Elise > Elise's Quotes

“Ik ben de enige die al de vrouwen die ze geweest is in haar kan zien. Soms raak ik haar dan aan, raak ik ze allemaal tegelijk even zachtjes aan.”
― J. Bernlef, Hersenschimmen

“Een mens kan altijd een tijd lang kijken zonder te zien. Kijken kan Robert ook, maar het theebusje en de kaasschaaf herkennen niet. Hij kijkt zonder te zien, bedoel ik. Neem zelf de proef maar eens. Je drinkt altijd koffie van een bepaald merk en omdat dat in de drugstore opeens niet meer voorradig is, neem je een ander merk, een andere bus. Als je de volgende dag koffie wilt maken zoek je overal naar de koffiebus. Het herinneringsbeeld van de oude busis zo sterk dat hij de bus van het nieuwe merk, de aanwezige bus, vlak voor je neus op de keukenplank, onzichtbaar maakt. Om iets te zien moet je eerst iets kunnen herkennen. Zonder herinnering kun je alleen maar kijken. Dan glijdt de wereld spoorloos door je heen.”
― J. Bernlef, Hersenschimmen

“It strikes me that this may be one of the differences between youth and age: when we are young, we invent different futures for ourselves; when we are old, we invent different pasts for others.”
― Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

“Culture does not make people. People make culture. If it is true that the full humanity of women is not our culture, then we can and must make it our culture.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, We Should All Be Feminists

“I remember being scared that something must, surely, go wrong, if we were this happy, her and me, in the early days, when our love was settling into the shape of our lives like cake mixture reaching the corners of the tin as it swells and bakes.”
― Max Porter, Grief Is the Thing with Feathers

“And the boys were behind me, a tide-wall of laughter and yelling, hugging my legs, tripping and grabbing, leaping, spinning, stumbling, roaring, shrieking and the boys shouted I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU and their voice was the life and song of their mother. Unfinished. Beautiful. Everything.”
― Max Porter, Grief Is the Thing with Feathers

“They offer me a space on the sofa next to them and the pain of them being so naturally kind is like appendicitis. I need to double over and hold myself because they are so kind and keep regenerating and recharging their kindness without any input from me. CROW”
― Max Porter, Grief Is the Thing with Feathers

“Sure baby, mañana. It was always mañana. For the next few weeks that was all I heard––mañana a lovely word and one that probably means heaven.”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

“Matilda said, "Never do anything by halves if you want to get away with it. Be outrageous. Go the whole hog. Make sure everything you do is so completely crazy it's unbelievable...”
― Roald Dahl, Matilda

“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.”
― Roald Dahl

“I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. He taught me that if you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it at full speed ahead. Embrace it with both arms, hug it, love it and above all become passionate about it. Lukewarm is no good. Hot is no good either. White hot and passionate is the only thing to be.”
― Roald Dahl, My Uncle Oswald

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“What happens when people open their hearts?"
"They get better.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“here she is, all mine, trying her best to give me all she can. How could I ever hurt her? But I didn’t understand then. That I could hurt somebody so badly she would never recover. That a person can, just by living, damage another human being beyond repair.”
― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

“Wie zich niet alles herinnert wat hij wil vergeten, loopt het risico dat hij bepaalde zaken vergeet te vergeten.”
― Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer, Grand Hotel Europa

“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.”
― Albert Einstein

“Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.”
― John Locke

“I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think”
― Socrates

“The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery.”
― Anais Nin

“I don't think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains.”
― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.