Juli Hoffman > Juli's Quotes

“It is a very strange sensation to inexperience youth to feel itself quite alone the world, cut adrift from every connection, uncertain whether the port to which it is bound can be reached, and prevented by many impediments from returning to that it has quitted. The charm of adventure sweetens that sensation, the glow of pride warms it; but then the throb of fear disturbs it; and fear with me became predominant when half an hour elapsed, and still I was alone.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“No sight so sad as that of a naughty child," he began, "especially a naughty little girl. Do you know where the wicked go after death?"

"They go to hell," was my ready and orthodox answer.

"And what is hell? Can you tell me that?"

"A pit full of fire."

"And should you like to fall into that pit, and to be burning there for ever?"

"No, sir."

"What must you do to avoid it?"

I deliberated a moment: my answer, when it did come was objectionable: "I must keep in good health and not die.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“It is likely I will die next to a pile of things I was meaning to read.”
― Lemony Snicket

“I'm sure the makers of Downy would be pleased to know that their product makes even mummified human skin soft and fragrant. ”
― Bill Bass, Death's Acre: Inside the Legendary Forensic Lab the Body Farm Where the Dead Do Tell Tales

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”
― Mae West

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Here’s to books, the cheapest vacation you can buy.”
― Charlaine Harris

“Don’t try to make life a mathematics problem with yourself in the center and everything coming out equal. When you’re good, bad things can still happen. And if you’re bad, you can still be lucky.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible

“If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”
― Stephen King

“I try to avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward.”
― Charlotte Bronte

“Reread that Bronte book all you want, but Jane Eyre's never going to get gender-reassignment surgery or train to become a kick-ass ninja assassin.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Damned

“Am I hideous, Jane?
Very, sir: you always were, you know.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“May I ask you if you have ever had an opportunity of remarking, down in your part of the country, that the children of not exactly suitable marriages are always most particularly anxious to be married?”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“...[their] children were not growing up or being brought up, but were tumbling up.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“In the little world in which children have their existence whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt as injustice.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“College mostly makes people like bladders—
just good for nothing but t’ hold the stuff as is poured into ‘em.”
― George Eliot, Adam Bede

“There was something very comfortable in having plenty of stationery.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“Mrs Joe was a very clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite art of making her clenliness more umcomfortable and unacceptable than dirt itself. Cleanliness is next to godliness, and some people do the same by their religion.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“It’s good to see you girls spending time together,” she says. “It’s good to have a life that passes the Bechdel test.”
― Rainbow Rowell, Carry On

“Mom, how come you never go outside?"
"I told you, I'm a vampire.”
― Allison Bechdel, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic

“I have never read Sylvia Plath. My mother has never read Virginia Woolf. In general, we have stayed out of one another's way like this.”
― Alison Bechdel, Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama

“Being in the mood to write, like being in the mood to make love, is a luxury that isn't necessary in a long-term relationship. Just as the first caress can lead to a change of heart, the first sentence, however tentative and awkward, can lead to a desire to go just a little further.”
― Julia Cameron, The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation Into the Writing Life

“I know all those words, but that sentence makes no sense to me.”
― Matt Groening

“I'm not a big fan of inspiration. I'm too old to sit and wait for the muse to give me a little kiss... I write a lot, and I'm not afraid to make mistakes or to write badly. I can alsways fix something weak and dull. But I can't fix a blank page.”
― Ron Koertge

“I am not waiting. I am not waiting for anyone any more. It was me I was waiting for.”
― Priya Parmar, Vanessa and Her Sister

“We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Diary

“The way I see it, being dead is not terribly far off from being on a cruise ship. Most of your time is spent lying on your back. The brain has shut down. The flesh begins to soften. Nothing much new happens, and nothing is expected of you.”
― Mary Roach, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

“All good research-whether for science or for a book-is a form of obsession.”
― Mary Roach