Carla > Carla's Quotes

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

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein

“As far as she could see, her life was ordained to be lonely, and she must subdue her nature to her life, and, if possible, bring the two into harmony. When she could employ herself in fiction, all was comparatively well. The characters were her companions in the quiet hours, which she spent utterly alone, unable often to stir out of doors for many days together.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë

“A girl expecting rescue never learns to save herself. Even with the means, she will find her courage wanting.”
― Kate Morton , The Forgotten Garden

“You mustn’t wait for someone to rescue you,” Mother would continue, a faraway look in her eyes. “A girl expecting rescue never learns to save herself. Even with the means, she’ll find her courage wanting. Don’t be like that, Eliza. You must find your courage, learn to rescue yourself, never rely on anyone else.”
― Kate Morton, The Forgotten Garden

“People disappear when they die. Their voice, their laughter, the warmth of their breath. Their flesh. Eventually their bones. All living memory of them ceases. This is both dreadful and natural. Yet for some there is an exception to this annihilation. For in the books they write they continue to exist. We can rediscover them. Their humor, their tone of voice, their moods. Through the written word they can anger you or make you happy. They can comfort you. They can perplex you. They can alter you. All this, even though they are dead. Like flies in amber, like corpses frozen in the ice, that which according to the laws of nature should pass away is, by the miracle of ink on paper, preserved. It is a kind of magic.”
― Diane Setterfield, The Thirteenth Tale

“There is something about words. In expert hands, manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner. Wind themselves around your limbs like spider silk, and when you are so enthralled you cannot move, they pierce your skin, enter your blood, numb your thoughts. Inside you they work their magic.”
― Diane Setterfield, The Thirteenth Tale

“opening the book, i inhaled. the smell of old books, so sharp, so dry you can taste it.”
― Diane Setterfield, The Thirteenth Tale

“Once upon a time there was a fairy godmother, but the rest of the time there was none. This story is about one of those other times.”
― Diane Setterfield, The Thirteenth Tale

“You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own, than when you almost broke it eight years and a half ago.”
― Jane Austen, Persuasion

“I am not one of those who neglect the reigning to bow to the rising sun.”
― Jane Austen, Persuasion

“He had noticed that events were cowards: they didn't occur singly, but instead they would run in packs and leap out at him all at once.”
― Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere

“So many things to see, people to do.”
― Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere

“I'm going to go home. Everything is going to be normal again. Boring again. Wonderful again.”
― Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere

“She smiled again. "Do you like cat?" she said.
"Yes," said Richard. "I quite like cats."
Anaesthesia looked relieved. "Thigh?" she asked, "or breast?”
― Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere

“There are little pockets of old time in London, where things and places stay the same, like bubbles in amber,” she explained. “There’s a lot of time in London, and it has to go somewhere—it doesn’t all get used up at once.”
“I may still be hung over,” sighed Richard. “That almost made sense.”
― Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere

“Young man," he said, "understand this: there are two Londons. There's London Above―that's where you lived―and then there's London Below―the Underside―inhabited by the people who fell through the cracks in the world. Now you're one of them. Good night.”
― Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere

“When she bought the cats her mother asked her straight out if they were 'baby substitutes'. 'No,' Ruth had answered, straight-faced. 'They're kittens. If I had a baby it would be a cat substitute.”
― Elly Griffiths, The Crossing Places

“I have a secret feeling that we're all Hobbits. Deep down we all want to stay home and feel safe, but we all dream about someone knocking on the door and saying "Come on an adventure and let's have a fun ride.”
― Richard Armitage, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - Chronicles I: Art & Design

“To say that I met Nicholas Brisbane over my husband's dead body is not entirely accurate. Edward, it should be noted, was still twitching upon the floor.”
― Deanna Raybourn, Silent in the Grave

“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”
― Elly Griffiths, The Stranger Diaries

“All tapes left in a car for more than about a fortnight metamorphose into Best of Queen albums.”
― Terry Pratchett, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

“If you sit down and think about it sensibly, you come up with some very funny ideas. Like: why make people inquisitive, and then put some forbidden fruit where they can see it with a big neon finger flashing on and off saying 'THIS IS IT!'? ... I mean, why do that if you really don't want them to eat it, eh? I mean, maybe you just want to see how it all turns out. Maybe it's all part of a great big ineffable plan. All of it. You, me, him, everything. Some great big test to see if what you've built all works properly, eh? You start thinking: it can't be a great cosmic game of chess, it has to be just very complicated Solitaire.”
― Neil Gaiman , Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

“We are all victims of our human experience,” Alice continued, “apt to view the present through the lens of our own past.”
― Kate Morton, The Lake House

“It was electric, a spark of cosmic recognition, as if in that moment time’s weave had opened and they’d glimpsed an alternative existence in which they were something more than strangers on a train.”
― Kate Morton, The Lake House

“Life is a crap carnival with shit prizes.”
― Stephen King, Mr. Mercedes

“In my teens my drug of choice was acceptance, in my twenties it was approval, in my thirties it was love, in my forties it was Scotch. That lasted a while,’ she admitted. ‘Now all I really crave is a good bowel movement.”
― Louise Penny, A Fatal Grace

“So much more comforting to see bad in others; gives us all sorts of excuses for our own bad behavior. But good? No, only really remarkable people see the good in others.”
― Louise Penny, A Fatal Grace

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