Cariadne > Cariadne's Quotes

“Be calm," she said soothingly, and I realized she was not talking to the bird.
"How am I supposed to be calm? I worry," I retorted.
She gave a snort. "Then you are more stupid than I supposed. Worry, what is that? A pointless thing is Mr. Worry-an intruder. He steals into your house and creeps into your bed and what do you do child? Do you push him away and tell him to be gone and bolt the door fast against him? No, you move over and let him have the good pillow and the best quilt to warm himself." She flapped a hand in disgust. "Worry never did a man a bit of good. All he does is robs one's peace and make lines on the face.”
― Deanna Raybourn, The Dark Enquiry

“The Elephant of Depression wasn't just parked on my chest, it was relaxing there with the Walrus of Gloom and the Hippo of Bleak Friday Nights in Alone. They had beers. They were settling in.”
― Hester Browne

“I think... if it is true that
there are as many minds as there
are heads, then there are as many
kinds of love as there are hearts.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“Rummaging in our souls, we often dig up something that ought to have lain there unnoticed.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“Is it really possible to tell someone else what one feels?”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it's just an illusion, that people are going to bring their own stuff into it.”
― David Sedaris

“It's just a penis, right? Probably no worse for you than smoking.”
― David Sedaris, When You Are Engulfed in Flames

“That's right,' she told the girls. 'You are bored. And I'm going to let you in on a little secret about life. You think it's boring now? Well, it only gets more boring. The sooner you learn it's on you to make life interesting, the better off you'll be.”
― Maria Semple, Where'd You Go, Bernadette

“Ten years ago I saw a documentary on the siege of that Moscow theater. After just forty-eight hours of the terrorists confining the hostages to their seats with no sleep, the lights blazing and being forced to pee their pants-although if the had to shit, they could do so in the orchestra pit-well,more than a few hostages just stood up and walked to the exit knowing they'd get shot in the back. Because they were DONE.”
― Maria Semple

“Your mission statement says Galer Street is based on global "connectitude." (You people don't just think outside the box, you think outside the dictionary!)”
― Maria Semple, Where'd You Go, Bernadette

“But a mermaid has no tears, and therefore she suffers so much more.”
― Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid

“Why do we have such a finite capacity for pleasure but an infinite one for pain?”
― Marian Keyes, The Other Side of the Story

“How to make God laugh? Tell Him your plans.”
― Marian Keyes, The Other Side of the Story

“It was ironic, really - you want to die because you can't be bothered to go on living - but then you're expected to get all energetic and move furniture and stand on chairs and hoist ropes and do complicated knots and attach things to other things and kick stools from under you and mess around with hot baths and razor blades and extension cords and electrical appliances and weedkiller. Suicide was a complicated, demanding business, often involving visits to hardware shops.

And if you've managed to drag yourself from the bed and go down the road to the garden center or the drug store, by then the worst is over. At that point you might as well just go to work.”
― Marian Keyes, Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married

“Scars are just another kind of memory.”
― M.L. Stedman, The Light Between Oceans

“You only have to forgive once. To resent, you have to do it all day, every day. You have to keep remembering all the bad things.”
― M. L. Stedman, The Light Between Oceans

“When you give your heart away, you usually get it back in pieces, fragments. And often, a great deal of time passes before you realize that every piece wasn’t returned to you—and probably never will be. You crave nothing more than to get those small—but vital—fragments back; to return to the unbroken, undamaged version of yourself. But what's been broken cannot be unbroken, and so all you can do is learn to live with the void of the missing pieces, to somehow find beauty in the wreckage.
And so I did.
Sophie Lenon”
― Krystal McLean, My Darrling

“. . . you don’t need a happy ending to move onto a happy beginning.”
― Krystal McLean, My Darrling

“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.”
― John Muir

“I’m beginning to get the feeling that confession is what we need in order to forgive ourselves.”
― Shane Kuhn, The Intern's Handbook

“I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.”
― Sarah Williams

“Nothing great in the world was accomplished without passion.”
― Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

“People make mistakes in life through believing too much, but they have a damned dull time if they believe too little.”
― James Hilton, Lost Horizon

“It looked like the world was covered in a cobbler crust of brown sugar and cinnamon.”
― Sarah Addison Allen, First Frost

“The Waverley sisters hadn't been close as children, but they were as thick as thieves now, the way adult siblings often are, the moment they realize that family is actually a choice.”
― Sarah Addison Allen, First Frost

“Break a vase, and the love that reassembles the fragments is stronger than that love which took its symmetry for granted when it was whole.”
― Derek Walcott

“The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome.”
― Derek Walcott, Sea Grapes

“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that receives it.”
― Edith Wharton

“If we study what is merely average, we will remain merely average.”
― Shawn Achor

“..the more you believe in your own ability to success the more likely it is that you will.”
― Shawn Achor, The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance atWork