Crystal Morrison > Crystal's Quotes

“Well, I am so sensitive and I am very fragile but so is everything else, and living with a dangerous amount of sensitivity is sort of what I have to do sometimes, and it is so very much better than living with no gusto at all. And I’d rather live with a tender heart, because that is the key to feeling the beat of all of the other hearts.”
― Jenny Slate, Little Weirds

“they convinced me i only had a few good years left before i was replaced by a girl younger than me as though men yield power with age but women grow into irrelevance they can keep their lies for i have just gotten started i feel as though i just left the womb my twenties are the warm-up for what i’m really about to do wait till you see me in my thirties now that will be a proper introduction to the nasty. wild. woman in me. how can i leave before the party’s started rehearsals begin at forty i ripen with age i do not come with an expiration date and now for the main event curtains up at fifty let’s begin the show - timeless”
― Rupi Kaur, The Sun and Her Flowers

“Books are often far more than just books.”
― Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist: Essays

“If people cannot be flawed in fiction there's no place left for us to be human.”
― Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist

“So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say. But to sacrifice a hair of the head of your vision, a shade of its colour, in deference to some Headmaster with a silver pot in his hand or to some professor with a measuring-rod up his sleeve, is the most abject treachery, and the sacrifice of wealth and chastity which used to be said to be the greatest of human disasters, a mere flea-bite in comparison.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

“We are all made of flesh and stars, but we all become dust in the end. Best to shine while you can.”
― Alice Feeney, Sometimes I Lie

“Nana always said that books made better friends than people anyway. Books will take you anywhere if you let them, she used to say, and I think she was right.”
― Alice Feeney, Sometimes I Lie

“We are all just ghosts of the people we hoped that we were and counterfeit replicas of the people we wanted to be.”
― Alice Feeney, Sometimes I Lie

“Sometimes I think I am the unreliable narrator of my own life. Sometimes I think we all are.”
― Alice Feeney, His & Hers

“Sometimes the right thing to do is wrong, but that’s just life.”
― Alice Feeney, Sometimes I Lie

“I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground

“I admit that twice two makes four is an excellent thing, but if we are to give everything its due, twice two makes five is sometimes a very charming thing too.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from the Underground

“Now answer me, sincerely, honestly, who lives past forty? I'll tell you who does: fools and scoundrels.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from the Underground

“Whether it’s good or bad, it is sometimes very pleasant, too, to smash things.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground

“Finally: I'm bored, and I constantly do nothing. And writing things down really seems like work. They say work makes a man good and honest. Well, here's a chance, at least.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes From Underground

“No, I'd better sit on to the end,' I went on thinking; 'you would be pleased, my friends, if I went away. Nothing will induce me to go. I'll go on sitting here and drinking to the end, on purpose, as a sign that I don't think you of the slightest consequence.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground

“Because I only talk a good game, I only dream in my head, but do you know what I want in reality? That you all go to hell, that's what! I want peace. I'd sell the whole world for a kopeck this minute, just not to be bothered. Shall the world go to hell, or shall I not have my tea? I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea.”
― Fyodr Dostoyevsky

“I’d found the haven for my mind, body, and soul. Everyone needs such a place. Don’t reject the space you gravitate toward just because the windows aren’t stained glass and the congregation isn’t saved.”
― Rasheed Newson, My Government Means to Kill Me

“We are not so narrowly defined as society would have us believe. Yet the limits placed on our appetites, talents, and potential are implanted in us when we are children - too young to recognized the prisons built with words. We could blame it all on our families, but then we'd never find the keys to unlock our cells. The awful genius of our confinement is that we are both the prisoner and the warden. We tell ourselves daily that we aren't free to do this or that because we are this or that. To escape such limited thinking, we don't have to look far. The keys are in our pocket.”
― Rasheed Newson, My Government Means to Kill Me

“The theory goes that governmental agencies don't accidentally make accessing information or resources difficult. They do this shit on purpose. The forms are confusing, and the record keeping is ass-backward because it reflects a policy choice. A decision has been made to repel the average citizen from gaining certain knowledge or opportunities.

When most people encounter the seemingly arbitrary and capricious workings of, for instance, the IRS or the DMV, they accept it because they've been trained to assume that the government is run by half-wits. They yell at the lowly staffer in front of them, then sulk away and comply with the absurd rules or give up. Yet what the vast majority of citizens see as mistakes are the result of calculated design. Some high-level political functionary stipulated that the form must be completed in triplicate. A few billionaire donors drafted the fine print that disqualifies the neediest from touching the bounty. These are very smart motherfuckers. To think otherwise plays into their hands.”
― Rasheed Newson, My Government Means to Kill Me

“I guess the only time most people think about injustice is when it happens to them.”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“I had noticed that both in the very poor and very rich extremes of society the mad were often allowed to mingle freely.”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“The best thing about the bedroom was the bed. I liked to stay in bed for hours, even during the day with covers pulled up to my chin. It was good in there, nothing ever occurred in there, no people, nothing.”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“The problem was you had to keep choosing between one evil or another, and no matter what you chose, they sliced a little more off you, until there was nothing left. At the age of 25 most people were finished. A whole goddamned nation of assholes driving automobiles, eating, having babies, doing everything in the worst way possible, like voting for the presidential candidate who reminded them most of themselves.”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“So, that’s what they wanted: lies. Beautiful lies. That’s what they needed. People were fools. It was going to be easy for me.”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“Why did the guys need this? This wasn't a matter of courage, it was just dirty play.”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“What a weary time those years were -- to have the desire and the need to live but not the ability.”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“The parents of rich kids tended to be more patriotic because they had more to lose if the country went under. The poor parents were far less patriotic, and then often professed their patriotism only because it was expected or because it was the way they had been raised. Subconsciously they knew it wouldn't be any better or worse for them if the Russians or the Germans or the Chinese or the Japanese ran the country, especially if they had dark skin. Things might even improve.”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

“The nicest veterans...the kindest and funniest ones, the ones who hated war the most, were the ones who'd really fought.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five