Marissa > Marissa's Quotes

“I've lived through such terrible times and there are people who live through much worse. But you see them living anyway. When they're more spirit than body, more sores than skin, when they're burned and in agony, when flies lay eggs in the corners of the eyes of their children - they live. Death usually has to take life away. I don't know if that's just the animal. I don't know if it's not braver to die, but I recognize the habit; the addiction to being alive. So we live past hope. If I can find hope anywhere, that's it, that's the best I can do. It's so much not enough. It's so inadequate. But still bless me anyway. I want more life.”
― Tony Kushner, Angels in America

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“And as the years flowed by, some villagers told travelers of a beast and a beauty who lived in the castle and could be seen walking on the battlements, and others told of two beauties, and others, of two beasts.”
― Emma Donoghue, Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins

“Stay away from the ones you love too much. Those are the ones who will kill you.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“You have a good heart and you think the good thing is to be guilty and kind but it's not always kind to be gentle and soft, there's a genuine violence softness and kindness visit on people. Sometimes self-interested is the most generous thing you can be. ”
― Tony Kushner, Perestroika

“Harper: In your experience of the world. How do people change?

Mormon Mother: Well it has something to do with God so it's not very nice.

God splits the skin with a jagged thumbnail from throat to belly and then plunges a huge filthy hand in, he grabs hold of your bloody tubes and they slip to evade his grasp but he squeezes hard, he insists, he pulls and pulls till all your innards are yanked out and the pain! We can't even talk about that. And then he stuffs them back, dirty, tangled and torn. It's up to you to do the stitching.

Harper: And then up you get. And walk around.

Mormon Mother: Just mangled guts pretending.

Harper: That's how people change.”
― Tony Kushner, Angels in America

“You'll find, my friend, that what you love will take you places you never dreamed you'd go.”
― Tony Kushner, Angels in America

“Belize: I hate America, Louis. I hate this country. Nothing but a bunch of big ideas and stories and people dying, and then people like you. The white cracker who wrote the National Anthem knew what he was doing. He set the word free to a note so high nobody could reach it. That was deliberate.”
― Tony Kushner, Angels in America

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

“What will I be doing in twenty years' time? I'll be dead, darling! Are you crazy?”
― Freddie Mercury

“I dress to kill, but tastefully.”
― Freddie Mercury

“Everything is holy! everybody's holy! everywhere is holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman's an angel!”
― Allen Ginsberg, Howl and Other Poems

“Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine.

- Gloria”
― Patti Smith, Patti Smith Collected Lyrics, 1970-2015: Lyrics, Reflections & Notes for the Future

“The white cracker who wrote the National Anthem knew what he was doing. He set the word "free" to a note so high nobody could reach it. That was deliberate.”
― Tony Kushner, Perestroika

“It isn't easy, it doesn't count if it's easy, it's the hardest thing. Forgiveness. Which is maybe where love and justice finally meet.”
― Tony Kushner, Millennium Approaches

“You see, Jude, in life, sometimes nice things happen to good people. You don’t need to worry—they don’t happen as often as they should. But when they do, it’s up to the good people to just say ‘thank you,’ and move on, and maybe consider that the person who’s doing the nice thing gets a bang out of it as well, and really isn’t in the mood to hear all the reasons that the person for whom he’s done the nice thing doesn’t think he deserves it or isn’t worthy of it.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

“Sometimes he wakes so far from himself that he can’t even remember who he is. “Where am I?” he asks, desperate, and then, “Who am I? Who am I?”
And then he hears, so close to his ear that it is as if the voice is originating inside his own head, Willem’s whispered incantation. “You’re Jude St. Francis. You are my oldest, dearest friend. You’re the son of Harold Stein and Julia Altman. You’re the friend of Malcolm Irvine, of Jean-Baptiste Marion, of Richard Goldfarb, of Andy Contractor, of Lucien Voigt, of Citizen van Straaten, of Rhodes Arrowsmith, of Elijah Kozma, of Phaedra de los Santos, of the Henry Youngs.
“You’re a New Yorker. You live in SoHo. You volunteer for an arts organization; you volunteer for a food kitchen.
“You’re a swimmer. You’re a baker. You’re a cook. You’re a reader. You have a beautiful voice, though you never sing anymore. You’re an excellent pianist. You’re an art collector. You write me lovely messages when I’m away. You’re patient. You’re generous. You’re the best listener I know. You’re the smartest person I know, in every way. You’re the bravest person I know, in every way.
“You’re a lawyer. You’re the chair of the litigation department at Rosen Pritchard and Klein. You love your job; you work hard at it.
“You’re a mathematician. You’re a logician. You’ve tried to teach me, again and again.
“You were treated horribly. You came out on the other end. You were always you.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

“Everyone thought they would be friends for decades, forever. But for most people, of course, that hadn't happened. As you got older, you realized that the qualities you valued in the people you slept with or dated weren't necessarily the ones you wanted to live with, or be with, or plod through your days with. If you were smart, and if you were lucky, you learned this and accepted this. You figured out what was most important to you and you looked for it, and you learned to be realistic.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

“Do you ever just put your arms out and just spin and spin and spin? Well, that's what love is like; everything inside of you tells you to stop before you fall, but for some reason you just keep going.”
― Alice Hoffman, Practical Magic

“No one knows you like a person with whom you've shared a childhood. No one will ever understand you in quite the same way.”
― Alice Hoffman, Practical Magic

“Young Sally Owens: He will hear my call a mile away. He will whistle my favorite song. He can ride a pony backwards.

Young Gillian Owens: What are you doing?

Young Sally Owens: Summoning up a true love spell called Amas Veritas. He can flip pancakes in the air. He'll be marvelously kind. And his favorite shape will be a star. And he'll have one green eye and one blue.

Young Gillian Owens: Thought you never wanted to fall in love.

Young Sally Owens: That's the point. The guy I dreamed of doesn't exist. And if he doesn't exist I'll never die of a broken heart.”
― Alice Hoffman, Practical Magic

“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.”
― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid

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

“Out of habit, she stopped by the bookshelf in the living room to see if there was a paperback that she could stuff into her pocket for emergencies — you never knew when you might need a book to entertain and comfort and distract you in the day's empty places”
― Emily Croy Barker, The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic

“When I learned the Spanish word for succeed, I thought it was kind of ironic that the word exit is embedded in it. Like the universe was telling me that in order for me to make something of this life, I'd have to leave home, my neighbourhood, my friends.”
― Renée Watson, Piecing Me Together

“I fix myself a hot chocolate because it is a gateway drug to reading.”
― Helen Ellis, American Housewife

“You've got to have brains to play dumb.”
― Helen Ellis, American Housewife

“Is this too dressy?" is Southern Lady code for: I look fabulous and it would be in your best interest to tell me so.
"I'm not crazy about it" is code for: I hate that more than sugar-free
punch.
"What do you think about her?" is code for: I don't like her.
"She's always been lovely to me" is code for: I don't like her either.
"She has a big personality" means she's loud as a T. rex.
"She's the nicest person" means she's boring as pound cake.
"She has beautiful skin" means she's white as a tampon.
"She's old" means she's racist as Sandy Duncan in Roots.
"You are so bad!" is Southern Lady code for: That is the tackiest thing I've ever heard and I am delighted that you shared it with me.
"No, you're so bad!" is code for: Let's snitch and bitch.
"She's a character" means drunk.
"She has a good time means slut.
"She's sweet" means Asperger's.
"She's outdoorsy" means lesbian.
"Hmm" is Southern Lady code for: I don't agree with you but am polite enough not to rub your nose in your ignorance.
"Nice talking with you" is code for: Party's over, now scoot.”
― Helen Ellis, American Housewife

“it's going great. Two months in, and I've created three apps."

"Apps?"

"For people who buy my book as an e-book --which will be everybody. The first is called Don't Look. It's for the overly sensitive. It blurs and turns the type red when a dog dies or a baby is born with a birth defect. Stuff like that. My second is It's Not Okay When You Say It, and it delivers an electrical zap if the reader laughs at a racial slur. My third is Jesus Thesaurus, which replaces explicit sexual language with church words. So, when one of my characters 'saints' a guy's 'disciple', He'll beg her to 'cavalry' his 'Baptists' and 'shout amen'.”
― Helen Ellis, American Housewife