Pam Geemul > Pam's Quotes

“All great achievements require time.”
― Maya Angelou

“L: You want me just to be your... friend?

E: You want the truth? I think you're my guardian angel.

L: What?

E: Do you know what it's like to have someone crash into your life with no warning? When you landed in my office, I was like, Who the fuck is this? But you shook me up. You brought me back to life at a time when I was in limbo. You were just what I needed...
You're just what I need.

L: Well I need you too. So we're even.

E: No, you don't need me. You're doing just fine.

L: Ok. Maybe I don't need you. But... I want you.”
― Sophie Kinsella, Twenties Girl

“It really is the year 2007. Which means I must be...

Oh my God. I'm twenty-eight.

I'm old.”
― Sophie Kinsella, Remember Me?

“Some people cannot see a good thing when it is right here, right now. Others can sense a good thing coming when it is days, months, or miles away.”
― maya angelou

“Darling, when things go wrong in life, you lift your chin, put on a ravishing smile, mix yourself a little cocktail...”
― Sophie Kinsella

“The main thing in one's own private world is to try to laugh as much as you cry.”
― Maya Angelou

“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

“Everyone knows revenge is a dish best served when you've had enough time to build up enough vitriol and fury.”
― Sophie Kinsella, Twenties Girl

“She was the most beautiful thing you ever saw. She was radiant. And she was wearing this necklace... When you see the necklace in the painting, it all makes sense. He loved her. Even if she lived to one hundred and five without ever getting an answer.”
― Sophie Kinsella, Twenties Girl

“Talent is like electricity. We don't understand electricity. We use it.”
― Maya Angelou

“The truth is, some relationships are supposed to last forever, and some are only supposed to last a few days. That’s the way life is.”
― Sophie Kinsella, Can You Keep a Secret?

“There were people who went to sleep last night,
poor and rich and white and black,
but they will never wake again.

And those dead folks would give anything at all
for just five minutes of this weather
or ten minutes of plowing.

So you watch yourself about complaining.

What you're supposed to do
when you don't like a thing is change it.
If you can't change it,
change the way you think about it.”
― Maya Angelou

“It’s the way he had a cup of tea waiting for me when I woke up. It’s the way he turned on his laptop especially for me to look up all my Internet horoscopes and helped me choose the best one. He knows all the crappy, embarrassing bits about me that I normally try to hide from any man for as long as possible… and he loves me anyway.”
― Sophie Kinsella, Can You Keep a Secret?

“Whining is not only graceless, but can be dangerous. It can alert a brute that a victim is in the neighborhood.”
― Maya Angelou, Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now

“Emma, I'm sorry, I can't help you. This is a disaster. You're completely vulnerable. It's like going into battle in a nightie.”
― Sophie Kinsella, Can You Keep a Secret?

“But you can't stay with people because of guilt. Or because they can drive a speedboat.”
― Sophie Kinsella, Remember Me?

“We love and lose in China,
we weep on England's moors,
and laugh and moan in Guinea,
and thrive on Spanish shores.
We seek success in Finland,
are born and die in Maine.
In minor ways we differ,
in major we're the same.”
― Maya Angelou

“We are all human; therefore, nothing human can be alien to us.”
― Maya Angelou

“Of all the crap, crap, crappy nights I've ever had in the whole of my crap life. On a scale of one to 10, we're talking...a minus 6. And it's not like I even have very high standards.”
― Sophie Kinsella

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

“If I've learned one lesson from all that's happened to me, it's that there is no such thing as the biggest mistake of your existence. There's no such thing as ruining your life. Life's a pretty resilient thing, it turns out.”
― Sophie Kinsella, The Undomestic Goddess

“There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.”
― Maya Angelou

“I'll understand if you don't want me. But I will be heartbroken. You are all I ever dreamed of and hoped for. You are much, much more. Please know that I didn't think I was mean-minded. But I realize I am. I don't want you to put your arms around me and say it's all right, that you forgive me. I want you to be sure that you do, and my love for you will last as long as I live. I can see no lightness, no humour, no joke to make. I just hope that we will be able to go back to when we had laughter, and the world was coloured, not black and white and grey. I am so sorry for hurting you. I could inflict all kinds of pain on myself, but it would not take back any I gave to you. - David Power”
― Maeve Binchy, Echoes

“You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies.
You may trod me in the very dirt, but still like dust, I'll rise.”
― Maya Angelou

“...I've made it my business to observe fathers and daughters. And I've seen some incredible, beautiful things. Like the little girl who's not very cute - her teeth are funny, and her hair doesn't grow right, and she's got on thick glasses - but her father holds her hand and walks with her like she's a tiny angel that no one can touch. He gives her the best gift a woman can get in this world: protection. And the little girl learns to trust the man in her life. And all the things that the world expects from women - to be beautiful, to soothe the troubled spirit, heal the sick, care for the dying, send the greeting card, bake the cake - allof those things become the way we pay the father back for protecting us...”
― Adriana Trigiani, Big Stone Gap

“I love libraries. I love books. There is something sacred, I think, about a great library because it represents the preservation of the wisdom, the learning, the pondering, of men and women of all the ages accumulated together under one roof to which we can have access as our needs require.”
― Gordon B. Hinckley, Stand a Little Taller: Counsel and Inspiration for Each Day of the Year

“That kind of thinking [that writers must alleviate their guilt for leading a creative life] is based on the idea that the creative life is somehow self-indulgent. Artists and writers have to understand and live the truth that what we are doing is nourishing the world. William Carlos Williams said, "It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there." You can't eat a book, right, but books have saved my life more often than sandwiches. And they've saved your life... But we don't say, oh, Maya Angelou should have silenced herself because other people have other destinies. It's interesting, because artists are always encouraged to feel guilty about their work. Why? Why don't we ask predatory bankers how they alleviate their guilt? ”
― Ariel Gore

“I am convinced that most people do not grow up...We marry and dare to have children and call that growing up. I think what we do is mostly grow old. We carry accumulation of years in our bodies, and on our faces, but generally our real selves, the children inside, are innocent and shy as magnolias.”
― Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter

“There are many Beths in the world, shy and quiet, sitting in corners till needed, and living for others so cheerfully that no one sees the sacrifices till the little cricket on the hearth stops chirping, and the sweet, sunshiny presence vanishes, leaving silence and shadow behind.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

“Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.

Listen to carrion — put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go.

Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.”
― Wendell Berry