Charis > Charis's Quotes

“Maybe you can afford to wait. Maybe for you there's a tomorrow. Maybe for you there's one thousand tomorrows, or three thousand, or ten, so much time you can bathe in it, roll around it, let it slide like coins through you fingers. So much time you can waste it.
But for some of us there's only today. And the truth is, you never really know.”
― Lauren Oliver, Before I Fall

“The flip side of freedom is this: When you're completely free, you're also completely on your own.”
― Lauren Oliver, Pandemonium

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

“Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.”
― George Orwell

“We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable - what then?”
― George Orwell, 1984

“Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“I knew that I would have to be brave. Not foolhardy, not in love with risk and danger, not making ridiculous exhibitions of myself to prove that I wasn't terrified--really genuinely brave. Brave enough to be quiet when quiet was called for, brave enough to observe before flinging myself into something, brave enough to not abandon my true self when someone else wanted to seduce or force me in a direction I didn't want to go, brave enough to stand my ground quietly.”
― Piper Kerman, Orange Is the New Black

“It's how we survive the hurt in life that brings us strength and gives us beauty.”
― Beth Hoffman, Saving CeeCee Honeycutt

“It's what we believe about ourselves that determines how others see us.”
― Beth Hoffman

“Life don't wait for nobody, and even as special as you are, it ain't gonna wait for you, neither. So it's time to make up your mind that you're gonna join it.”
― Beth Hoffman, Saving CeeCee Honeycutt

“Never tie your happiness to the tail of someone else's kite.”
― Beth Hoffman, Looking for Me

“Don't grow up too fast, Darling. Age is inevitable, but if you nurture a childlike heart, you'll never, ever grow old.”
― Beth Hoffman, Saving CeeCee Honeycutt

“far too many people die with a heart that's gone flat with indifference, and it surely must be a terrible way to go. Life will offer us amazing opportunities, but we've got to be wide-awke to recognize them.”
― Beth Hoffman, Saving CeeCee Honeycutt

“Maybe that's what love does - smooths the hard edges of life, giving us a gentle place to land when we fall.”
― Beth Hoffman, Looking for Me

“Sometimes it's not what we hold on to that shapes our lives--it's what we're willing to let go of.”
― Beth Hoffman, Looking for Me

“Life is full of change, honey. That's how we learn and grow. When we're born, the Good Lord gives each of us a Life book. Chapter by chapter, we live and learn.”
― Beth Hoffman, Saving CeeCee Honeycutt

“You have to accept that sometimes that's how things happen in this world. People's opinions, their feelings, they go one way, then the other. It just so happens you grew up at a certain point in this process.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“Sometimes I get so immersed in my own company, if I unexpectedly run into someone I know, it's a bit of a shock and takes me a while to adjust.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“It was like when you make a move in chess and just as you take your finger off the piece, you see the mistake you've made, and there's this panic because you don't know yet the scale of disaster you've left yourself open to.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“All children have to be deceived if they are to grow up without trauma.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“The problem, as I see it, is that you've been told and not told. You've been told, but none of you really understand, and I dare say, some people are quite happy to leave it that way.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“You're always in a rush, or else you're too exhausted to have a proper conversation. Soon enough, the long hours, the traveling, the broken sleep have all crept into your being and become part of you, so everyone can see it, in your posture, your gaze, the way you move and talk.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“We all complete. Maybe none of us really understand what we've lived through, or feel we've had enough time.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“And if these incidents now seem full of significance and all of a piece, it's probably because I'm looking at them in the light of what came later...”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“It was like being given a maths problem when your brain's exhausted, and you know there's some far-off solution, but you can't work up the energy even to give it a go. Something in me just gave up.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“I can see,’ Miss Emily said, ‘that it might look as though you were simply pawns in a game. It can certainly be looked at like that. But think of it. You were lucky pawns. There was a certain climate and now it’s gone. You have to accept that sometimes that’s how things happen in the world. People’s opinions, their feelings, they go one way, then the other. It just so happens you grew up at a certain point in this process.’
‘It might be just some trend that came and went,’ I said. ‘But for us, it’s our life.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“I quizzed him a lot on this point and i suspect the truth was that it was like a lot of things at that age: you don't have any clear reason, you just do it. You do it because you think it might get a laugh, or because you want to see if it'll cause a stir. And when you're asked to explain afterwards, it doesn't seem to make any sense.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“Revenge is like politics, one thing always leads to another until bad has become worse, and worse has become worst.”
― Jonas Jonasson, The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared