Núria > Núria's Quotes

“I think the act of reading imbues the reader with a sensitivity toward the outside world that people who don't read can sometimes lack. I know it seems like a contradiction in terms; after all reading is such a solitary, internalizing act that it appears to represent a disengagement from day-to-day life. But reading, and particularly the reading of fiction, encourages us to view the world in new and challenging ways...It allows us to inhabit the consciousness of another which is a precursor to empathy, and empathy is, for me, one of the marks of a decent human being.”
― John Connolly, The Book of Lost Things

“But who can remember pain, once it’s over? All that remains of it is a shadow, not in the mind even, in the flesh. Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

“For in every adult there dwells the child that was, and in every child there lies the adult that will be.”
― John Connolly, The Book of Lost Things

“What I say is, a town isn’t a town without a bookstore. It may call itself a town, but unless it’s got a bookstore, it knows it’s not foolin’ a soul.”
― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
― Oscar Wilde

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“... a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armour yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“Knowing yourself is life's eternal homework”
― Felicia Day, You're Never Weird on the Internet

“There's nothing like deep breaths after laughing that hard. Nothing in the world like a sore stomach for the right reasons.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“For the heart, life is simple: it beats for as long as it can. Then it stops.”
― Karl Ove Knausgård, Min kamp 1

“I wanted real adventures to happen to myself. But real
adventures, I reflected, do not happen to people who remain at home: they must be sought abroad.”
― James Joyce, Dubliners

“If you lie to yourself about your own pain, you will be killed by those who will claim you enjoyed it.”
― Alice Walker, Possessing the Secret of Joy

“When the sun has set, no candle can replace it.”
― George R.R. Martin

“Nolite te bastardes carborundorum. Don't let the bastards grind you down.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

“We thought we had such problems. How were we to know we were happy?”
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

“I believe in the resistance as I believe there can be no light without shadow; or rather, no shadow unless there is also light.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

“But this first clumsy attempt showed her that the imagination itself was a source of secrets: once she had begun a story, no one could be told. Pretending in words was too tentative, too vulnerable, too embarrassing to let anyone know. Even writing out the she saids, the and thens, made her wince, and she felt foolish, appearing to know about the emotions of an imaginary being. Self-exposure was inevitable the moment she described a character's weakness; the reader was bound to speculate that she was describing herself. What other authority could she have?”
― Ian McEwan, Atonement

“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.”
― Alice Walker

“Even nothing cannot last forever.”
― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

“Men explain things to me, still. And no man has ever apologized for explaining, wrongly, things that I know and they don't.”
― Rebecca Solnit, Men Explain Things to Me

“At my glummest, I sometimes think women get to chose- between being punished for being unsubjugated and the continual punishment of subjugation.”
― Rebecca Solnit, Men Explain Things to Me

“We know less when we erroneously think we know than when we recognize that we don’t.”
― Rebecca Solnit, Men Explain Things to Me

“Better never means better for everyone... It always means worse, for some.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

“The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read. Not by any other person, and not even by yourself at some later date. Otherwise you begin excusing yourself. You must see the writing as emerging like a long scroll of ink from the index finger of your right hand; you must see your left hand erasing it.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

“If we were all on trial for our thoughts, we would all be hanged.”
― Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace

“We believe the one who has power. He is the one who gets to write the story. So when you study history, you must ask yourself, Whose story am I missing? Whose voice was suppressed so that this voice could come forth? Once you have figured that out, you must find that story too. From there you get a clearer, yet still imperfect, picture.”
― Yaa Gyasi, Homegoing

“Books, she has found, are a way to live a thousand lives--or to find strength in a very long one.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“What is a person, if not the marks they leave behind?”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue