Benny Wilkinson > Benny's Quotes

“If you wait by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by.”
― Sun Tzu

“I wanted so badly to lie down next to her on the couch, to wrap my arms around her and sleep. Not fuck, like in those movies. Not even have sex. Just sleep together in the most innocent sense of the phrase. But I lacked the courage and she had a boyfriend and I was gawky and she was gorgeous and I was hopelessly boring and she was endlessly fascinating. So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was hurricane.”
― John Green, Looking for Alaska

“I have to admit, an unrequited love is so much better than a real one. I mean, it's perfect... As long as something is never even started, you never have to worry about it ending. It has endless potential.”
― Sarah Dessen, The Truth About Forever

“I thought of all the others who had tried to tie her to the ground and failed. So I resisted showing her the songs and poems I had written, knowing that too much truth can ruin a thing. And if that meant she wasn't entirely mine, what of it? I would be the one she could always return to without fear of recrimination or question. So I did not try to win her and contented myself with playing a beautiful game. But there was always a part of me that hoped for more, and so there was a part of me that was always a fool.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear

“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“The knowledge that she would never be loved in return acted upon her ideas as a tide acts upon cliffs.”
― Thornton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey

“Ultimately a hero is a man who would argue with the gods, and so awakens devils to contest his vision.”
― Norman Mailer

“Life seems sometimes like nothing more than a series of losses, from beginning to end. That's the given. How you respond to those losses, what you make of what's left, that's the part you have to make up as you go.”
― Katharine Weber, The Music Lesson

“. . . when it comes down to it, that’s what life is all about: showing up for the people you love, again and again, until you can’t show up anymore.”
― Rebecca Walker, Baby Love: Choosing Motherhood After a Lifetime of Ambivalence

“I like good strong words that mean something…”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

“Even before you touched me, I belonged to you; all you had to do was look at me.”
― Louise Glück

“It had flaws, but what does that matter when it comes to matters of the heart? We love what we love. Reason does not enter into it. In many ways, unwise love is the truest love. Anyone can love a thing because. That's as easy as putting a penny in your pocket. But to love something despite. To know the flaws and love them too. That is rare and pure and perfect.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear

“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven..”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

“I love you more than words. And I am a big fan of words.”
― Joe Dunthorne, Submarine

“Books are a poor substitute for female companionship, but they are easier to find.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear

“I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street”
― W.H. Auden

“But as long as you remember what you have seen, then nothing is gone. As long as you remember, it is part of this story we have together.”
― Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony

“Orlando naturally loved solitary places, vast views, and to feel himself for ever and ever and ever alone.”
― Virginia Woolf, Orlando

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
― Epicurus

“There is a wilderness we walk alone
However well-companioned”
― Stephen Vincent Benét, Western Star

“Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it's a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it's a way of making contact with someone else's imagination after a day that's all too real.”
― Nora Ephron

“It's not denial. I'm just selective about the reality I accept.”
― Bill Watterson

“Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.”
― Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

“All great and precious things are lonely.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never quite know where they'll take you.”
― Beatrix Potter

“I do not understand how anyone can live without some small place of enchantment to turn to.”
― Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

“Make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read yourself.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“I'm always happy," Sasha said. "Sometimes I just forget.”
― Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad

“Read, read, read. That's all I can say.”
― Carolyn Keene, The Secret of the Old Clock

“Sleep is good, he said, and books are better.”
― George R. R. Martin