Jennifer > Jennifer's Quotes

“If I am the pawn of the gods, it is because they know me so well, not because they make my mind up for me.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The Queen of Attolia

“I am who I choose to be. I have always been what I chose, though not always what I pleased.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory

“ The Paradoxical Commandments

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.”
― Kent M. Keith, The Silent Revolution: Dynamic Leadership in the Student Council

“This wasn't prayer anyway, it was just argument with the gods.
Prayer, he suspected as he hoisted himself up and turned for the door, was putting one foot in front of the other. Moving all the same.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Curse of Chalion

“Events may be horrible or inescapable. Men have always a choice - if not whether, then how, they may endure.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Curse of Chalion

“His outflung hands traced over the threads of his rug, passed loop by loop through some patient woman's hands. Or maybe she hadn't been patient. Maybe she'd been tired, or irritated, or distracted, or hungry, or angry. Maybe she had been dying. But her hands had kept moving, all the same.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Curse of Chalion

“Since no one is perfect, it follows that all great deeds have been accomplished out of imperfection. Yet they were accomplished, somehow, all the same.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Mirror Dance

“Whether I like it or not, most of my images of what various historical periods feel, smell, or sound like were acquired well before I set foot in any history class. They came from Margaret Mitchell, from Anya Seton, from M.M. Kaye, and a host of other authors, in their crackly plastic library bindings. Whether historians acknowledge it or not, scholarly history’s illegitimate cousin, the historical novel, plays a profound role in shaping widely held conceptions of historical realities.”
― Lauren Willig

“If the truth doesn't save us, what does that say about us?”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Diplomatic Immunity

“Royse Bergon: "I've seen your integrity in action. It...widened my world. I'd been raised by my father, who is a prudent, cautious man, always looking for men's hidden, selfish motivations. No one can cheat him. But I've seen him cheat himself. If you understand what I mean."
Caz: "Yes."
R.B.: "It was very foolish of you to attack that vile Roknari galley-man."
Caz: "Yes."
R.B.: "And yet, I think, given the same circumstances you would do it again."
Caz: "Knowing what I know now...it would be harder. But I would hope... I would pray, Royse, that the gods would still lend me such foolishness in my need."
R.B: "What is this astonishing foolishness, that shines brighter than all my father's gold? Can you teach me to be such a fool, too, Caz?"
Caz: "Oh," "I'm sure of it.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold

“Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign

“No 'Glory shall be your reward' for me. Oh, no, for me, it is, 'Stop whining' and 'Go to bed'.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The King of Attolia

“Never give up because, if an opportunity arises, you have to be ready to take it.”
― John Flanagan

“How can you stay so calm?"
It helps if you're terrified.”
― John Flanagan, The Battle for Skandia

“Some prices are just too high, no matter how much you may want the prize. The one thing you can't trade for your heart's desire is your heart.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory

“The way to get on with a cat is to treat it as an equal - or even better, as the superior it knows itself to be.”
― Elizabeth Peters, The Snake, the Crocodile and the Dog

“As I stood outside in Cow Lane, it occurred to me that Heaven must be a place where the library is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

No ... eight days a week.”
― Alan Bradley, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

“It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it.”
― Maurice Switzer, Mrs. Goose, Her Book

“Sometimes people can be too intellegent for their own good. Too much thinking could confuse things.”
― John Flanagan, The Siege of Macindaw

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

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.”
― Elbert Hubbard

“You don’t have a soul, Doctor. You are a soul. You have a body, temporarily.”
― Walter M. Miller Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.”
― Bernard M. Baruch

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

“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

“Anyone who thinks sitting in church can make you a Christian must also think that sitting in a garage can make you a car.”
― Garrison Keillor

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.”
― Abraham Lincoln