Laura > Laura's Quotes

“Who has not asked himself at some time or other: am I a monster or is this what it means to be a person?”
― Clarice Lispector, A Hora da Estrela

“Loving someone is like having a mental illness that's not covered by health insurance.”
― Haruki Murakami, First Person Singular: Stories

“In a society that profits from your self doubt, liking yourself is a rebellious act.”
― Caroline Caldwell

“You were sick, but now you're well again, and there's work to do.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake

“The woods would be quiet if no bird sang but the one that sang best.”
― Henry van Dyke

“Cynics are merely idealists with unusually high standards.”
― Alain de Botton, The Course of Love

“Togetherness is beating up an empty elevator.”
― J.G. Ballard, High-Rise

“A truly great library contains something in it to offend everyone.”
― Jo Godwin

“I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it's not the answer.”
― Jim Carrey

“If you want truly to understand something, try to change it.”
― Kurt Lewin

“Breaking things heals a great many hurts. This is why children do it so often.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making

“Each day was like the next. And even though we looked forward all week to the weekend, the weekend was always still a disappointment, and then it was Monday again and everything started over, and that was how life was, and there was nothing else. We began to understand what Pierre Anthon meant. We began to understand why grown-ups looked the way they did. And although we'd sworn we'd never become like them, that was exactly what was happening. We weren't even fifteen yet. Thirteen, fourteen, adult. Dead.”
― Janne Teller, Nothing

“If anyone tells you that a certain person speaks ill of you, do not make excuses about what is said of you but answer, "He was ignorant of my other faults, else he would not have mentioned these alone.”
― Epictetus

“Every human being who loves another loves imperfection, for there is no perfect being on this earth--nothing is so simple as that.”
― Susan Cooper, Silver on the Tree

“The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream. The oak sleeps in the acorn; the bird waits in the egg; and in the highest vision of the soul a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of realities.”
― James Allen, As a Man Thinketh

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

“The moment that you feel, just possibly, you are walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind, and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself...That is the moment, you might be starting to get it right.”
― Neil Gaiman

“In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance: An Excerpt from Collected Essays, First Series

“Perfect is the enemy of good.”
― Voltaire

“Striving to better, oft we mar what's well.”
― William Shakespeare, King Lear

“A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.”
― George Orwell, All Art is Propaganda: Critical Essays

“One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
― William Shakespear, Hamlet

“Progress means getting nearer to the place you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turn, then to go forward does not get you any nearer.
If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.”
― C.S. Lewis

“wisdom is the ability to cope”
― Stephen Fry, More Fool Me

“This being human is a guest house. Every morning is a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor...Welcome and entertain them all. Treat each guest honorably. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.”
― Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

“Our doubts are traitors,
and make us lose the good we oft might win,
by fearing to attempt.”
― William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure