Wei > Wei's Quotes

“I am free of all prejudice. I hate everyone equally. ”
― W.C. Fields

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
― H. Jackson Brown Jr., P.S. I Love You

“People think that intimacy is about sex. But intimacy is about truth. When you realize you can tell someone your truth, when you can show yourself to them, when you stand in front of them bare and their response is 'you're safe with me'- that's intimacy.”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

“Chiron had said once that nations were the most foolish of mortal inventions. “No man is worth more than another, wherever he is from.”

“But what if he is your friend?” Achilles had asked him, feet kicked up on the wall of the rose-quartz cave. “Or your brother? Should you treat him the same as a stranger?”

“You ask a question that philosophers argue over,” Chiron had said. “He is worth more to you, perhaps. But the stranger is someone else’s friend and brother. So which life is more important?”

We had been silent. We were fourteen, and these things were too hard for us. Now that we are twenty-seven, they still feel too hard.

He is half of my soul, as the poets say. He will be dead soon, and his honor is all that will remain. It is his child, his dearest self. Should I reproach him for it? I have saved Briseis. I cannot save them all.

I know, now, how I would answer Chiron. I would say: there is no answer. Whichever you choose, you are wrong.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“To love someone is like moving into a house," Sonja used to say. "At first you fall in love in everything new, you wonder every morning that this is one's own, as if they are afraid that someone will suddenly come tumbling through the door and say that there has been a serious mistake and that it simply was not meant to would live so fine. But as the years go by, the facade worn, the wood cracks here and there, and you start to love this house not so much for all the ways it is perfect in that for all the ways it is not. You become familiar with all its nooks and crannies. How to avoid that the key gets stuck in the lock if it is cold outside. Which floorboards have some give when you step on them, and exactly how to open the doors for them not to creak. That's it, all the little secrets that make it your home.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“Death is a strange thing. People live their whole lives as if it does not exist, and yet it's often one of the great motivations for living. Some of us, in time, become so conscious of it that we live harder, more obstinately, with more fury. Some need its constant presence to even be aware of its antithesis. Others become so preoccupied with it that they go into the waiting room long before it has announced its arrival. We fear it, yet most of us fear more than anything that it may take someone other than ourselves. For the greatest fear of death is always that it will pass us by. And leave us there alone.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“We always think there's enough time to do things with other people. Time to say things to them. And then something happens and then we stand there holding on to words like 'if'.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“And time is a curious thing. Most of us only live for the time that lies right ahead of us. A few days, weeks, years. One of the most painful moments in a person's life probably comes with the insight that an age has been reached when there is more to look back on than ahead. And when time no longer lies ahead of one, other things have to be lived for. Memories, perhaps.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“People said Ove saw the world in black and white. But she was color. All the color he had.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“The secret to a beautiful death is living a beautiful life.”
― Mikki Brammer, The Collected Regrets of Clover

“It’s easy to glamorize the path you didn’t take.”
― Mikki Brammer, The Collected Regrets of Clover

“If you want something you don’t have,” he’d said, “you have to do something you’ve never done.”
― Mikki Brammer, The Collected Regrets of Clover

“Intelligence will only get you so far in life... And the same can be said for wit and charm. But two things will serve you better than any others."...

"What are they?"

"Infinite curiosity and sense of observation.”
― Mikki Brammer, The Collected Regrets of Clover

“The secret to a beautiful death is to live a beautiful life. Putting your heart out there. Letting it get broken. Taking chances. Making mistakes.... Promise me, kid,...that you'll let yourself live.”
― Mikki Brammer, The Collected Regrets of Clover

“When someone has always been there for you, it’s easy to assume they always will be. And then, one day, they’re not.”
― Mikki Brammer, The Collected Regrets of Clover

“What most people don’t consider is that death is often random and cruel. It doesn’t care if you’ve been kind all your life. Or if you’ve eaten healthily, exercised often, and always worn a seat belt or a helmet. It doesn’t care that a loved one left behind might spend the rest of their lives replaying events in their head, tormented by the words “if only.” People tell themselves they’ve got plenty of time, until they’re at the mercy of a careless action—a driver on their cellphone, a neighbor who left a candle burning. And by then, it’s too late.”
― Mikki Brammer, The Collected Regrets of Clover

“..."let's think about each of these matches as a human life."... "each of these matches should burn for exactly the same amount of time, right?"..."but sometimes, you strike a match and it goes out almost immediately. Other times, it stops burning halfway."
"And sometimes it breaks when you try to light it."
"Exactly!... So even though they're technically the same, each match is actually very unique. Sometimes it's not as strong structurally, for reasons we can't see just by looking at it. And there are outside factors that contribute - like how hard we strike it against the box, or the dampness in the air, or how much breeze there is when we try to light it. All those things can affect how long a match burns for."...
"But what's that got to do with dying?"...
"Well, my dear, just as we don't know how long a match will last until we light it, we never know how long a life will last until we live it. And often there are factors that we have no control over.”
― Mikki Brammer, The Collected Regrets of Clover

“You were always someone’s wife, or mother, or daughter before you were yourself. It’s like I didn’t live my life for myself, as myself. Like I wasted what I was given.”
― Mikki Brammer, The Collected Regrets of Clover

“And there was one from Nelson Mandela that said, ‘If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”
― Mikki Brammer, The Collected Regrets of Clover

“There is no such thing as a happy place. Because when you are happy, everywhere is a happy place. And when you are sad, everywhere is a sad place.”
― Alison Espach, The Wedding People