Rita > Rita's Quotes

“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.”
― John Muir

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
― Mary Oliver

“It begins, as most things begin, with a song. In the beginning, after all, were the words, and they came with a tune. That was how the world was made, how the void was divided, how the lands and the stars and the dreams and the little gods and the animals, how all of them came into the world. They were sung.
The great beasts were sung into existence, after the Singer had done with the planets and the hills and the trees and the oceans and the lesser beasts. The cliffs that bound existence were sung, and the hunting grounds, and the dark.
Songs remain. They last. The right song can turn an emperor into a laughingstock, can bring down dynasties. A song can last long after the events and the people in it are dust and dreams and gone. That's the power of songs.”
― Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys

“Do not read as children do to enjoy themselves, or, as the ambitious do to educate themselves. No, read to live.”
― Gustave Flaubert

“Be steady and well-ordered in your life so that you can be fierce and original in your work.”
― Gustave Flaubert

“Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“And when you get down to it, Lily, that is the only purpose grand enough for a human life. Not just to love but to persist in love.”
― Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees

“I hadn't been out to the hives before, so to start off she gave me a lesson in what she called 'bee yard etiquette'. She reminded me that the world was really one bee yard, and the same rules work fine in both places. Don't be afraid, as no life-loving bee wants to sting you. Still, don't be an idiot; wear long sleeves and pants. Don't swat. Don't even think about swatting. If you feel angry, whistle. Anger agitates while whistling melts a bee's temper. Act like you know what you're doing, even if you don't. Above all, send the bees love. Every little thing wants to be loved.”
― Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees

“When it's time to die, go ahead and die, and when it's time to live, live. Don't sort-of-maybe live, but live like you're going all out, like you're not afraid.”
― Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees

“Every human being on the face of the earth has a steel plate in his head, but if you lie down now and then and get still as you can, it will slide open like elevator doors, letting in all the secret thoughts that have been standing around so patiently, pushing the button for a ride to the top. The real troubles in life happen when those hidden doors stay closed for too long.”
― Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees

“She wanted to be extraordinary, to possess a savage glitter.”
― Joy Williams

“We've learnt to appreciate and respect and love someone who's different from us. It is very easy to accept and love those who are like us, but to love someone different is very hard, and you helped us to do that.”
― Luis Sepúlveda, The Story of a Seagull and the Cat Who Taught Her to Fly

“It was the purest love without purpose other than love itself. Without tenure or jealousy.”
― Luis Sepúlveda, The Old Man Who Read Love Stories

“Only those who dare may fly”
― Luis Sepúlveda, The Story of a Seagull and the Cat Who Taught Her to Fly

“Nunca confies na memória porque está sempre do nosso lado: suaviza a atrocidade, dulcifica a amargura, põe luz onde só houve sombras. A memória tende sempre à ficção.”
― Luis Sepúlveda, A sombra do que fomos

“ Tudo é como devia ser. A noite aperta a polpa dos frutos, desperta o desejo dos insectos, acalma a inquietação das aves, refresca a pele dos repteis, põe os vaga-lumes a dançar. Sim. Tudo é como devia ser”
― Luis Sepúlveda

“Há mulheres cuja companhia convida ao silêncio, porque sabem partilhá-lo, e não há nada mais difícil nem mais generoso”
― Luis Sepúlveda, A Lâmpada de Aladino

“Se é certo que a vida é breve e frágil, também é verdade que a dignidade e a coragem lhe conferem a vitalidade que nos faz suportar os seus enganos e desditas”
― Luis Sepúlveda, As Rosas de Atacama

“In the summer
I stretch out on the shore
And think of you. Had I told the sea
What I felt for you,
It would have left its shores,
Its shells,
Its fish,
And followed me.”
― Nizar Qabbani

“We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love.”
― Tom Robbins

“The highest function of love is that it makes the loved one a unique and irreplaceable being.”
― Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume

“When we're incomplete, we're always searching for somebody to complete us. When, after a few years or a few months of a relationship, we find that we're still unfulfilled, we blame our partners and take up with somebody more promising. This can go on and on--series polygamy--until we admit that while a partner can add sweet dimensions to our lives, we, each of us, are responsible for our own fulfillment. Nobody else can provide it for us, and to believe otherwise is to delude ourselves dangerously and to program for eventual failure every relationship we enter.”
― Tom Robbins

“Our lives are not as limited as we think they are; the world is a wonderfully weird place; consensual reality is significantly flawed; no institution can be trusted, but love does work; all things are possible; and we all could be happy and fulfilled if we only had the guts to be truly free and the wisdom to shrink our egos and quit taking ourselves so damn seriously.”
― Tom Robbins

“Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won't adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is to sign on as its accomplice. Instead of vowing to honor and obey, maybe we should swear to aid and abet. That would mean that security is out of the question. The words "make" and "stay" become inappropriate. My love for you has no strings attached. I love you for free.”
― Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker

“It's never too late to have a happy childhood.”
― Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker

“Who knows how to make love stay?

1. Tell love you are going to Junior's Deli on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn to pick up a cheesecake, and if loves stays, it can have half. It will stay.

2. Tell love you want a momento of it and obtain a lock of its hair. Burn the hair in a dime-store incense burner with yin/yang symbols on three sides. Face southwest. Talk fast over the burning hair in a convincingly exotic language. Remove the ashes of the burnt hair and use them to paint a moustache on your face. Find love. Tell it you are someone new. It will stay.

3. Wake love up in the middle of the night. Tell it the world is on fire. Dash to the bedroom window and pee out of it. Casually return to bed and assure love that everything is going to be all right. Fall asleep. Love will be there in the morning.”
― Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker

“There are many things worth living for, a few things worth dying for, and nothing worth killing for.”
― Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

“We are our own dragons as well as our own heroes, and we have to rescue ourselves from ourselves.”
― Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker

“If you believe in peace, act peacefully; if you believe in love, acting lovingly; if you believe every which way, then act every which way, that's perfectly valid - but don't go out trying to sell your beliefs to the system. You end up contradicting what you profess to believe in, and you set a bum example. If you want to change the world, change yourself.”
― Tom Robbins

“The unhappy person resents it when you try to cheer him up, because that means he has to stop dwelling on himself and start paying attention to the universe. Unhappiness is the ultimate form of self-indulgence. When you're unhappy, you get to pay a lot of attention to yourself. You get to take yourself oh so very seriously.”
― Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume