Leena Soni > Leena's Quotes

“One, remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Two, never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. Three, if you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don't throw it away.”
― Stephen Hawking

“I regard the afterlife to be a fairy story for people that are afraid of the dark”
― Stephen Hawking

“Still now I send letters into space
Hoping that some mailman somewhere will track you down
And recognise you from the descriptions in my poems
That he will place the stack of them in your hands and tell you,
There is a girl who still writes you, she doesn't know how not to”
― Sarah Kay

“In bed that night I invented a special drain that would be underneath every pillow in New York, and would connect to the reservoir. Whenever people cried themselves to sleep, the tears would all go to the same place, and in the morning the weatherman could report if the water level of the Reservoir of Tears had gone up or down, and you could know if New York is in heavy boots.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

“Succotash my cocker spaniel, you fudging crevasse-hole dipshiitake!”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

“He awoke each morning with familiar shapes at the edges of his vision, could feel memories nearby, but by the time breakfast came, they were already fading. By dinner, they were lost. It left Troy with a sadness, a cold sensation, and a feeling like a hollow stomach--different from hunger--like rainy days as a child when he didn't know how to fill his time. It was the pain of a chronic boredom mixed with the discomfort of time wasted.”
― Hugh Howey, First Shift: Legacy

“She wasn't bitter. She was sad, though. But it was a hopeful kind of sad. The kind of sad that just takes time. ”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“I just want you to know that you’re very special… and the only reason I’m telling you is that I don’t know if anyone else ever has.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“I walk around the school hallways and look at the people. I look at the teachers and wonder why they're here. If they like their jobs. Or us. And I wonder how smart they were when they were fifteen. Not in a mean way. In a curious way. It's like looking at all the students and wondering who's had their heart broken that day, and how they are able to cope with having three quizzes and a book report due on top of that. Or wondering who did the heart breaking. And wondering why.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“I walked over to the hill where we used to go and sled. There were a lot of little kids there. I watched them flying. Doing jumps and having races. And I thought that all those little kids are going to grow up someday. And all of those little kids are going to do the things that we do. And they will all kiss someone someday. But for now, sledding is enough. I think it would be great if sledding were always enough, but it isn't.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“And even if somebody else has it much worse, that doesn't really change the fact that you have what you have. Good and bad.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“Standing on the fringes of life... offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see what it looks like from the dance floor.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“If somebody likes me, I want them to like the real me, not what they think I am. And I don't want them to carry it around inside. I want them to show me, so I can feel it, too. I want them to be able to do whatever they want around me.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“I think the idea is that every person has to live for his or her own life and then make the choice to share it with other people. Maybe that is what makes people "participate.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“I was looking at the photographs and I started thinking that there was a time when these weren't memories.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“I don’t know if I will have the time to write any more letters, because I might be too busy trying to participate. So, if this does end up being the last letter, I just want you to know that I was in a bad place before I started high school, and you helped me. Even if you didn’t know what I was talking about, or know someone who’s gone through it, you made me not feel alone. Because I know there are people who say all these things don’t happen. And there are people who forget what it’s like to be sixteen when they turn seventeen. I know these will all be stories some day, and our pictures will become old photographs. We all become somebody’s mom or dad. But right now, these moments are not stories. This is happening. I am here, and I am looking at her. And she is so beautiful. I can see it. This one moment when you know you’re not a sad story. You are alive. And you stand up and see the lights on the buildings and everything that makes you wonder. And you’re listening to that song, and that drive with the people who you love most in this world. And in this moment, I swear, we are infinite.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“It's great that you can listen and be a shoulder to someone, but what about when someone doesn't need a shoulder? What if they need the arms or something like that? You can't just sit there and put everybody's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You just can't. You have to do things.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“people who try to control situations all the time are afraid that if they don't, nothing will work out the way they want.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“Sometimes, I look outside, and I think that a lot of other people have seen this snow before. Just like I think that a lot of other people have read those books before. And listened to those songs.
I wonder how they feel tonight.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“As you enter the tunnel, the wind gets sucked away, and you squint from the lights overhead. When you adjust the lights, you can see the other side in the distance just as the sound of the radio fades to nothing because the waves just can’t reach. Then, you’re in the middle of the tunnel, and everything becomes a calm dream. As you see the opening get closer, you just can’t get there fast enough. And finally, just when you think you’ll never get there, you see the opening right in front of you. And the radio comes back even louder than you remember it. And the wind is waiting. And you fly out of the tunnel onto the bridge. And there it is. The city. A million lights and buildings and everything seems as exciting as the first time you saw it.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“I love Twinkies, and the reason I am saying that is because we are all supposed to think of reasons to live.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“Maybe these are my glory days, and I'm not ever realizing it because they involve a ball.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“I just think it's bad when a boy looks at a girl and thinks that the way he sees her is better than she actually is. And I think it's bad when the most honest way a boy can look at a girl is through a camera.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“Foolishness? No, It’s Not

Sometimes I spend all day trying to count the leaves on a single tree. To do this I have to climb branch by branch and write down the numbers in a little book. So I suppose, from their point of view, it’s reasonable that my friends say: what foolishness! She’s got her head in the clouds again.

But it’s not. Of course I have to give up, but by then I’m half crazy with the wonder of it — the abundance of the leaves, the quietness of the branches, the hopelessness of my effort. And I am in that delicious and important place, roaring with laughter, full of earth-praise.”
― Mary Oliver, A Thousand Mornings: Poems

“To study the self is to forget the self. Mi casa, su casa.”
― Phil Knight, Shoe Dog

“To give the short version, I've learnt that every human being, with or without disabilities, needs to strive to do their best, and by striving for happiness you will arrive at happiness. For us, you see, having autism is normal -- so we can't know for sure what your 'normal' is even like. But so long as we can learn to love ourselves, I'm not sure how much it matters whether we're normal or austitic.”
― Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: the Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

“We get swallowed up by the illusion that unless we can find a place to belong, we are going to be all alone in the world.”
― Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: the Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

“Q25 What's the reason you jump?
When I'm jumping it's as if my feelings are going upward to the sky. Really, my urge to be swallowed up by the sky is enough to make my heart quiver. When I'm jumping, I can feel my body parts really well, too--my bounding legs and my clapping hands--and that makes me feel so, so good.”
― Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: the Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

“But we know that people are complicated and have a mixture of flaws and talents and sins. So why do we pretend that we don’t?”
― Jon Ronson, So You've Been Publicly Shamed

“We are defining the boundaries of normality by tearing apart the people outside it.”
― Jon Ronson, So You've Been Publicly Shamed