Carol > Carol's Quotes

“It's hard being left behind. (...) It's hard to be the one who stays.”
― Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife

“Do you ever miss him?
Every day. Every minute.
Every minute, she says.
Yes, it's that way, isn't it?”
― Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife

“I love. I have loved. I will love.”
― Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife

“That was the only time, as I stood there, looking at that strange rubbish, feeling the wind coming across those empty fields, that I started to imagine just a little fantasy thing, because this was Norfolk after all, and it was only a couple of weeks since I’d lost him. I was thinking about the rubbish, the flapping plastic in the branches, the shore-line of odd stuff caught along the fencing, and I half-closed my eyes and imagined this was the spot where everything I'd ever lost since my childhood had washed up, and I was now standing here in front of it, and if I waited long enough, a tiny figure would appear on the horizon across the field, and gradually get larger until I'd see it was Tommy, and he'd wave, maybe even call. The fantasy never got beyond that --I didn't let it-- and though the tears rolled down my face, I wasn't sobbing or out of control. I just waited a bit, then turned back to the car, to drive off to wherever it was I was supposed to be.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“And so we stood together like that, at the top of that field for what seemed like ages, not saying anything, just holding each other, while the wind kept blowing and blowing at us, tugging our clothes, and for a moment, it seemed like we were holding onto each other because that was the only way to stop us from being swept away into the night.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“There was a time you saw me once, one afternoon, in the dormitories. There was no one else around, and I was playing this tape, this music. I was sort of dancing with my eyes closed and you saw me.'
'...yes, I remember that occasion. I still think about it from time to time.'
'That's funny, so do I.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“I was thinking about the rubbish, the flapping plastic in the branches, the shore-line of odd stuff caught along the fencing, and I half closed my eyes and imaginated this was the spot where everything I'd ever lost since my childhood had washed up, and I was now standing here in front of it, and if I waited long enough, a tiny figure would appear on the horizon across the field, and gradually get larger until I'd see it was Tommy, and he'd wave, maybe even call.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“Find you, love you, marry you, and live without shame.”
― Ian McEwan, Atonement

“...falling in love could be achieved in a single word—a glance.”
― Ian McEwan, Atonement

“Now and then, an inch below the water's surface, the muscles of his stomach tightened involuntarily as he recalled another detail. A drop of water on her upper arm. Wet. An embroidered flower, a simple daisy, sewn between the cups of her bra. Her breasts wide apart and small. On her back, a mole half covered by a strap. When she climbed out of the pond a glimpse of the triangular darkness her knickers were supposed to conceal. Wet. He saw it, he made himself see it again. The way her pelvic bones stretched the material clear of the skin, the deep curve of her waist, her startling whiteness. When she reached for her skirt, a carelessly raised foot revealed a patch of soil on each pad of her sweetly diminished toes. Another mole the size of a farthing on her thigh and something purplish on her calf--a strawberry mark, a scar. Not blemishes. Adornments.”
― Ian McEwan, Atonement

“come back, come back to me”
― Ian McEwan, Atonement

“I’ll wait for you. Come back.
The words were not meaningless, but they didn’t touch him now.
It was clear enough - one person waiting for another was like an arithmetical sum, and just as empty of emotion.
Waiting.
Simply one person doing nothing, over time, while another approached. Waiting was a heavy word.”
― Ian McEwan, Atonement

“Let the guilty bury the innocent, and let no one change the evidence”
― Ian McEwan, Atonement

“we are at the crossroads, my little outlaw,
and this is the map of my heart, the landscape
after cruelty”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“Dear Forgiveness, you know that recently
we have had our difficulties and there are many things
I want to ask you.”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“We have not touched the stars,
nor are we forgiven, which brings us back
to the hero’s shoulders and the gentleness that comes,
not from the absence of violence, but despite
the abundance of it.”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“And I'm going to pain the solar systems on the backs of her hands, so she has to learn the entire universe before she can say, "Oh, I know that like the back of my hand.”
― Sarah Kay, B

“I love you,
in ways
you've never been
loved,
for reasons you've never been
told,
for longer than you think you
deserved
and with more
than you will ever know existed
inside
me.”
― Tyler Knott Gregson, Chasers of the Light: Poems from the Typewriter Series

“I do not know
if I
will ever be
complete,
but I know
whatever I am,
You
will always be
the rest of
me.”
― Tyler Knott Gregson, Chasers of the Light: Poems from the Typewriter Series

“Sometimes
the only way
to catch
your breath
is to
lose it
completely.”
― Tyler Knott Gregson, Chasers of the Light: Poems from the Typewriter Series

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnets from the Portuguese

“He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.”
― W. H. Auden, Collected Poems

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
― Anonymous, Holy Bible: New International Version

“Scared is what you're feeling. Brave is what you're doing.”
― Emma Donoghue, Room

“Everybody's damaged by something.”
― Emma Donoghue, Room

“People don't always want to be with people. It gets tiring.”
― Emma Donoghue, Room

“Stories are a different kind of true.”
― Emma Donoghue, Room

“Everyone's got a different story.”
― Emma Donoghue, Room

“This is a bad story.”
“Sorry. I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have told you.”
“No, you should,” I say.
“But—”
“I don’t want there to be bad stories and me not know them.”
― Emma Donoghue, Room

“I look back one more time. It's like a crater, a hole where something happened.”
― Emma Donoghue, Room