Emily > Emily's Quotes

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#1

“All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it. And even then, on the rare occasions when something opens within, and the music enters, what we mainly hear, or hear corroborated, are personal, private, vanishing evocations. But the man who creates the music is hearing something else, is dealing with the roar rising from the void and imposing order on it as it hits the air. What is evoked in him, then, is of another order, more terrible because it has no words, and triumphant, too, for that same reason. And his triumph, when he triumphs, is ours.”
― James Baldwin, Sonny's Blues

125 likes

#2

“...the sea's only gifts are harsh blows and, occasionally, the chance to feel strong. Now, I don't know much about the sea, but I do know that that's the way it is here. And I also know how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong but to feel strong, to measure yourself at least once, to find yourself at least once in the most ancient of human conditions, facing blind, deaf stone alone, with nothing to help you but your own hands and your own head...”
― Primo Levi

322 likes

#3

“I had never before thought of how awful the relationship must be between the musician and his instrument. He has to fill it, this instrument, with the breath of life, his own. He has to make it do what he wants it to do. And a piano is just a piano. It's made out of so much wood and wires and little hammers and big ones, and ivory. While there's only so much you can do with it, the only way to find this out is to try; to try and make it do everything.”
― James Baldwin, Sonny's Blues

tags: breath, everything, instrument, ivory-tower, life, music, musician, piano, relationship, wires, wood

31 likes

#4

“For, while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it always must be heard. There isn't any other tale to tell, it's the only light we've got in all this darkness.”
― James Baldwin, Sonny's Blues

211 likes

#5

“Even the strongest and bravest must sometimes weep. It shows they have a great heart, one that can feel compassion for others.”
― Brian Jacques, Redwall

2836 likes

#6

“Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.”
― Primo Levi

tags: common-men, danger, existence, holocaust, monsters, questions

837 likes

#7

“Those who deny Auschwitz would be ready to remake it.”
― Primo Levi

84 likes

#8

“Even in this place one can survive, and therefore one must want to survive, to tell the story, to bear witness; and that to survive we must force ourselves to save at least the skeleton, the scaffolding, the form of civilization. We are slaves, deprived of every right, exposed to every insult, condemned to certain death, but we still possess one power, and we must defend it with all our strength for it is the last — the power to refuse our consent.”
― Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz

91 likes

#9

“He could hardly read or write but his heart spoke the language of the good”
― Primo Levi

30 likes

#10

“An enemy who sees the error of his ways ceases to be an enemy.”
― Primo Levi, If This Is a Man • The Truce

40 likes

#11

“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”
― W.B. Yeats

tags: awe, magic, perception, wonder

3570 likes

#12

“We are perishing for want of wonder, not for want of wonders.”
― G.K. Chesterton

tags: appreciation, attitude, wonder

155 likes

#13

“I used to be a poet.
My words were traded in marketplaces like pieces of gold.
Merchants bought my verses for as much as they paid for saffron and Indian jade.

Now I am old...
drunk on wine and candle fumes.
Alone in this barren room, I speak my psalms to the night air
so as to entertain moths before they go off to die.
I used to be a poet
and my words were gold.”
― Roman Payne

tags: ageing, aging, ambition, beautiful-life, candles, exchange, exchanging, gold, grief, indian, jade, lament, loneliness, lonliness, marketplaces, minor-poem, minor-poetry, money, moths, old-man, old-poet, poetics, poetry, psalms, roman-payne, saffron

15 likes

#14

“Passionate attraction to someone of the opposite sex will make a hero or a fool of a novelist each time.”
― Roman Payne, The Love of Europa: Limited Time Edition

tags: novelist, novelist-and-poet, novelist-quotes, novelists, novelists-life, writer, writer-inspiration, writers, writers-and-writing, writers-life, writers-on-writing, writers-quotes, writing, writing-advice, writing-craft, writing-from-the-heart, writing-inspiration, writing-inspirational, writing-life, writing-philosophy, writing-process, writing-tips

3 likes

#15

“Will you come with me to the mountains? It will hurt at first, until your feet are hardened. Reality is harsh to the feet of shadows. But will you come?”
― C.S. Lewis

35 likes

#16

“He is outside of everything, and alien everywhere. He is an aesthetic solitary. His beautiful, light imagination is the wing that on the autumn evening just brushes the dusky window.”
― Henry James

81 likes

#17

“Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

tags: faith

8674 likes

#18

“It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it.”
― Maurice Switzer, Mrs. Goose, Her Book

tags: misattributed-to-abraham-lincoln, misattributed-to-mark-twain, remaining-silent, wisdom

44328 likes

#19

“Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

6921 likes

#20

“I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

tags: family, friends, parties, social

12461 likes

#21

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

tags: adventuring, death, time

21619 likes

#22

“Never laugh at live dragons.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

tags: dragons, wisdom

8726 likes

#23

“We have come from God, and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Indeed only by myth-making, only by becoming 'sub-creator' and inventing stories, can Man aspire to the state of perfection that he knew before the Fall. Our myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true harbour, while materialistic 'progress' leads only to a yawning abyss and the Iron Crown of the power of evil.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

tags: books, philosophy

1456 likes

#24

“Readers are advised to remember the devil is a liar.”
― C.S. Lewis

204 likes

#25

“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living.”
― Dr. Seuss

tags: fantasy

36842 likes

#26

“I read because one life isn't enough. ”
― Richard Peck

8 likes

#27

“I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”
― Albert Einstein

tags: 1929, viereck-interview

37573 likes

#28

“Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”
― Abraham Lincoln

tags: abe, enemies, enemy, friend, friends, friendship, life, lincoln

4900 likes

#29

“Life's a forge! Yes, and hammer and anvil, too! You'll be roasted, smelted, and pounded, and you'll scarce know what's happening to you. But stand boldly to it! Metal's worthless till it's shaped and tempered! More labor than luck. Face the pounding, don't fear the proving; and you'll stand well against any hammer and anvil.”
― Lloyd Alexander, Taran Wanderer

tags: 1967, anvil, forge, hard-knock-life, prydain, taran, testing, worthiness

107 likes

#30

“I read because one life isn't enough, and in the page of a book I can be anybody;
I read because the words that build the story become mine, to build my life;
I read not for happy endings but for new beginnings; I'm just beginning myself, and I wouldn't mind a map;
I read because I have friends who don't, and young though they are, they're beginning to run out of material;
I read because every journey begins at the library, and it's time for me to start packing;
I read because one of these days I'm going to get out of this town, and I'm going to go everywhere and meet everybody, and I want to be ready.”
― Richard Peck, Anonymously Yours

281 likes

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