Elena > Elena's Quotes

“I do not know how far my experience is common. At times I suffer from the strangest sense of detachment from myself and the world about me; I seem to watch it all from the outside, from somewhere inconceivably remote, out of time, out of space, out of the stress and tragedy of it all.”
― H.G. Wells

“Small, bluish tubers that don't look like much but boiled or baked are as good as any patato. 'Katniss,' I said aloud. It's the plant I was named for. And I heard my father's voice joking, 'As long as you can find yourself, you'll never starve.”
― Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games

“Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“The fact that you got a little happier today doesn't change the fact that you also became a little sadder. Every day you become a little more of both, which means that right now, at this exact moment, you're the happiest and saddest you've ever been in your whole life.”
― Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

“Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It's a way of understanding it.”
― Lloyd Alexander

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou

“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

“Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay. I'm always irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It is a plunge into reality and it's very shocking to the system.”
― Flannery O'Connor, Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Circumstances are the rulers of the weak; they are but the instruments of the wise.”
― Samuel Lover, Rory O'More

“We hasten to alienate the very fates we intended to woo.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

“...I believe it important to emphasize how strongly I feel that books, just like people, have a destiny. Some invite sorrow, others joy, some both.”
― Elie Wiesel, Night

“We aimed for no more than to have dominion over every creature that moved upon the earth. And so it came to pass that we stepped down there on a place we believed unformed, where only darkness moved on the face of the waters. Now you laugh, day and night, while you gnaw on my bones. But what else could we have thought? Only that it began and ended with us. What do we know, even now? Ask the children. Look at what they grew up to be. We can only speak of the things we carried with us, and the things we took away.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible

“I'm too fascinated to hide indoors or stay cooped up in our yard. Curiosity killed the cat, I know, but I try to land on my feet.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“Never mind what my name is,” the man said. “No one can pronounce it anyway. Just call me Sir.”
― Lemony Snicket, The Miserable Mill

“I see that it is by no means useless to travel, if a man wants to see something new”
― Jules Verne, Around the World in Eighty Days

“I vow I shall give all my very best books to the underprivileged, once I have read them”
― Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible

“Her voice floats past me, swaying rhythmically, creating the sweetest song imaginable”
― Emlyn Chand, Farsighted

“Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“He's a moron," Blomkvist said. Vanger laughed, but he said: "That may be. But he's not the one who was sentenced by the court.”
― Stieg Larsson, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

“There are no innocents. There are, however, different degrees of responsibility.”
― Stieg Larsson, The Girl Who Played with Fire

“What she had realized was that love was that moment when your heart was about to burst.”
― Stieg Larsson, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

“I’ve had many enemies over the years. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s never engage in a fight you’re sure to lose. On the other hand, never let anyone who has insulted you get away with it. Bide your time and strike back when you’re in a position of strength—even if you no longer need to strike back.”
― Steig Larson, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

“Much stronger boys in her class soon learned that it could be quite unpleasant to fight with that skinny girl. Unlike other girls in the class, she never backed down, and she would not for a second hesitate to use her fists or any weapon at hand to protect herself. She went around with the attitude that she would rather be beaten to death than take any shit.”
― Stieg Larsson, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

“The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof. What I want is so simple I almost can’t say it: elementary kindness. Enough to eat, enough to go around. The possibility that kids might one day grow up to be neither the destroyers nor the destroyed. That’s about it. Right now I'm living in that hope, running down its hallway and touching the walls on both sides.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams

“The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.”
― Elie Wiesel

“Wisdom is oft-times nearer when we stoop
Than when we soar.”
― William Wordsworth, The Excursion 1814

“The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams

“A complete stranger has the capacity to alter the life of another irrevocably. This domino effect has the capacity to change the course of an entire world. That is what life is; a chain reaction of individuals colliding with others and influencing their lives without realizing it. A decision that seems miniscule to you, may be monumental to the fate of the world.”
― J.D. Stroube, Caged by Damnation