Rose > Rose's Quotes

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.”
― Bernard M. Baruch

“Around here, however, we don't look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things, because we're curious...and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.”
― Walt Disney Company

“I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Having a baby is like getting a tattoo on your face. You really need to be certain it's what you want before you commit.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

“If you don't go after what you want, you'll never have it. If you don't ask, the answer is always no. If you don't step forward, you're always in the same place.”
― Nora Roberts

“You can fix anything but a blank page.”
― Nora Roberts

“I like to have my morning newspaper ironed before I read it. I like to have my shoes boned before they are polished. I like to sit in the back of the car and be driven. I like beds to be made, dishes to be washed, grass to be cut, drinks to be served, telephones to be answered, and common tasks to be dealt with invisibly and efficiently so that I can devote my time to major decisions like the choice of wines for dinner and who to vote for in the next election for the mayor of my village.

That is life as it should be lived, and all it takes is money and servants.”
― Peter Mayle

“Next to the defeated politician, the writer is the most vocal and inventive griper on earth. He sees hardship and unfairness wherever he looks. His agent doesn’t love him (enough). The blank sheet of paper is an enemy. The publisher is a cheapskate. The critic is a philistine. The public doesn’t understand him. His wife doesn’t understand him. The bartender doesn’t understand him.

These are only some of the common complaints of working writers, but I have yet to hear any of them bring up the most fundamental gripe of all: the lifelong, horrifying expense involved in getting out the words.

This may come as a surprise to many of you who assume that a writer’s equipment is limited to paper and pencils and a bottle of whiskey, and maybe one tweed sports coat for interviews. It goes far beyond that.

The problem from which all other problems spring is that writing takes up the time that could otherwise be spent earning a living. The most humble toiler on Wall Street makes more in a month than ninety percent of writers make in a year. A beggar on the street, seeing a writer shuffling toward him, will dig deep into his rags to see if he can spare a dime. . . .”
― Peter Mayle, Acquired Tastes

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”
― George Eliot

“First with the head, then with the heart.”
― Bryce Courtenay, The Power of One

“Intelligence is a harder gift. For this you must work, you must practice it, challenge it, and maybe toward the end of your life you will master it. Cleverness is the shadow, whereas intelligence is the substance.
-Doc”
― Bryce Courtenay

“There are three things you need to learn in life, Sofie. First, how to dance like you're alone. Second, to love like you mean it. And, third, you need to learn to laugh at the rain. Learn how to do those three things, and you'll be happy, always. ”
― Tori Carrington, Sofie Metropolis

“Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.”
― Leonardo da Vinci

“The way you wear your hat,
The way you sip your tea,
The mem'ry of all that --
No, no! They can't take that away from me!”
― Ira Gershwin

“After scolding one's cat one looks into its face and is seized by the ugly suspicion that it understood every word. And has filed it for reference.”
― Charlotte Gray

“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Ah! There is nothing like staying at home, for real comfort.”
― Jane Austen

“The impossible could not have happened, therefore the impossible must be possible in spite of appearances.”
― Agatha Christie, Murder on the Orient Express

“Happiness doesn't lie in conspicuous consumption and the relentless amassing of useless crap. Happiness lies in the person sitting beside you and your ability to talk to them. Happiness is clear-headed human interaction and empathy. Happiness is home. And home is not a house-home is a mythological conceit. It is a state of mind. A place of communion and unconditional love. It is where, when you cross its threshold, you finally feel at peace.”
― Dennis Lehane

“If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.”
― Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa , The Leopard

“Sometimes the slightest things change the directions of our lives, the merest breath of a circumstance, a random moment that connects like a meteorite striking the earth. Lives have swiveled and changed direction on the strength of a chance remark.”
― Bryce Courtenay

“Always in life an idea starts small, it is only a sapling idea, but the vines will come and they will try to choke your idea so it cannot grow, and it will die and you will never know you had a big idea, an idea so big it could have grown thirty meters through the dark canopy of leaves and touched the face of the sky. The vines are people who are afraid of originality, of new thinking. Most people you encounter will be vines; when you are a young plant they are very dangerous. Always listen to yourself, Peekay. It is better to be wrong than simply to follow convention. If you are wrong, no matter, you have learned something and you grow stronger. If you are right, you have taken another step toward a fulfilling life.”
― Bryce Courtenay, The Power of One

“Absoloodle not”
― Bryce Courtenay, The Power of One

“The life of a man is like a ball in the river, the Buddhist texts state - no matter what our will wants or desires, we are swept along by an invisible current that finally delivers us to the limitless expanse of the black sea. This image rather appeals to me. It suggests there are times when we float lightly along life's surface, bobbing from one languid, long pool to another. But then, when we least expect it, we turn a river bend and find ourselves plummeting over a thundering waterfall into the churning abyss below. This I have experienced. And more.”
― Richard C. Morais, Buddhaland Brooklyn

“Have you noticed, to get fresh air into a house after a hard winter, you must sometimes use a little force to open the window that has for too long been sealed shut?”
― Richard C. Morais, Buddhaland Brooklyn

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

“Do you know where most skeletons come from?"
"When a mommy skeleton loves a daddy skeleton very much...”
― Leigh Perry, A Skeleton in the Family

“Everyone has talent. What's rare is the courage to follow it to the dark places where it leads.”
― Erica Jong

“We have years to converse with someone, to blurt and rant, to explain our desires and anger and regrets - and oh how we squander those moments.”
― Jeffery Deaver, The Bone Collector