Maddy > Maddy's Quotes

“We're all mad here.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

“Why fit in when you were born to stand out?”
― Dr. Seuss

“You should date a girl who reads.
Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.”
― Rosemarie Urquico

“It is better to be feared than loved.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

“Being crazy isn't enough.”
― Dr. Seuss

“You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”
― Dr. Seuss

“With great power... comes great need to take a nap. Wake me up later.”
― Rick Riordan, The Last Olympian

“If my life is going to mean anything, I have to live it myself.”
― Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief

“Ever had a flying burrito hit you? Well, it's a deadly projectile, right up there with cannonballs and grenades.”
― Rick Riordan, The Titan’s Curse

“Love conquers all," Aphrodite promised. "Look at Helen and Paris. Did they let anything come between them?"
"Didn't they start the Trojan War and get thousands of people killed?"
"Pfft. That's not the point. Follow your heart.”
― Rick Riordan, The Titan’s Curse

“Be careful of love. It'll twist your brain around and leave you thinking up is down and right is wrong.”
― Rick Riordan, The Battle of the Labyrinth

“Wow," Thalia muttered. "Apollo is hot."
"He's the sun god," I said.
"That's not what I meant.”
― Rick Riordan, The Titan’s Curse

“How did you die?"
"We er....drowned in a bathtub."
"All three of you?"
"It was a big bathtub.”
― Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief

“The real story of the Fleece: there were these two children of Zeus, Cadmus and Europa, okay? They were about to get offered up as human sacrifices, when they prayed to Zeus to save them. So Zeus sent this magical flying ram with golden wool, which picked them up in Greece and carried them all the way to Colchis in Asia Minor. Well, actually it carried Cadmus. Europa fell off and died along the way, but that's not important."
"It was probably important to her.”
― Rick Riordan, The Sea of Monsters

“I nodded, looking at Rachel with respect. "You hit the Lord of the Titans in the eye with a blue plastic hairbrush.”
― Rick Riordan

“Don't feel bad, I'm usually about to die.”
― Rick Riordan, The Battle of the Labyrinth

“Families are messy. Immortal families are eternally messy. Sometimes the best we can do is to remind each other that we're related for better or for worse...and try to keep the maiming and killing to a minimum.”
― Rick Riordan, The Sea of Monsters

“It's funny how humans can wrap their mind around things and fit them into their version of reality.”
― Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief

“Go on with what your heart tells you, or you will lose all.”
― Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief

“Life is an awful, ugly place to not have a best friend.”
― Sarah Dessen, Someone Like You

“Don't think or judge, just listen.”
― Sarah Dessen, Just Listen

“There is never a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, throbbing moment.”
― Sarah Dessen, The Truth About Forever

“Love is needing someone. Love is putting up with someone's bad qualities because they somehow complete you.”
― Sarah Dessen, This Lullaby

“There comes a time when the world gets quiet and the only thing left is your own heart. So you'd better learn the sound of it. Otherwise you'll never understand what it's saying.”
― Sarah Dessen, Just Listen

“I am coming to terms with the fact that loving someone requires a leap of faith, and that a soft landing is never guaranteed.”
― Sarah Dessen, This Lullaby

“Sometimes it seems safer to hold it all in, where the only person who can judge is yourself.”
― Sarah Dessen

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.”
― Bernard M. Baruch

“You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching,
Love like you'll never be hurt,
Sing like there's nobody listening,
And live like it's heaven on earth.”
― William W. Purkey

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero