Alex McCarron > Alex's Quotes

“Life isn't long enough to do all you could accomplish. And what a privilege even to be alive. In spite of all the pollutions and horrors, how beautiful this world is. Supposing you only saw the stars once every year. Think what you would think. The wonder of it!”
― Tasha Tudor

“I hold that a strongly marked personality can influence descendants for generations.”
― Beatrix Potter

“It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

“You see the suffering of children all the time nowadays. Wars and famines are played out before us in our living rooms, and almost every week there are pictures of children who have been through unimaginable loss and horror. Mostly they look very calm. You see them looking into the camera, directly at the lens, and knowing what they have been through you expect to see terror or grief in their eyes, yet so often there’s no visible emotion at all. They look so blank it would be easy to imagine that they weren’t feeling much.
And though I do not for a moment equate what I went through with the suffering of those children, I do remember feeling as they look. I remember Matt talking to me--- others as well, but mostly Matt--- and I remember the enormous effort required even to hear what he said. I was so swamped by unmanageable emotions that I couldn’t feel a thing. It was like being at the bottom of the sea.”
― Mary Lawson, Crow Lake

“It's like being in love, discovering your best friend.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“But you can't rescue people; you can only help them rescue themselves.”
― Samantha Ellis, How to Be a Heroine

“Never miss a good chance to shut up.”
― Will Rogers

“A girl that's born for hangin' ain't likely to be drowned.”
― L.A. Meyer

“I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Happy Prince and Other Stories

“If you don't like someone's story, write your own.”
― Chinua Achebe

“If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”
― Toni Morrison

“In the end, perfection is just a concept - an impossibility we use to torture ourselves and that contradicts nature.”
― Guillermo del Toro, Cabinet of Curiosities: My Notebooks, Collections, and Other Obsessions

“You forgot my birthday, too."

"And mine."

The girls looked miserable. The King opened his mouth, then shut it.

"Sir!" whined Lord Teddie. "You forgot my birthday, too!"

Bramble gave a surprised laugh, then slapped her hand over her mouth, as though shocked at letting it out. The tension broke. The girls laughed sheepishly, and Lord Teddie beamed. He probably did not have many ladies think him funny. In fact, he probably got slapped by a lot of them.”
― Heather Dixon, Entwined

“Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.”
― Terry Pratchett

“So I've started wearing sweatpants to bed because I really don't need Santa seeing me in my underwear.”
― Jeff Kinney, Cabin Fever

“Face your life, its pain, its pleasure, leave no path untaken.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“Never trust an ugly woman. She's got a grudge against the world,' said Grandma who was no oil painting herself.”
― Richard Peck, A Long Way from Chicago

“All children, except one, grow up.”
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

“You don't need millions of dollars or millions of people if you're doing what you love.”
― Felicia Day

“Wisdom comes from experience. Experience is often a result of lack of wisdom.”
― Terry Pratchett

“Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisioned by the enemy, don't we consider it his duty to escape?. . .If we value the freedom of mind and soul, if we're partisans of liberty, then it's our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can!”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“There is no peace that cannot be found in the present moment.”
― Tasha Tudor

“I enjoy solitude. It's probably selfish, but why bother about it. Life is much too important, as Oscar Wilde said, to be taken seriously. I feel so sorry for those mothers who are devastated by loneliness when their children fly the coop and don't want to live at home anymore. They feel lost, but look what exciting things can be done. Life isn't long enough to do all you could accomplish. And what a privilege to be alive. In spite of all the pollutions and horrors, how beautiful this world is. Supposing you only saw the stars once every year. Think what you would think. The wonder of it!”
― Tasha Tudor, The Private World of Tasha Tudor

“If you don’t have a dog--at least one--there is not necessarily anything wrong with you, but there may be something wrong with your life.”
― Vincent van Gogh

“I am very careful to be shallow and conventional where depth and originality are wasted.”
― Lucy Maud Montgomery

“It struck me as pretty ridiculous to be called Mr. Darcy and to stand on your own looking snooty at a party. It's like being called Heathcliff and insisting on spending the entire evening in the garden, shouting "Cathy" and banging your head against a tree.”
― Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones’s Diary

“You only find yourself when you disobey. Disobedience is the beginning of responsibility, I think.”
― Guillermo del Toro

“I had learned early to assume something dark and lethal hidden at the heart of anything I loved. When I couldn't find it, I responded, bewildered and wary, in the only way I knew how: by planting it there myself.”
― Tana French, In the Woods

“Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson