Melissa > Melissa's Quotes

“In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them.”
― Mark Twain

“Then I reflect that all things happen, happen to one, precisely now. Century follows century, and things happen only in the present. There are countless men in the air, on land and at sea, and all that really happens happens to me.”
― Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings

“I love books. I like that the moment you open one and sink into it you can escape from the world, into a story that's way more interesting that yours will ever be.”
― Elizabeth Scott, Bloom

“...But it gradually seemed to me that I'd made myself believe something that wasn't true. I'd made myself believe that I was fine and happy and fulfilled on my own without the love of anyone else. Being in love was like China: you knew it was there, and no doubt it was very interesting, and some people went there, but I never would. I'd spend all my life without ever going to China, but it wouldn't matter, because there was all the rest of the world to visit... And I thought: am I really going to spend the rest of my life without feeling that again? I thought: I want to go to China. It's full of treasures and strangeness and mysteries and joy.”
― Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

“I stopped believing there was a power of good and a power of evil that were outside us. And I came to believe that good and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are.”
― Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

“I think it's perfectly possible to explain how the universe came about without bringing God into it, but I don't know everything, and there may well be a God somewhere, hiding away. Actually, if he is keeping out of sight, it's because he's ashamed of his followers and all the cruelty and ignorance they're responsible for promoting in his name. If I were him, I'd want nothing to do with them.”
― Philip Pullman

“We don’t need a list of rights and wrongs, tables of dos and don’ts: we need books, time, and silence. Thou shalt not is soon forgotten, but Once upon a time lasts forever.”
― Philip Pullman

“All the history of human life has been a struggle between wisdom and stupidity.”
― Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

“Iorek Byrnison: Can is not the same as must.
Lyra Silvertongue: But if you must and you can, then there's no excuse.”
― Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

“When you choose one way out of many, all the ways you don't take are snuffed out like candles, as if they'd never existed.”
― Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

“That's the duty of the old,' said the Librarian, 'to be anxious on the behalf of the young. And the duty of the young is to scorn the anxiety of the old.'

They sat for a while longer, and then parted, for it was late, and they were old and anxious.”
― Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass

“Maybe sometimes we don't do the right thing because the wrong thing looks more dangerous, and we don't want to look scared, so we go and do the wrong thing just because it's dangerous. We're more concerned with not looking scared than with judging right.”
― Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

“Children are not less intelligent than adults; what they are is less informed.”
― Philip Pullman

“The sun will rise tomorrow. It always does, and all the wishing in the world for the way things were, or for what they could have been, won't change that. It won't change how things are.”
― Elizabeth Scott, Something, Maybe

“Things end. People leave. And you know what? Life goes on. Besides, if bad things didn't happen, how would you be able to feel the good ones?”
― Elizabeth Scott, Perfect You

“Why do people think being with someone is the answer to everything?”
― Elizabeth Scott, Love You Hate You Miss You

“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”
― Andre Gide, Autumn Leaves

“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.”
― Andre Gide

“Be faithful to that which exists within yourself.”
― Andre Gide

“The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity.”
― Andre Gide

“Only those things are beautiful which are inspired by madness and written by reason.”
― Andre Gide

“The color of truth is grey.”
― Andre Gide

“Everything's already been said, but since nobody was listening, we have to start again.”
― Andre Gide

“I do not love men: I love what devours them.”
― André Gide, Prometheus Illbound

“Do not do what someone else could do as well as you. Do not say, do not write what someone else could say, could write as well as you. Care for nothing in yourself but what you feel exists nowhere else. And, out of yourself create, impatiently or patiently, the most irreplaceable of beings.”
― André Gide

“You have to let other people be right' was his answer to their insults. 'It consoles them for not being anything else.”
― André Gide, The Immoralist

“The most decisive actions of our life - I mean those that are most likely to decide the whole course of our future - are, more often than not, unconsidered.”
― André Gide

“I am lost if I attempt to take count of chronology. When I think over the past, I am like a person whose eyes cannot properly measure distances and is liable to think things extremely remote which on examination prove to be quite near.”
― Andre Gide, If it Die...

“Argue with anything else, but don't argue with your own nature.”
― Phillip Pullman

“All stories teach, whether the storyteller intends them to or not. They teach the world we create. They teach the morality we live by. They teach it much more effectively than moral precepts and instructions.”
― Philip Pullman