Anna > Anna's Quotes

“You cannot change what you are, only what you do.”
― Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs.”
― Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

“I have for the first time found what I can truly love–I have found you. You are my sympathy–my better self–my good angel–I am bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good, gifted, lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you, draws you to my centre and spring of life, wrap my existence about you–and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one.”
― Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

“If all the world hated you and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved of you and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! - I have as much soul as you, - and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you!”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Whatever you're meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible.”
― Doris Lessing

“...you can only value something if you've experienced it.”
― Doris Lessing, The Fifth Child

“The finest of pleasures are always the unexpected ones.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“Oh, for Time's sake, this is too pathetic. You'd end the universe, because you've had a bad century?”
― Catherine Webb, Waywalkers

“There's no time like the present,
No present like time.
And life can be over in the space of a rhyme.
There's no gift like friendship
And no love like mine.
Give me your love to treasure through time.”
― Georgia Byng, Molly Moon's Hypnotic Time Travel Adventure

“Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.”
― E. L. Doctorow

“We are who we are, be­cause of those we choose to love and be­cause of those who love us.”
― Kate Mosse, The Winter Ghosts

“It was good to walk into a library again; it smelled like home.”
― Elizabeth Kostova, The Historian

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

“Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”
― Oscar Wilde

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Be with me always - take any form - drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I can not live without my life! I can not live without my soul!”
― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

“I would always rather be happy than dignified.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Do you think I am an automaton? — a machine without feelings? and can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! — I have as much soul as you — and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh: it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal — as we are!”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
― William Shakespeare, As You Like It

“Love all, trust a few,
Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy
Rather in power than use; and keep thy friend
Under thy own life's key: be check'd for silence,
But never tax'd for speech.”
― William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well

“Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.”
― Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein

“Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

“Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

“He shook hands with Margaret. He knew it was the first time their hands had met, though she was perfectly unconscious of the fact.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“I wanted to see the place where Margaret grew to what she is, even at the worst time of all, when I had no hope of ever calling her mine.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“Those who are happy and successful themselves are too apt to make light of the misfortunes of others.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“Take care. If you do not speak – I shall claim you as my own in some strange presumptuous way. Send me away at once, if I must go; – Margaret! –”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“As she realized what might have been, she grew to be thankful for what was.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South