Lisa > Lisa's Quotes

“Don't ever feel that you have to hide who you are. Nothing good ever comes from keeping secrets like that.”
― Lisa See, Shanghai Girls

“when people say right person, wrong time, or wrong person, right time, it's usually a cop-out. They think that fate is playing with them. That we're all just participants in this romantic reality show that God gets a kick out of watching. But the universe doesn't decide what's right or not right. You do.”
― Rachel Cohn & David Levithan

“I mean, what if love isn't a yes-or-no question? It's not either you're in love or you're not. I mean, aren't there different levels? And maybe these things, like words and expectations and whatever, don't go on top of the love. Maybe it's like a map, and they all have their own place, and then when you see it from the sky - whoa.”
― David Levithan, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“I focus my eyes on my jade bracelet. All these years and for all the years after I die, it will remain unchanged. It will always be hard and cold- just a piece of stone. Yet for me it is an object that ties me to the past, to people and places that are gone forever. Its continued perfection serves as a physical reminder to keep living, to look to the future, to cherish what I have. It reminds me to endure. I'll live one morning after another.”
― Lisa See, Shanghai Girls

“What I do is me, for that I came.”
― Geraldine Brooks

“We cannot know the future, nor can we change it,...It is best to be realistic about such things. But we have the time we have been given. So let us treasure it while we can.”
― Geraldine Brooks

“I knew I used food to cope with emotions, but just knowing it wasn't enough to completely stop it. That's why I created the twenty-second rule: Before letting myself rip into a bag of junk food, I forced myself to sit down and county to twenty. Slowly. During those twenty seconds I made myself answer a very simple question: What was really bothering me? Almost every single time, I came up with the answer before the twenty seconds were up. The next question was: What can I do right this minute to help fix it? Do I need to call someone to sort out a misunderstanding? Do I need to get paperwork done? Do I need to run overdue errands? . . .By the time I came up with something that I could do right at that moment my urge to eat had subsided and I was tacking the underlying problem.”
― Monica Seles, Getting a Grip: On My Body, My Mind, My Self

“Everybody wants to be on the mountaintop, but if you'll remember, mountaintops are rocky and cold. There is no growth on the top of a mountain. Sure, the view is great, but what's a view for? A view just gives us a glimpse of our next destination-our next target. But to hit that target, we must come off the mountain, go through the valley, and begin to climb the next slope. It is in the valley that we slog through the lush grass and rich soil, learning and becoming what enables us to summit life's next peak.”
― Andy Andrews, The Noticer: Sometimes, All a Person Needs Is a Little Perspective

“Despite popular belief to the contrary, there is absolutely no power in intention. The seagull may intend to fly away, may decide to do so, may talk with the other seagulls about how wonderful it is to fly, but until the seagull flaps his wings and takes to the air, he is still on the dock. There’s no difference between that gull and all the others. Likewise, there is no difference in the person who intends to do things differently and the one who never thinks about it in the first place. Have you ever considered how often we judge ourselves by our intentions while we judge others by their actions? Yet intention without action is an insult to those who expect the best from you.”
― Andy Andrews, The Noticer: Sometimes, All a Person Needs Is a Little Perspective

“Remember, whatever you focus upon, increases. . . . When you focus on the things you need, you'll find those needs increasing. If you concentrate your thoughts on what you don't have, you will soon be concentrating on other things that you had forgotten you don't have--and feel worse! If you set your mind on loss, you are more likely to lose. But a grateful perspective brings happiness and abundance into a person's life.”
― Andy Andrews, The Noticer: Sometimes, All a Person Needs Is a Little Perspective

“I just think it’s amazing that a person could lose everything, chasing nothing.”
― Andy Andrews, The Noticer: Sometimes, All a Person Needs Is a Little Perspective

“The apple tree in the background, just barely visible, was stretching a single limb out to her, as if wanting to be in the photo with her.”
― Sarah Addison Allen, First Frost

“If every person in this room made it a rule that wherever you are, whenever you can, you will try to act a little kinder than is necessary - the world really would be a better place. And if you do this, if you act just a little kinder than is necessary, someone else, somewhere, someday, may recognize in you, in every single one of you, the face of God.”
― R.J. Palacio, Wonder

“It looked like the world was covered in a cobbler crust of brown sugar and cinnamon.”
― Sarah Addison Allen, First Frost

“It had taken her a long time to realize that a prison sometimes isn't a prison at all. Sometimes, it's simply a door you assume is locked because you've never tried to open it.”
― Sarah Addison Allen, First Frost

“Motherhood is hard enough without judgement from others who don't know the whole story.”
― Sarah Addison Allen, First Frost

“Known that happiness isn't a point in time you leave behind. It's what's ahead of you. Every single day.”
― Sarah Addison Allen, First Frost

“As we experience things, they happen too quickly to be thoughly analyzed...”
― Tasha Alexander, And Only to Deceive

“I think that as we experience things, they happen too quickly to be thoroughly analyzed.”
― Tasha Alexander, And Only to Deceive