Sarah Nathan > Sarah's Quotes

“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”
― Sharon Salzberg

“Your mind is working at its best when you're being paranoid.
You explore every avenue and possibility of your situation
at high speed with total clarity.”
― Banksy, Banging Your Head Against a Brick Wall

“The greatest crimes in the world are not committed by people breaking the rules but by people following the rules. It's people who follow orders that drop bombs and massacre villages.”
― Banksy, Wall and Piece

“Some people become cops because they want to make the world a better place. Some people become vandals because they want to make the world a better looking place.”
― Banksy, Wall and Piece

“Once upon a time, there was a king who ruled a great and glorious nation. Favourite amongst his subjects was the court painter of whom he was very proud. Everybody agreed this wizzened old man pianted the greatest pictures in the whole kingdom and the king would spend hours each day gazing at them in wonder. However, one day a dirty and dishevelled stranger presented himself at the court claiming that in fact he was the greatest painter in the land. The indignant king decreed a competition would be held between the two artists, confident it would teach the vagabond an embarrassing lesson. Within a month they were both to produce a masterpiece that would out do the other. After thirty days of working feverishly day and night, both artists were ready. They placed their paintings, each hidden by a cloth, on easels in the great hall of the castle. As a large crowd gathered, the king ordered the cloth be pulled first from the court artist’s easel. Everyone gasped as before them was revealed a wonderful oil painting of a table set with a feast. At its centre was an ornate bowl full of exotic fruits glistening moistly in the dawn light. As the crowd gazed admiringly, a sparrow perched high up on the rafters of the hall swooped down and hungrily tried to snatch one of the grapes from the painted bowl only to hit the canvas and fall down dead with shock at the feet of the king. ’Aha!’ exclaimed the king. ’My artist has produced a painting so wonderful it has fooled nature herself, surely you must agree that he is the greatest painter who ever lived!’ But the vagabond said nothing and stared solemnly at his feet. ’Now, pull the blanket from your painting and let us see what you have for us,’ cried the king. But the tramp remained motionless and said nothing. Growing impatient, the king stepped forward and reached out to grab the blanket only to freeze in horror at the last moment. ’You see,’ said the tramp quietly, ’there is no blanket covering the painting. This is actually just a painting of a cloth covering a painting. And whereas your famous artist is content to fool nature, I’ve made the king of the whole country look like a clueless little twat.”
― Banksy, Wall and Piece

“One Original Thought is worth 1000 Meaningless Quotes.”
― Banksy

“People are fond of using military terms to describe what they do.
We call it bombing when we go out painting, when of course it's more
like entertaining the troops in a neutral zone, during peacetime in a
country without an army.”
― Banksy, Banging Your Head Against a Brick Wall

“When the time comes to leave, just walk away quietly and don't make any fuss.”
― Banksy, Wall and Piece

“Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.”
― Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

“Maybe the first time you saw her you were ten. She was standing in the sun scratching her legs. Or tracing letters in the dirt with a stick. Her hair was being pulled. Or she was pulling someone's hair. And a part of you was drawn to her, and a part of you resisted--wanting to ride off on your bicycle, kick a stone, remain uncomplicated. In the same breath you felt the strength of a man, and a self-pity that made you feel small and hurt. Part of you thought: Please don't look at me. If you don't, I can still turn away. And part of you thought: Look at me.”
― Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

“If I had a camera,' I said, 'I'd take a picture of you every day. That way I'd remember how you looked every single day of your life.”
― Nicole Krauss

“Holding hands, for example, is a way to remember how it feels to say nothing together.”
― Nicole Krauss

“And if the man who once upon a time had been a boy who promised he'd never fall in love with another girl as long as he lived kept his promise, it wasn't because he was stubborn or even loyal. He couldn't help it.”
― Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

“Once upon a time, there was a boy. He lived in a village that no longer exists, in a house that no longer exists, on the edge of a field that no longer exists, where everything was discovered, and everything was possible. A stick could be a sword, a pebble could be a diamond, a tree, a castle. Once upon a time, there was a boy who lived in a house across the field, from a girl who no longer exists. They made up a thousand games. She was queen and he was king. In the autumn light her hair shone like a crown. They collected the world in small handfuls, and when the sky grew dark, they parted with leaves in their hair.

Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.”
― Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

“...An average of seventy-four species become extinct every day, which was one good reason but not the only one to hold someone's hand...”
― Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

“One day she marched around the side of the house and confronted me. "I've seen you out there every day for the past week, and everyone knows you stare at me all day in school, if you have something you want to say to me why don't you just say it to my face instead of sneaking around like a crook?" I considered my options. Either I could run away and never go back to school again, maybe even leave the country as a stowaway on a ship bound for Australia. Or I could risk everything and confess to her. The answer was obvious: I was going to Australia. I opened my mouth to say goodbye forever. And yet. What I said was: I want to know if you'll marry me.”
― Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

“For her I changed pebbles into diamonds, shoes into mirrors, I changed glass into water, I gave her wings and pulled birds from her ears and in her pockets she found the feathers, I asked a pear to become a pineapple, a pineapple to become a lightbulb, a lightbulb to become the moon, and the moon to become a coin I flipped for her love...”
― Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

“Wittgenstein once wrote that when the eye sees something beautiful, the hand wants to draw it. I wish I could draw you.”
― Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

“Mom?" I said. She turned. "Can I talk to you about something?"
"Of course, darling. Come here."
I took a few steps into the room. There was so much I wanted to say.
"I need you to be --" I said, and then I started to cry.
"Be what?" she said, opening her arms.
"Not sad," I said.”
― Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

“If I had a camera," I said, "I'd take a picture of you every day. That way I'd remember how you looked every single day of your life."

"I look exactly the same."

"No, you don't. You're changing all the time. Every day a tiny bit. If I could, I'd keep a record of it all."

"If you're so smart, how did I change today?"

"You got a fraction of a millimeter taller, for one thing. Your hair grew a fraction of a millimeter longer. And your breasts grew a fraction of a—"

"They did not!"

"Yes, they did."

"Did NOT."

"Did too."

"What else, you big pig?"

"You got a little happier and also a little sadder."

"Meaning they cancel out each other, leaving me exactly the same."

"Not at all. The fact that you got a little happier today doesn't change the fact that you also become 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 the saddest you've ever been in your whole life."

"How do you know?"

"Think about it. Have you ever been happier or sadder than right now, lying here in this grass?"

"I guess not. No."

"And have you ever been sadder?"

"No."

"It isn't like that for everyone, you know. Some people[...]"

"What about you? Are you the happiest and saddest right now that you've ever
been?"

"Of course I am."

"Why?"

"Because nothing makes me happier and nothing makes me sadder than you.”
― Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

“("Let's stand under a tree," she said.

"Why?"

"Because it's nicer."

"Maybe you should sit on a chair, and I'll stand above you, like they always do with husbands and wives."

"That's stupid."

"Why's it stupid?"

"Because we're not married."

"Should we hold hands?"

"We can't."

"But why?"

"Because, people will know."

"Know what?"

"About us."

"So what if they know?"

"It's better when it's a secret."

"Why?"

"So no one can take it from us.")”
― Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

“After that day when I saw the elephant, I let myself see more and believe more. It was a game I played with myself. When I told Alma the things I saw she would laugh and tell me she loved my imagination. For her I changed pebbles into diamonds, shoes into mirrors, I changed glass into water, I gave her wings and pulled birds from her ears and in her pockets she found the feathers, I asked a pear to become a pineapple, a pineapple to become a lightbulb, a lightbulb to become the moon, and the moon to become a coin I flipped for her love, both sides were heads: I knew I couldn't lose.”
― Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

“Argue with anything else, but don't argue with your own nature.”
― Phillip Pullman

“You don't win races by wishing, you win them by running faster than everyone else does.”
― Philip Pullman, Clockwork, or All Wound Up

“There are a hundred things she has tried to chase away the things she won't remember and that she can't even let herself think about because that's when the birds scream and the worms crawl and somewhere in her mind it's always raining a slow and endless drizzle.

You will hear that she has left the country, that there was a gift she wanted you to have, but it is lost before it reaches you. Late one night the telephone will sign, and a voice that might be hers will say something that you cannot interpret before the connection crackles and is broken.

Several years later, from a taxi, you will see someone in a doorway who looks like her, but she will be gone by the time you persuade the driver to stop. You will never see her again.

Whenever it rains you will think of her. ”
― Neil Gaiman

“The 50-50-90 rule: anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there's a 90% probability you'll get it wrong.”
― Andy Rooney

“I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Happy Prince and Other Stories

“Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”
― Helen Keller

“She was a girl who knew how to be happy even when she was sad. And that’s important—you know ”
― Marilyn Monroe