Minutepapillon > Minutepapillon's Quotes

“He was gone, and I did not have time to tell him what I had just now realized: that I forgave him, and that she forgave us, and that we had to forgive to survive in the labyrinth. There were so many of us who would have to live with things done and things left undone that day. Things that did not go right, things that seemed okay at the time because we could not see the future. If only we could see the endless string of consequences that result from our smallest actions. But we can’t know better until knowing better is useless. And as I walked back to give Takumi’s note to the Colonel, I saw that I would never know. I would never know her well enough to know her thoughts in those last minutes, would never know if she left us on purpose. But the not-knowing would not keep me from caring, and I would always love Alaska Young, my crooked neighbor, with all my crooked heart.”
― John Green, Looking for Alaska

“Brian looked back and for a moment felt afraid because the wolf was so... so right. He knew Brian, knew him and owned him and chose not to do anything to him. But the fear moved then, moved away,and Brian knew the wolf for what it was - another part of the woods, another part of all of it.”
― Gary Paulsen, Hatchet

“Life turns on little things. The momentous events in history can leave us untouched, while small events may shape our destinies.”
― Jennifer Worth, Shadows of the Workhouse

“Home is people. Not a place. If you go back there after the people are gone, then all you can see is what is not there any more.”
― Robin Hobb, Fool's Fate

“It was a strange feeling, holding the rifle. It somehow removed him from everything around him. Without the rifle he had to fit in, to be part of it all, to understand it and use it - the woods, all of it. With the rifle, suddenly, he didn't have to know, did not have to be afraid or understand. He didn't have to get close to a foolbird to kill it - didn't have to know how it would stand if he didn't look at it and moved off to the side.
The rifle changed him, the minute he picked it up, and he wasn't sure he liked the change much.”
― Gary Paulsen, Hatchet

“Every act of perception, is to some degree an act of creation, and every act of memory is to some degree an act of imagination.”
― Oliver Sacks, Musicophilia: La musique, le cerveau et nous

“I am the shadow on the moon at night/Filling your dreams to the brim with fright.”
― Tim Burton

“And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

“On la croirait sortie d'une comptine où la douceur des mélodies enrobe de miel des historiettes cruelles.”
― Mélanie Fazi, Notre-Dame aux écailles

“The Colonel led all the cheers.
Cornbread!" he screamed.
CHICKEN!" the crowd responded.
Rice!"
PEAS!"
And then, all together: "WE GOT HIGHER SATs."
Hip Hip Hip Hooray!" the Colonel cried.
YOU'LL BE WORKIN' FOR US SOMEDAY!”
― John Green, Looking for Alaska

“Why do I read?
I just can't help myself.
I read to learn and to grow, to laugh
and to be motivated.
I read to understand things I've never
been exposed to.
I read when I'm crabby, when I've just
said monumentally dumb things to the
people I love.
I read for strength to help me when I
feel broken, discouraged, and afraid.
I read when I'm angry at the whole
world.
I read when everything is going right.
I read to find hope.
I read because I'm made up not just of
skin and bones, of sights, feelings,
and a deep need for chocolate, but I'm
also made up of words.
Words describe my thoughts and what's
hidden in my heart.
Words are alive--when I've found a
story that I love, I read it again and
again, like playing a favorite song
over and over.
Reading isn't passive--I enter the
story with the characters, breathe
their air, feel their frustrations,
scream at them to stop when they're
about to do something stupid, cry with
them, laugh with them.
Reading for me, is spending time with a
friend.
A book is a friend.
You can never have too many.”
― Gary Paulsen, Shelf Life: Stories by the Book

“Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.”
― George Eliot, Impressions of Theophrastus Such

“FEAR stands for fuck everything and run.”
― Stephen King, Doctor Sleep

“Adults are always asking little kids what they want to be when they grow up ’cause they’re looking for ideas.”
― Paula Poundstone

“Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.”
― OMAR KHAYYAM, The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

“I write because I am alone and move through the world alone. No one will know what has passed through me… I write because there are stories that people have forgotten to tell, because I am a woman trying to stand up in my life… I write out of hurt and how to make hurt okay; how to make myself strong and come home, and it may be the only real home I’ll ever have”
― Nathalie Goldberg

“FEAR stands for face everything and recover – Old AA saying”
― Stephen King, Doctor Sleep

“I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in my life. And I am horribly limited.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

“Regrets et découragements dansent un sabbat sorcier dans ma boite en os.”
― Sylvain Tesson, Dans les forêts de Sibérie

“She thought that things could not get worse . . . but they always can, and often do.”
― Stephen King, Doctor Sleep

“Winter is coming.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”
― Thomas Mann, Essays of Three Decades

“let me live, love, and say it well in good sentences”
― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

“The song was wistful as the ballads Slidell and the Clayton brothers played, except words weren't needed to feel the yearning. That made the music all the more sorrowful, because this song wasn't about one lost love or one dead child or parent. It was as if the music was about every loss that had ever been.”
― Ron Rash

“Growing up and growing old. Playing. Exploring. Like Pooh and Piglet. And then like the Famous Five. And then like Heidi and Anne of Green Gables. And then like Pandora, opening the great big box of the world and not being afraid, not even caring whether what’s inside is good or bad. Because it’s both. Everything is always both.
But you have to open it to find that out.”
― M.R. Carey, The Girl with All the Gifts

“And when at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour out your soul, you stop in shock at the words you utter— they are so rusty, so ugly, so meaningless and feeble from being kept in the small cramped dark inside you so long.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

“There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something. You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again

“Bien sûr demeuraient nouées ces écharpes multiples, les souvenirs, mais c'était comme s'il fallait désormais que le passé puisse luire aussi chamarré, aussi intense que ce présent où ils n'étaient plus là.”
― Alain Damasio, La Horde du Contrevent

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again

“Everyone forgets Icarus also flew.”
― Jack Gilbert, Refusing Heaven: Poems