x > x's Quotes

“I am simply a 'book drunkard.' Books have the same irresistible temptation for me that liquor has for its devotee. I cannot withstand them.”
― L.M. Montgomery

“Are people so unhappy when they love?"
"Yes, Christine, when they love and are not sure of being loved.”
― Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera

“We seldom realize, for example that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by our society.”
― Alan Watts

“But if you call me Anne, please call me Anne with an 'e'.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

“Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.”
― Alan Watts

“I have a history of making decisions very quickly about men. I have always fallen in love fast and without measuring risks. I have a tendency not only to see the best in everyone, but to assume that everyone is emotionally capable of reaching his highest potential. I have fallen in love more times than I care to count with the highest potential of a man, rather than with the man himself, and I have hung on to the relationship for a long time (sometimes far too long) waiting for the man to ascend to his own greatness. Many times in romance I have been a victim of my own optimism.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

“I wouldn't want to marry anybody who was wicked, but I think I'd like it if he could be wicked and wouldn't.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island

“The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.”
― Alan Wilson Watts, The Culture of Counter-Culture: Edited Transcripts

“Gilbert, I'm afraid I'm scandalously in love with you.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Windy Poplars

“Real life was something happening in her peripheral vision.”
― Rainbow Rowell, Fangirl

“Just... isn't giving up allowed sometimes? Isn't it okay to say, ‘This really hurts, so I’m going to stop trying’?”
“It sets a dangerous precedent.”
“For avoiding pain?”
“For avoiding life.”
― Rainbow Rowell, Fangirl

“Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.”
― Rainbow Rowell, Eleanor & Park

“I don't like you, Park," she said, sounding for a second like she actually meant it. "I..." - her voice nearly disappeared - "think I live for you."
He closed his eyes and pressed his head back into his pillow.
"I don't think I even breathe when we're not together," she whispered. "Which means, when I see you on Monday morning, it's been like sixty hours since I've taken a breath. That's probably why I'm so crabby, and why I snap at you. All I do when we're apart is think about you, and all I do when we're together is panic. Because every second feels so important. And because I'm so out of control, I can't help myself. I'm not even mine anymore, I'm yours, and what if you decide that you don't want me? How could you want me like I want you?"
He was quiet. He wanted everything she'd just said to be the last thing he heard. He wanted to fall asleep with 'I want you' in his ears.”
― Rainbow Rowell, Eleanor & Park

“Damn, damn, damn," she said. "I never said why I like you, and now I have to go."
"That's okay," he said.
"It's because you're kind," she said. "And because you get all my jokes..."
"Okay." He laughed.
"And you're smarter than I am."
"I am not."
"And you look like a protagonist." She was talking as fast as she could think. "You look like the person who wins in the end. You're so pretty, and so good. You have magic eyes," she whispered. "And you make me feel like a cannibal."
"You're crazy."
"I have to go." She leaned over so the receiver was close to the base.
"Eleanor - wait," Park said. She could hear her dad in the kitchen and her heartbeat everywhere.
"Eleanor - wait - I love you.”
― Rainbow Rowell, Eleanor & Park

“What do you want to show me?"

"Nothing, really. I just want to be alone with you for a minute."

He pulled her to the back of the driveway, where they were almost completely hidden by a line of trees and the RV and the garage.

"Seriously?" she said. "That was so lame."

"I know," he said, turning to her. "Next time, I'll just say, 'Eleanor, follow me down this dark alley, I want to kiss you.'"

She didn't roll her eyes. She took a breath, then closed her mouth. He was learning how to catch her off guard.

She pushed her hands deeper in her pockets, so he put his hands on her elbows. "Next time," he said, "I'll just say, 'Eleanor, duck behind these bushes with me, I'm going to lose my mind if I don't kiss you.'"

She didn't move, so he thought it was probably okay to touch her face. Her skin was as soft as it looked, white and smooth as freckled porcelain.

"I'll just say, 'Eleanor, follow me down this rabbit hole...'"

He laid his thumb on her lips to see if she'd pull away. She didn't. He leaned closer. He wanted to close his eyes, but he didn't trust her not to leave him standing there.”
― Rainbow Rowell, Eleanor & Park

“It was the nicest thing she could imagine. It made her want to have his babies and give him both of her kidneys.”
― Rainbow Rowell, Eleanor & Park

“I miss you, Eleanor. I want to be with you all the time. You’re the smartest girl I’ve ever met, and the funniest, and everything you do surprises me. And I wish I could say that those are the reasons I like you, because that would make me sound like a really evolved human being …‘But I think it’s got as much to do with your hair being red and your hands being soft … and the fact that you smell like homemade birthday cake”
― Rainbow Rowell, Eleanor & Park

“Maybe growing up means disappointing the people we love.”
― Nicola Yoon, Everything, Everything

“Spoiler alert: Love is worth everything. Everything.”
― Nicola Yoon, Everything, Everything

“Sometimes I reread my favorite books from back to front. I start with the last chapter and read backward until I get to the beginning. When you read this way, characters go from hope to despair, from self-knowledge to doubt. In love stories, couples start out as lovers and end as strangers. Coming-of-age books become stories of losing your way. Your favorite characters come back to life.”
― Nicola Yoon, Everything, Everything

“In my head I know I've been in love before, but it doesn't feel like it. Being in love with you is better than the first time. It feels like the first time and the last time and the only time all at once.”
― Nicola Yoon, Everything, Everything

“Just because you can’t experience everything doesn’t mean you shouldn’t experience anything.”
― Nicola Yoon, Everything, Everything

“You're not living if you're not regretting.”
― Nicola Yoon, Everything, Everything

“I read once that, on average, we replace the majority of our cells every seven years. Even more amazing: we change the upper layers of our skin every two weeks. If all the cells in our body did this, we’d be immortal. But some of our cells, like the ones in our brains, don’t renew. They age, and age us. In two weeks my skin will have no memory of Olly’s hand on mine, but my brain will remember. We can have immortality or the memory of touch. But we can’t have both.”
― Nicola Yoon, Everything, Everything

“We watch the way the water pulls back and turns over and beats against the sand, trying to wear the earth away. And even though it doesn't succeed, it pulls back and pounds the shore again and again, as if there were no last time and there is no next time and this time is the time that counts.”
― Nicola Yoon, Everything, Everything

“Just when you think you're having a scene without Simon, he drops in to remind you that everyone else is a supporting character in his catastrophe.”
― Rainbow Rowell, Carry On

“He’s a book full of footnotes brought to life. He’s a jacket made of elbow patches.”
― Rainbow Rowell, Carry On

“Everyone’s still gossiping about where he’s been. The most popular rumours are “dark coming-of-age ceremony that left him too marked up to be in public” and “Ibiza.”
― Rainbow Rowell, Carry On

“But—I just wanted to tell you that I’m going to carry on. As I am.”
― Rainbow Rowell, Carry On

“It is amazing that, though I am small and ungifted and barely educated, even I can appreciate the scale of the universe. And from this perch in space, for this moment at least, it seems unimportant whether someone made it, or if it made itself.”
― Stephanie Oakes, The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly