Isabel > Isabel's Quotes

“Happiness is something you lay siege to, it is a battle like a game of go. I will take hold of all the pain and snuff it out.”
― Shan Sa, The Girl Who Played Go

“The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive.”
― John Green, Looking for Alaska

“This is how you begin in this world. These are the lessons to be learned. Drink chamomile tea to calm the spirit. Feed a cold and starve a fever. Read as many books as you can. Always choose courage. Never watch another woman burn. Know that love is the only answer.”
― Alice Hoffman, Magic Lessons

“Life is only bearable because time makes you forget everything. But life is worthwhile because love makes you remember everything.”
― Juhea Kim, Beasts of a Little Land

“My God, a moment of bliss. Why, isn't that enough for a whole lifetime?”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, White Nights

“Gossip is just a tool to distract people who have nothing better to do from feeling jealous of those few of us still remaining with noble hearts.”
― Anna Godbersen, Splendor

“Polite contempt. The barbed and poisonous weapon of the righteous.”
― Joanne Harris, Chocolat

“Men still think the same things about us they have always thought, Ruth - I'm sure of it. A lot of them have learned to say the right things at the right times, but as my mother used to say, 'Even a cannibal can learn to recite the Apostles' Creed'.”
― Stephen King, Gerald's Game

“Honesty and empathy do not flourish in the expectation of perfection. —MEG BOWLES”
― Meg Bowles, How to Tell a Story: The Essential Guide to Memorable Storytelling from The Moth

“You know it makes one feel rather good deciding not to be a bitch."
"Yes."
"It's sort of what we have instead of God.”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

“Would you like an adventure now, or would like to have your tea first?”
― J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan

“Follow me, reader! Who told you that there is no true, faithful, eternal love in this world! May the liar's vile tongue be cut out! Follow me, my reader, and me alone, and I will show you such a love!”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“Now that I’m older I know that life is not about what keeps you safe, but what you keep safe, and that’s what matters the most.”
― Juhea Kim, Beasts of a Little Land

“Years have passed and how I am anxiously watching the twilight of my childhood, quietly sinking, never to rise again.”
― Shan Sa, The Girl Who Played Go

“I envy the table its scars, the scorch marks caused by the hot bread tins. I envy its calm sense of time, and I wish I could say: I did this five years ago. I made this mark, this ring caused by a wet coffee cup, this cigarette burn, this ladder of cuts against the wood’s coarse grain. This is where Anouk carved her initials, the year she was six years old, this secret place behind the table leg. I did this on a warm day seven summers ago with the carving knife. Do you remember? Do you remember the summer the river ran dry? Do you remember? I envy the table’s calm sense of place. It has been here a long time. It belongs.”
― Joanne Harris, Chocolat

“That's always seemed so ridiculous to me, that people want to be around someone because they're pretty. It's like picking your breakfeast cereals based on color instead of taste.”
― John Green, Paper Towns

“It is so hard to leave—until you leave. And then it is the easiest goddamned thing in the world.”
― John Green, Paper Towns

“I succeeded in using my charms like a weapon; I learned to play with other's hearts and to master my own desires.”
― Shan Sa, Empress

“To other women the choice of clothes was a form of ingenious exhibition, a shameless seduction. To me, dresses were like a breastplate that I put on to set off to war against this life.”
― Shan Sa, Empress

“I held in my hand an invisible sword that sliced through every illusion. The sharpness of the blade gave me its icy and dazzling strength. I no longer believed in the compassion of men; I believed in the strength of the gods. I had averted my eyes from my suffering and fixed them on the stars.”
― Shan Sa, Empress

“The ten thousand women in the Side Court were ten thousand flowers desperately dreaming of spring. Whether carefully planted out in pots or crudely sown in wasteland, they wilted in the harsh atmosphere of constant waiting, the deprivation of an endless winter.”
― Shan Sa, Empress

“The pages of life that had already been turned could not be opened again.”
― Shan Sa, Empress

“Tears are the weapons of the weak and the condolence of the powerful.”
― Shan Sa, Empress

“With a secret like that, at some point the secret itself becomes irrelevant. The fact that you kept it does not.”
― Sara Gruen, Water for Elephants

“The more distressing the memory, the more persistent it's presence. ”
― Sara Gruen, Water for Elephants

“When will people learn that just because you can make something doesn’t mean you should?”
― Sara Gruen, Water for Elephants

“Age is a terrible thief. Just when you're getting the hang of life, it knocks your legs out from under you and stoops your back. It makes you ache and muddies your head and silently spreads cancer throughout your spouse.”
― Sara Gruen, Water for Elephants

“Dear God. Not only am I unemployed and homeless, but I also have a pregnant woman, bereaved dog, elephant, and eleven horses to take care of.”
― Sara Gruen, Water for Elephants

“Life is what you celebrate. All of it. Even its end.”
― Joanne Harris, Chocolat

“Happiness. Simple as a glass of chocolate or tortuous as the heart. Bitter. Sweet. Alive.”
― Joanne Harris, Chocolat