Brooke > Brooke's Quotes

“One swallow does not make a summer, but one skein of geese, cleaving the murk of a March thaw, is the spring.”
― Aldo Leopold

“If I had a flower for every time I thought of you...I could walk through my garden forever.”
― Alfred Tennyson

“There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“but for my own part, if a book is well written, I always find it too short.”
― Jane Austen

“If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.”
― Jane Austen, Emma

“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”
― C.S. Lewis

“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
― C.S. Lewis

“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art.... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“Books are the mirrors of the soul.”
― Virginia Woolf, Between the Acts

“My brain hums with scraps of poetry and madness.”
― Virginia Woolf, Selected Letters

“If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain.”
― Emily Dickinson

“That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet.”
― Emily Dickinson

“It doesn't stop being magic just because you know how it works.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men

“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”
― Harry Crosby, Transit of Venus

“Books. Cats. Life is good.”
― T.S. Eliot

“It's like all those quiet people, when they do lose their tempers they lose them with a vengeance.”
― Agatha Christie, The A.B.C. Murders

“When it rains look for rainbows, when it's dark look for stars.”
― Anonymous

“She was beautiful, but not like those girls in magazines. She was beautiful, for the way she thought. She was beautiful, for the sparkle in her eyes when she talked about something she loved. She was beautiful, for her ability to make other people smile, even if she was sad. No, she wasn't beautiful for something as temporary as her looks. She was beautiful, deep down to her soul. She is beautiful.”
― Natalie Newman, Butterflies and Bullshit

“Your Majesty would have a perfect right to strike off his head," said Peridan. "Such an assault as he made puts him on a level with assassins."
"It is very true," said Edmund. "But even a traitor may mend. I have known one that did." And he looked very thoughtful.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy

“Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.”
― Mary Oliver

“The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.”
― Mary Oliver

“History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.”
― Mark Twain

“We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community

“Who am I? They often tell me I would step from my cell's confinement calmly, cheerfully, firmly, like a squire from his country-house.

Who am I? They often tell me I would talk to my warden freely and friendly and clearly, as though it were mine to command.

Who am I? They also tell me I would bear the days of misfortune equably, smilingly, proudly, like one accustomed to win.

Am I then really all that which other men tell of, or am I only what I know of myself, restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage, struggling for breath, as though hands were compressing my throat, yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds, thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness, trembling with anger at despotisms and petty humiliation, tossing in expectation of great events, powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance, weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making, faint and ready to say farewell to it all.

Who am I? This or the other? Am I one person today, and tomorrow another? Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others, and before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling? Or is something within me still like a beaten army, fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?

Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.

Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am thine!”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Prison Poems

“Have fun, even if it’s not the same kind of fun everyone else is having.”
― C.S. Lewis