Sümy > Sümy's Quotes

“It's our very capacity for self-consciousness that makes us self-destructive!”
― Alison Bechdel, Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama

“It strikes me that this may be one of the differences between youth and age: when we are young, we invent different futures for ourselves; when we are old, we invent different pasts for others.”
― Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

“Does character develop over time? In novels, of course it does: otherwise there wouldn't be much of a story. But in life? I sometimes wonder. Our attitudes and opinions change, we develop new habits and eccentricities; but that's something different, more like decoration. Perhaps character resembles intelligence, except that character peaks a little later: between twenty and thirty, say. And after that, we're just stuck with what we've got. We're on our own. If so, that would explain a lot of lives, wouldn't it? And also—if this isn't too grand a word—our tragedy.”
― Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

“One of the troubles is this: the heart isn't heart-shaped.”
― Julian Barnes

“ You put together two people who have not been put together before. Sometimes it is like that first attempt to harness a hydrogen balloon to a fire balloon: do you prefer crash and burn, or burn and crash?
But sometimes it works, and something new is made, and the world is changed. Then, at some point, sooner or later, for this reason or that, one of them is taken away. and what is taken away is greater than the sum of what was there. this may not be mathematically possible; but it is emotionally possible.”
― Julian Barnes, Levels of Life

“Memory is identity....You are what you have done; what you have done is in your memory; what you remember defines who you are; when you forget your life you cease to be, even before your death.”
― Julian Barnes, Nothing to Be Frightened Of

“To own a certain book - and to choose it without help - is to define yourself.”
― Julian Barnes, A Life with Books

“How much I missed, simply because I was afraid of missing it.”
― Paulo Coelho, Brida

“And, when you can't go back, you have to worry only about the best way of moving forward.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“Forgive but do not forget, or you will be hurt again. Forgiving changes the perspectives. Forgetting loses the lesson.”
― Paulo Coelho

“It takes a huge effort to free yourself from memory”
― Paulo Coelho, Aleph

“There is always a gap between intention and action..”
― Paulo Coelho

“Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.”
― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

“Enjoy going through life as yourself.”
― Lena Dunham

“Sometimes people are beautiful.
Not in looks.
Not in what they say.
Just in what they are.”
― Markus Zusak, I Am the Messenger

“Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I'm not living.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”
― Aldous Huxley, Complete Essays, Vol. II: 1926-1929

“You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer

“It kills me sometimes, how people die.”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

“One must always be careful of books," said Tessa, "and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Angel

“Maybe our favorite quotations say more about us than about the stories and people we're quoting.”
― John Green

“I am a cage, in search of a bird.”
― Franz Kafka

“I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself.”
― Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis

“They say ignorance is bliss.... they're wrong ”
― Franz Kafka

“I usually solve problems by letting them devour me.”
― Franz Kafka

“You are at once both the quiet and the confusion of my heart.”
― Franz Kafka

“He is terribly afraid of dying because he hasn’t yet lived.”
― Franz Kafka

“I never wish to be easily defined. I’d rather float over other people’s minds as something strictly fluid and non-perceivable; more like a transparent, paradoxically iridescent creature rather than an actual person.”
― Franz Kafka

“Kill me, or you are a murderer.”
― Franz Kafka

“Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own self.”
― Franz Kafka