rho.da > rho.da's Quotes

“Business and human endeavors are systems…we tend to focus on snapshots of isolated parts of the system. And wonder why our deepest problems never get solved.”
― Peter Senge

“I think you gotta be who you want to be until you feel like you are whoever it is you're trying to become. Sometimes half of doing something is pretending that you can.”
― Julie Murphy, Dumplin'

“If you don't know where you are going any road can take you there”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

“There's something horribly unfair about dying in the middle of a good story, before you have a chance to see how it all comes out. Of course, I suppose everyone ALWAYS dies in the middle of a good story, in a sense. Your own story. Or the story of your grandchildren. Death is a raw deal for narrative junkies.”
― Joe Hill, The Fireman

“Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour ... If at my convenience I might break them, what would be their worth?”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“There was dishonor, she decided, in accepting someone else’s idea of honor without question.”
― Marie Rutkoski, The Winner's Crime

“Sometimes you think you want something,” Arin told him, “when in reality you need to let it go.”
― Marie Rutkoski, The Winner's Crime

“Thoughts, too, have their seasons, and she
couldn’t stop what worked its way up
through the underground of her mind. And
what were her thoughts? What did she gather
in secret, in guilt? What did she hold, and
lift to the light to see better, and what did she
drop as quickly as she could, as if it were hot
to the touch?”
― Marie Rutkoski, The Winner's Crime

“People always ask, Why does God allow suffering? Why does He allow a child to be beaten? A woman to cry? A holocaust to happen? A good dog to die painfully? Simple truth is, He wants to see for Himself what we’ll do. He’s stood up the candle, put the devil at the wick, and now He wants to see if we blow it out or let it burn down. God is suffering’s biggest spectator.”
― Tiffany McDaniel, The Summer that Melted Everything

“You once told me some lives are worth more than others. How many deaths before the scales tip
out of our favor?”
She had no answer.”
― Kiersten White, And I Darken

“That's what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you to another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It's geometrically progressive - all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment.”
― Mary Ann Shaffer, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“I envy you, that it’s so easy for you to think of things in terms of black and white. I’d like to think I’m a good person, believe it or not. Everything I’ve done, I did because I thought it was right at the time. In hindsight, some of the ends didn’t justify the means, and sometimes there were unforseen consequences.” Like Dinah. “But I don’t think of myself as a bad person.”
― wildbow, Worm

“Why were the people who clung so fiercely to the notions of right and wrong the very same individuals that had the worst grasp of what they meant?”
― Wildbow, Worm

“Rules are for people with the luxury of time.”
― Renee Carlino, Wish You Were Here

“We’re not even thirty yet, Chuck.”
“I know, but I’m getting there, you know, to that point of no return where no one will be good enough because I’ll be so set in my stubborn ways.”
― Renee Carlino, Wish You Were Here

“The Wizard's First Rule: People are stupid; given proper motivation almost anyone will believe almost anything.”
― Terry Goodkind, Wizard's First Rule

“I believe it doesn't matter what it is, as long as you can find something concrete to keep you busy while you are living your meaningless life.”
― Ruth Ozeki, A Tale for the Time Being

“Sometimes when she told stories about the past her eyes would get teary from all the memories she had, but they weren't tears. She wasn't crying. They were just the memories, leaking out.”
― Ruth Ozeki, A Tale for the Time Being

“But these words people threw around - humans, monsters, heroes, villains - to Victor it was all just a matter of semantics. Someone could call themselves a hero and still walk around killing dozens. Someone else could be labeled a villain for trying to stop them. Plenty of humans were monstrous, and plenty of monsters knew how to play at being human.”
― V.E. Schwab, Vicious

“Kapag nawala na ako, sabi ng bahay sa gitna ng pagkukuwento, at nalulungkot ka, lagi mo lang iisipin, ang kalungkutan ay kaligahayang nagtatago lang. Lilitaw din sa tamang panahon.”
― Ricky Lee, Bahay ni Marta

“Di ba mas matinding parusa ang parusang ginagawa sa sarili?”
― Ricky Lee, Bahay ni Marta

“Our entire society is based on discontent. People wanting more and more and more. Being constantly dissatisfied with their homes, their bodies, their décor, their clothes, everything – taking it for granted that that’s the whole point of life. Never to be satisfied. If you are perfectly happy with what you got, especially if what you got isn’t even all that spectacular then you’re dangerous. You’re breaking all the rules. You’re undermining the sacred economy. You’re challenging every assumption that society is built on.”
― Tana French, The Likeness

“There's a Spanish proverb," he said, "that's always fascinated me. "Take what you want and pay for it, says God.'" "I don't believe in God," Daniel said, "but that principle seems, to me, to have a divinity of its own; a kind of blazing purity. What could be simpler, or more crucial? You can have anything you want, as long as you accept that there is a price and that you will have to pay it.”
― Tana French, The Likeness

“You build a revolution on ideas. If the population doesn't buy your ideas, it means they're not ready, or you're wrong. There's this tendency for people to see any fight against the system as a fight for progress. As if the people before them couldn't possibly have gotten anything right. If you're using bombs instead of words, that means you're banking on people giving you what you want out of fear instead of reason. That's never a good sign.”
― Sylvain Neuvel, Only Human

“Throughout the entire history of philosophy, philosophers have sought to discover what man is - or what human nature is. But Sartre believed that man has no such eternal nature to fall back on. It is therefore useless to search for the meaning of life in general. We are condemned to improvise. We are like actors dragged onto the stage without having learned our lines, with no script and no prompter to whisper stage directions to us. We must decide for ourselves how to live.”
― Jostein Gaarder, Sophie’s World

“Life is both sad and solemn. We are led into a wonderful world, we meet one another here, greet each other - and wander together for a brief moment. Then we lose each other and disappear as suddenly and unreasonably as we arrived.”
― Jostein Gaarder, Sophie’s World

“We romanticize the past with our period dramas and glossy film adaptations. A bit like we do with nature. Nature is violent, unpredictable and unforgiving. Eat or be eaten. That's nature. However much Attenborough or Coldplay you wrap it up in.”
― C.J. Tudor, The Hiding Place

“I would say, some people are like constellations that only touch the earth for a season.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“Never assume," my dad once told me. "To assume makes an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me'.”
― C.J. Tudor, The Chalk Man