Leigh Hecking > Leigh's Quotes

“If you care about something you have to protect it – If you’re lucky enough to find a way of life you love, you have to find the courage to live it.”
― John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany

“In increments both measurable and not, our childhood is stolen from us -- not always in one momentous event but often in a series of small robberies, which add up to the same loss.”
― John Irving, Until I Find You

“He was gone, and I did not have time to tell him what I had just now realized: that I forgave him, and that she forgave us, and that we had to forgive to survive in the labyrinth. There were so many of us who would have to live with things done and things left undone that day. Things that did not go right, things that seemed okay at the time because we could not see the future. If only we could see the endless string of consequences that result from our smallest actions. But we can’t know better until knowing better is useless. And as I walked back to give Takumi’s note to the Colonel, I saw that I would never know. I would never know her well enough to know her thoughts in those last minutes, would never know if she left us on purpose. But the not-knowing would not keep me from caring, and I would always love Alaska Young, my crooked neighbor, with all my crooked heart.”
― John Green, Looking for Alaska

“Beauty is rarely soft or consolatory. Quite the contrary. Genuine beauty is always quite alarming.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“It didn't matter in the end how old they had been, or that they were girls, but only that we had loved them, and that they hadn't heard us calling, still do not hear us, up here in the tree house, with our thinning hair and soft bellies, calling them out of those rooms where they went to be alone for all time, alone in suicide, which is deeper than death, and where we will never find the pieces to put them back together.”
― Jeffrey Eugenides, The Virgin Suicides

“Undressing her was an act of recklessness, a kind of vandalism, like releasing a zoo full of animals, or blowing up a dam.”
― Michael Chabon, Wonder Boys

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night

“Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

“We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, If This Isn't Nice, What Is?: Advice for the Young

“In order to write the book you want to write, in the end you have to become the person you need to become to write that book.”
― Junot Diaz

“I miss that time. The cities back then, just after the forests died, were full of wonders, and you'd stumble on them--these princes of the air on common rooftops--the rivers that burst through the city streets so they ran like canals--the rabbits in parking garages--the deer foaling, nestled in Dumpsters like a Nativity.”
― M.T. Anderson, Feed

“If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.”
― Bernard M. Baruch

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong it is until it's in hot water.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt

“Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”
― Mother Teresa

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”
― E.E. Cummings

“People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.

A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave.

A soul mates purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master...”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

“A story is a letter that the author writes to himself, to tell himself things that he would be unable to discover otherwise.”
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind

“Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.”
― Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

“I want to say somewhere: I've tried to be forgiving. And yet. There were times in my life, whole years, when anger got the better of me. Ugliness turned me inside out. There was a certain satisfaction in bitterness. I courted it. It was standing outside, and I invited it in.”
― Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

“She was gone, and all that was left was the space you'd grown around her, like a tree that grows around a fence. For a long time, it remained hollow. Years, maybe. And when at last it was filled again, you knew that the new love you felt for a woman would have been impossible without Alma. If it weren't for her, there would never have been an empty space, or the need to fill it.”
― Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

“And so it goes...”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

“And I guess I realized at that moment that I really did love her. Because there was nothing to gain, and that didn't matter.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“We didn't talk about anything heavy or light. We were just there together. And that was enough”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“You can't just sit there and put everyone's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You just can't. You have to do things.”
― Stephen Chbosky

“Five minutes of a lifetime were truly spent, and we felt young in a good way.”
― Stephen Chbosky

“We are unusual and tragic and alive.”
― dave eggers

“I will not wait to love as best as I can. We thought we were young and that there would be time to love well sometime in the future. This is a terrible way to think. It is no way to live, to wait to love.”
― Dave Eggers, What Is the What