Winter > Winter's Quotes

“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
― C.S. Lewis

“Love child!" What else? You will find it and lose it, again and again. And with each finding and each loss, you will become more than before. What you make of it is yours to choose.”
― Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel's Scion

“And having once chosen, never to seek to return to the crossroads of that decision-for even if one chooses wrongly, the choice cannot be unmade.”
― Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel's Chosen

“There would be love, and while it was mine, I could cling to it. I could rejoice -- in life, in the existence of love. In the existence of people like Phedre and Joscelin. Although the standards they set were impossibly high, still, I could rejoice that such courage and compassion existed in the world. I could hope and aspire.”
― Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel's Scion

“What does it mean to be good?”
― Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel's Scion

“There are those who do not hold that there is any innate goodness to mankind. To them I say, had you lived my life, you would not believe it. I have known the depths to which mortals are capable of descending, and I have seen the heights. I have seen how kindness and compassion may grow in the unlikeliest of places, as the mountain flower forces its way through the stern rock.”
― Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel's Dart

“To my surprise, Joscelin rose. ‘Phedre-’ He began, then halted. Sitting below him, I watched him smile to himself, quiet and private. ‘Phedre yields with a willow’s grace,’ he said softly. ‘And endures with the strength of mountains. Without her, life would be calm; and yet lack all meaning.”
― Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel's Justice

“Woke up this morning with a terrific urge to lie in bed all day and read.”
― Raymond Carver

“The worst thing about new books is that they keep us from reading the old ones.”
― Joseph Joubert

“Joscelin, is love supposed to make you feel like you’re sick and dying, and mad enough to hit someone and drunk with joy, and your heart’s a boulder n your chest trying to burst into a thousand pieces all at once?”
“Mm-hmm.” He finished his ale. “That would be love.”
― Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel's Justice

“…only then did I wake out of the book.”
― John McGahern

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.”
― Madeleine L'Engle

“Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living. You said I killed you--haunt me then. The murdered do haunt their murderers. I believe--I know that ghosts have wandered the earth. Be with me always--take any form--drive me mad. Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! It is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!”
― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

“There are those who are awkward in the face of sorrow, fearing to say the wrong thing; to them, I say, there is no wrong in comfort, ever. A kind word, a consoling arm ... these things are ever welcome.”
― Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel's Dart

“I lie awake in my bed, clinging to the brightness I have known, fighting back the tide of darkness, the memories of blood and branding and horror, and the legacy of cruelty that runs in my own veins, shaping my own secret vow and wielding it like a brand against the darkness, whispering it to myself, over and over.

I will try to be good.”
― Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel's Scion

“Again and again, I pushed my memories away. There were days when it was easy and days when it was hard. My love ... was a boulder in my heart. I sought to let go of it and let it sink. Let it sink below the surface, carrying my heart with it. Let it come to rest on the stream's bottom, a vast hidden bulwark, dividing the current. Let it stay there, hidden and unseen. Forgotten. Betimes it worked. Betimes it didn't. It was the best I could do.”
― Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel's Justice

“If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. If they don't, they never were.”
― Kahlil Gibran

“Surprising yourself is a big thing for me—to go somewhere that I don’t even know I’m going.”
― Lily Tuck

“It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“We all have our time machines, don't we. Those that take us back are memories...And those that carry us forward, are dreams.”
― H.G. Wells

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”
― George Eliot

“Go, my book, and help destroy the world as it is.”
― Russell Banks, Continental Drift

“Good books don't give up all their secrets at once.”
― Stephen King

“The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“Everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else.”
― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

“If we are only interested in changing the AS person so that they can better meld themselves into society - a tenuous and nebulous concept to begin with - then perhaps we are misguided. The AS community gives us much cause to celebrate. Never, I think, should we expect or want them to be carbon copies of the most socially adept among us. We should only suggest whatever help they need to insure they have every opportunity of leading productive, rewarding and self-sufficient lives. We would lose too much and they would lose even more, if our goals were anything more, or less.”
― Liane Holliday Willey, Pretending to be Normal: Living with Asperger's Syndrome (Autism Spectrum Disorder) Expanded Edition

“Focusing on and sustaining life activities...jobs, budgets housekeeping etc. takes from me. It is an exhausting struggle; a desperate attempt to tread water while drowning.
Life drains my well. Special interests fill it back up. I need that time, I need that filling, that relaxing, that decompressing, in order to accomplish other tasks in my life.”
― Jeannie Davide-Rivera, Twirling Naked in the Streets and No One Noticed: Growing Up With Undiagnosed Autism

“It is no wonder that I had tears of relief, to find out, finally, the truth - to discover an explanation, a diagnosis that explained not one or two of my symptoms or behaviours but ALL of them. Finally, someone saw me”
― Jeannie Davide-Rivera, Twirling Naked in the Streets and No One Noticed: Growing Up With Undiagnosed Autism