Leena > Leena's Quotes

“I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.”
― Marilyn Monroe

“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”
― Andre Gide, Autumn Leaves

“Books have a unique way of stopping time in a particular moment and saying: Let’s not forget this.”
― Dave Eggers

“When people don't express themselves, they die one piece at a time.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak

“لا أخاف الموت ..أخاف أن أموت قبل أن أحيا”
― أحمد خالد توفيق

“The dead can survive as part of the lives of those that still live.”
― Kenzaburō Ōe, Hiroshima Notes

“We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?”
― Richard Dawkins, Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder

“When each day is the same as the next, it’s because people fail to recognize the good things that happen in their lives every day that the sun rises.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“Every blessing ignored becomes a curse.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“If you start by promising what you don't even have yet, you'll lose your desire to work towards getting it.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“Don't think about what you've left behind" The alchemist said to the boy as they began to ride across the sands of the desert. "If what one finds is made of pure matter, it will never spoil. And one can always come back. If what you had found was only a moment of light, like the explosion of a star, you would find nothing on your return.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“We’ve got humane societies for dogs and cats, but they won’t do anything for human beings,” he spat out. “These women have souls.”
― Kate Moore, The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women

“Radium, they noted, had a “similar chemical nature” to calcium. Thus radium “if absorbed, might have a preference for bone as a final point of fixation.” Radium was what one might call a boneseeker, just like calcium; and the human body is programmed to deliver calcium straight to the bones to make them stronger… Essentially, radium had masked itself as calcium and, fooled, the girls’ bodies had deposited it inside their bones. Radium was a silent stalker, hiding behind that mask, using its disguise to burrow deep into the women’s jaws and teeth.”
― Kate Moore, The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women

“Don't let go too soon, but don't hold on too long.”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson

“The truth is, once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie

“Don't cling to things because everything is impermanent.”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson

“It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment

“Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

“Truly great men must, I think, experience great sorrow on the earth.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

“... just because [butterflies'] lives were short didn't mean they were tragic... See, they have a beautiful life.”
― Lisa Genova, Still Alice

“But just because I’ll forget it some tomorrow doesn’t mean that I didn’t live every second of it today. I will forget today, but that doesn’t mean that today didn’t matter.”
― Lisa Genova, Still Alice

“I have bipolar disorder. Some people would say I am bipolar instead of I have bipolar. And that’s all good. You do you, but for me, it would feel weird to say I am something that I have.”
― Lisa Genova, More or Less Maddy

“If she hadn’t been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, she wouldn’t be going on a comedy tour in two weeks. None of the amazing things that have unfolded in her life would’ve happened without that fork in the road. Yes, that fork was scary and disruptive, but who wants to drive down a perfectly straight road for an entire lifetime?”
― Lisa Genova, More or Less Maddy

“But this (bipolar disorder) chose her. Without her consent, like an arranged marriage, till death do they part. She wants an annulment, a divorce, an open window onto a fire escape, a new doctor, a time machine. Some way out of this.”
― Lisa Genova, More or Less Maddy

“Sometimes, Just when we need them, life wraps metaphors up in little bows for us. When you think all is lost, the things you need the most return unexpectedly.”
― Susannah Cahalan, Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness

“Someone once asked, "If you could take it all back, would you?"
At the time I didn't know. Now I do. I wouldn't take that terrible experience back for anything in the world. Too much light has come out of my darkness.”
― Susannah Cahalan, Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness

“No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness,” Aristotle said.”
― Susannah Cahalan, Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness

“How many people throughout history suffered from my disease and others like it but went untreated? This question is made more pressing by the knowledge that even though the disease was discovered in 2007, some doctors I spoke to believe that it’s been around at least as long as humanity has.”
― Susannah Cahalan, Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness