in that wistful mood books are prone to at night when they’re bored and there’s nothing else to do but tease the cat.

Remember that pale yellow book you read when you were sixteen? It changed your world, that book. It changed your dreams. You carried it around until it was old and thin and sparkles no longer rose from the pages and filled the air when you opened it, like it did when it was new. You should know that it still thinks of you. It would like to get together sometime, maybe over coffee next month, so you can see how much you’ve both changed.

And the book about the donkey your father read to you every night when you were three, it’s still around – older, a little worse for wear. But it still remembers the way your laughter made its pages tremble with joy.

Then there was that book, just last week, in the bookstore. It caught your eye. You looked away quickly, but it was too late. You felt the rush. You picked it up and stroked your hand over its glassy cover. It knew you were The One. But, for whatever reason, you put it back and walked away. Maybe you were trying to be practical. Maybe you thought there wasn’t room enough, time enough, energy enough.

But you’re thinking about it now, aren’t you?
You fall in love so easily.
But just so you know, they do, too.”
― Sarah Addison Allen

“If a man has so much heat he burns your skin when he touches you, he's the devil. Run away”
― Sarah Addison Allen

“After you finish a book, the story still goes on in your mind. You can never change the beginning. But you can always change the end.”
― Sarah Addison Allen, Lost Lake