Laura > Laura's Quotes

“And how did we
then face the odds,
of man's rude slapstick,
yes, and God's?
Quite at home and unafraid,
Thank-you,
in a game
our dreams remade.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slapstick, or Lonesome No More!

“Why don't you take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut? Why don't you take a flying fuck at the mooooooooooooon?”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slapstick, or Lonesome No More!

“[...] don't you know who that Fat Lady really is? ... Ah, buddy. Ah, buddy. It's Christ Himself. Christ Himself, buddy.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“You’d better get busy, though, buddy. The goddamn sands run out on you every time you turn around. I know what I’m talking about. You’re lucky if you get time to sneeze in this goddamn phenomenal world. {...} I used to worry about that. I don’t worry about it very much any more. At least I’m still in love with Yorick’s skull. At least I always have time enough to stay in love with Yorick’s skull. I want an honorable goddamn skull when I’m dead, buddy. I hanker after an honorable goddamn skull like Yorick’s.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“Why are you breaking down, incidentally? I mean if you’re able to go into a collapse with all your might, why can’t you use the same energy to stay well and busy?”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option.”
― Maya Angelou

“Let's tell the truth to people. When people ask, 'How are you?' have the nerve sometimes to answer truthfully. You must know, however, that people will start avoiding you because, they, too, have knees that pain them and heads that hurt and they don't want to know about yours. But think of it this way: If people avoid you, you will have more time to meditate and do fine research on a cure for whatever truly afflicts you.”
― Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter

“My life has been one great big joke,
A dance that's walked,
A song that's spoke,
I laugh so hard I almost choke,
When I think about myself.”
― Maya Angelou

“And he hated himself and hated her,too, for the ruin they'd made of each other.”
― Dennis Lehane, The Given Day

“Will that light come again,
As now these tears come...falling hot and real!”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnets from the Portuguese

“Good things come, but they're never perfect; are they? You have to twist them into something perfect.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and the Great World / Betsy's Wedding

“It was June, and the world smelled of roses. The sunshine was like powdered gold over the grassy hillside.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy-Tacy and Tib

“She thought of the library, so shining white and new; the rows and rows of unread books; the bliss of unhurried sojourns there and of going out to a restaurant, alone, to eat.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown

“Betsy returned to her chair, took off her coat and hat, opened her book and forgot the world again.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown

“People were always saying to Margaret, 'Well, Julia sings and Betsy writes. Now what is little Margaret going to do?' Margaret would smile politely, for she was very polite, but privately she stormed to Betsy with flashing eyes, 'I'm not going to do anything. I want to just live. Can't people just live?”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Joe

“She tried to act as though it were nothing to go to the library alone. But her happiness betrayed her. Her smile could not be restrained, and it spread from her tightly pressed mouth, to her round cheeks, almost to the hair ribbons tied in perky bows over her ears.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown

“Never rearrange your life in order to meet Mr. Darcy half way. If he couldn’t see your worth at the moment you met then he won’t two years later. May the halls of Pemberly be filled with his regrets and your life filled with thankfulness because of this revelation.”
― Shannon Alder

“That's the secret of how to enjoy writing and how to make yourself meet high standards," said Mrs. Berman. "You don't write for the whole world, and you don't write for ten people, or two. You write for just one person.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Bluebeard

“If you can do no good, at least do no harm.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slapstick, or Lonesome No More!

“Love is where you find it. I think it is foolish to go looking for it, and I think it can often be poisonous.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slapstick, or Lonesome No More!

“I love you, Eliza,” I said.
She thought about it. “No,” she said at last, “I don’t like it.”
“Why not?” I said.
“It’s as though you were pointing a gun at my head,” she said. “It’s just a way of getting somebody to say something they probably don’t mean. What else can I say, or anybody say, but, ‘I love you, too’?”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slapstick, or Lonesome No More!

“History is merely a list of surprises,' I said. 'It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again. Please write that down.”
― kurt vonnegut, Slapstick, or Lonesome No More!

“Hi ho”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slapstick, or Lonesome No More!

“Aside from battles, the history of nations seemed to consist of nothing but powerless old poops like myself, heavily medicated and vaguely beloved in the long ago, coming to kiss the boots of young psychopaths.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slapstick, or Lonesome No More!

“Lonesome, no more!”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“I can think of another quickie education for a child, which, in its way, is almost as salutary: Meeting a human being who is tremendously respected by the adult world, and realizing that that person is actually a malicious lunatic.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slapstick, or Lonesome No More!

“Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“If only, if only," the woodpecker sighs,
"The bark on the tree was as soft as the skies."
While the wolf waits below, hungry and lonely,
Crying to the moo-oo-oon,
"If only, If only.”
― Louis Sachar, Holes

“One would soon go mad if one took such coincidences too seriously. One might be led to suspect that there were all sorts of things going on in the Universe which he or she did not thoroughly understand.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Bluebeard

“Life, by definition, is never still. Where is it going? From birth to death, with no stops on the way.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Bluebeard