Nancy Ellis > Nancy's Quotes

“Our listeners asked us:
"What is chaos?"
We're answering:
"We do not comment on economic policy.”
― John Vaillant, The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival

“The one certainty in tiger tracks is: follow them long enough and you will eventually arrive at a tiger, unless the tiger arrives at you first.”
― John Vaillant, The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival

“To say a tiger is an "outside" animal is an understatement that is best appreciated when a tiger is inside.”
― John Vaillant, The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival

“The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.”
― Mark Twain

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
― Edmund Burke

“These are the times that try men's souls.”
― Thomas Paine, The American Crisis

“In Jerusalem, belief as a form of aggression achieved near perfection. Whether you went deep in the earth or climbed the highest hill, someone's faith would track you down, catch you in its sights, and demand that you choose sides.”
― Dan Fesperman, The Amateur Spy

“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”
― William Shakespeare, The Tempest

“Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.”
― Margaret Fuller

“If Nature has made you for a giver, your hands are born open, and so is your heart; and, though there may be times when your hands are empty, your heart is always full, and you can give things out of that -- warm things, kind things, sweet things -- help and comfort and laughter -- and sometimes gay, kind laughter is the best help of all.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, A Little Princess

“How it is that animals understand things I do not know, but it is certain that they do understand. Perhaps there is a language which is not made of words and everything in the world understands it. Perhaps there is a soul hidden in everything and it can always speak, without making a sound, to another soul.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, A Little Princess

“To put the world in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order; we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right.”
― Confucius

“The Romans did not like kings. We needed them, however. Over many generations we had evolved the pattern of living that best suited Celtic natures. Kings led noble warriors in battle that defined tribal territory and gave men a shape for their pride. Less aggressive common people farmed the land and did the labor of the tribe. Druids were responsible for the intangible essentials upon which all else depended. Man and Earth and Otherworld were thus held in balance----until the coming of Caesar, who wanted to destroy our warriors and our druids so he could make the rest of us his slaves.”
― Morgan Llywelyn

“Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

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

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“History does not always repeat itself. Sometimes it just yells, 'Can't you remember anything I told you?' and lets fly with a club.”
― John W. Campbell Jr.

“It's not denial. I'm just selective about the reality I accept.”
― Bill Watterson

“To live every day as if it had been stolen from death, that is how I would like to live. To feel the joy of life, as Eve felt the joy of life. To separate oneself from the burden, the angst, the anguish that we all encounter every day. To say I am alive, I am wonderful, I am. I am. That is something to aspire to.”
― Garth Stein, The Art of Racing in the Rain

“To obsess over occult horrors is unhealthy and dangerous to the soul; lifting up your eyes to the wonder and majesty of God's creation is the cure. It's only through His mercy that we can survive dark nights of evil.”
― Ralph Sarchie

“You only get one life. It's actually your duty to live it as fully as possible.”
― Jojo Moyes, Me Before You

“Some mistakes... Just have greater consequences than others. But you don't have to let the result of one mistake be the thing that defines you. You, Clark, have the choice not to let that happen.”
― Jojo Moyes, Me Before You

“You can only actually help someone who wants to be helped.”
― Jojo Moyes, Me Before You

“I turned away, unexpectedly afraid to look at him. I was afraid of what he might be feeling, the depth of his loss, the extent of his fears. Will Traynor's life had been so far beyond the experiences of mine. Who was I to tell him how he should want to live it?”
― Jojo Moyes, Me Before You

“I find that people aren't all one thing. One rather wishes they were for simplicity's sake, but isn't the truth that people are good and bad, simple and complicated, happy and sad, frightened and courageous? It's all a mix. We learn to take in everything about a person as disparate parts to the whole, and it's the whole that we love, even at moments when the other isn't who we wish her to be.”
― Elizabeth George, A Banquet of Consequences

“Omens. If I were beginning again, starting out in life, I would ignore all omens, neither heeding them nor trying to disable them. If we chose to pass them by, then perhaps they would lose their power, as old gods and goddesses, no longer worshiped, fade away and lose their grip on us.”
― Margaret George, Helen of Troy

“The age of heroes had truly passed, and Tisamenus could not be one even if he burned for it. A great bronze wall had been erected around those old heroes, it descended from the sky, and no one could lift it or trespass there. Each age bestowed its own glory, but the age of my grandson could not be the age of Menelaus.”
― Margaret George, Helen of Troy

“The war at Troy seemed to grow in song, poetry, and story all the while. As it faded from living memory, it grew larger and larger. Men claimed descent from one or the other of the heroes, or, failing that, anyone who had fought in the war, which now assumed the stature of a clash between the gods and the titans.”
― Margaret George, Helen of Troy

“Do not be so open-minded that your brains fall out.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“Good men and women sought calm, peace, time for reflection. Evil people were eternally restive, intractable, always eager for more thrills, which were the same few thrills endlessly repeated, because the evil were unimaginative, acting on feelings rather than reason. Forever agitated, they were unaware that the cause of their fury was the confining narrowness of the worldview they crafted for themselves, its emptiness. There would never be an end to them—and always a need for men and women willing to resist them at whatever cost.”
― Dean Koontz, Ashley Bell