Cate Riely > Cate's Quotes

“I would have been happy to have you as a friend, a boss, an uncle, a grandfather, even indeed (though rather more hesitantly) as a father-in-law. It is only as a father that you were too strong for me.”
― Franza Kafka

“My brothers and sisters, in the course of a long life in the service of our Mother the Church, let me tell you that the one sin I have come to fear more than any other is certainty. Certainty is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance. Even Christ was not certain at the end. 'Eli Eli, lama sabachtani?' He cried out in His agony at the ninth hour on the cross. 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' Our faith is a living thing precisely because it walks hand in hand with doubt. If there was only certainty, and if there was no doubt, there would be no mystery, and therefore no need for faith.”
― Robert Harris, Conclave

“Any man who is truly worthy must consider himself unworthy.”
― Robert Harris, Conclave

“No one who ever follows their conscience ever does wrong. The consequences may not turn out as we intended; it may prove that we made a mistake. But that is not the same as being wrong.”
― Robert Harris, Conclave

“Put me down easy, Janie, Ah’m a cracked plate.”
― Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

“Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed.”
― Blaise Pascal

“All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.”
― Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven

“Parents rarely let go of their children, so children let go of them. They move on. They move away. The moments that used to define them - a mother's approval, a father's nod - are covered by moments of their own accomplishments. It is not until much later, as the skin sags and the heart weakens, that children understand; their stories, and all their accomplishments, sit atop the stories of their mothers and fathers, stones upon stones, beneath the waters of their lives.”
― Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven

“Sacrifice is a part of life. It’s supposed to be. It’s not something to regret. It’s something to aspire to. Little sacrifices. Big sacrifices. A mother works so her son can go to school. A daughter moves home to take care of her sick father.”
― Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven

“the running boy is inside every man, no matter how old he gets.”
― Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven

“When you write a novel, you are alone in it. I wrote that book alone, sitting in airports and coffee shops and lying in bed. But when writing, there is always for me a hope that one day I will not be alone—not in this work and not in this world. It is a bit like that old children’s pool game Marco Polo, where one person closes their eyes and swims around the pool trying to tag someone else. “Marco,” the person with eyes closed says, and the other pool-goers have to answer, “Polo.” “Marco, Marco, Marco,” cries one kid, and the others reply: “Polo. Polo. Polo.” Writing is like that for me, like I’m typing “Marco, Marco, Marco” for years, and then finally the work is finished and someone reads it and says, “Polo.”
― John Green, Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection

“Dr. Girum later told me, “Yes, I know, it’s just one patient. There are so many patients, and Henry is just one. Why should we move mountains to save one patient? Because he is one person. A person, you understand?”
― John Green, Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection

“Consider yourself for a moment—everything you’ve overcome, everything you’ve survived. Think of the people who loved you up into your now. Think of how hard school is or was, how you were lucky or blessed to meet people you could love and who could love you. Think about how rare and precious humans are, and how many of them you get to worry for and care about. Then, if you can, find a way to multiply that times 1,250,000. That is why we must work together to end tuberculosis and all other diseases of injustice.”
― John Green, Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection

“Love must reach over to both sides and draw them together.
We cannot love ourselves unless we love others, and we cannot Iove others unless we love ourselves”
― Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island

“Jesus : Is it—TIME! Is it—me? Me ? (He half pulls himself up. He begins to
babble, almost demented by hunger, thirst and his sense of divinity) Me?
Me? Time has come. Me? It is—It is me, it is me, it is me, it is me...
(He stops. He stands, swaying. Silence. Then he speaks, more slowly and
clearly) He went up into the wilderness. He went up—J went up and
spoke to . . . Make straight the way. Clear a path. The Kingdom of
Heaven is upon—ME? (Pause. Then he screams with the agony of the
thought) ME!? It—is—me-e-e!”
― Dennis Potter, Son of Man: a play

“It’s funny. No matter where you go, or how many books you read, you still know nothing, you haven’t seen anything. And that’s life.”
― Satoshi Yagisawa, Days at the Morisaki Bookshop

“Irony: Don’t let yourself
be controlled by it, especially during uncreative moments. When you are fully
creative, try to use it, as one more way to take hold of life. Used purely, it too is
pure, and one needn’t be ashamed of it; but if you feel yourself becoming too
familiar with it, if you are afraid of this growing familiarity, then turn to great
and serious objects, in front of which it becomes small and helpless.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

“Wouldn't it be better if we defied our ages
and gazed much longer at the last sky before moonset?
Addresses for the soul, outside this place. I love to travel
to any wind ... But I don't love to arrive.”
― Mahmoud Darwish, Unfortunately, It Was Paradise: Selected Poems

“May poetry and God's name have mercy on us!”
― Mahmoud Darwish, Unfortunately, It Was Paradise: Selected Poems