Desirée > Desirée's Quotes

“We read to know we're not alone.”
― William Nicholson, Shadowlands: A Play

“What did thinking ever do for me, to what great place did thinking ever bring me? I think and think and think. I've thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

“I regret that it takes a life to learn how to live.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

“Without books, I would certainly die.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“You don’t have a soul, Doctor. You are a soul. You have a body, temporarily.”
― Walter M. Miller Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz

“There is something about words. In expert hands, manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner. Wind themselves around your limbs like spider silk, and when you are so enthralled you cannot move, they pierce your skin, enter your blood, numb your thoughts. Inside you they work their magic.”
― Diane Setterfield, The Thirteenth Tale

“Reading can be dangerous.”
― Diane Setterfield, The Thirteenth Tale

“Men who watch, and say little, very often are much wiser than the men they serve.”
― Susanna Kearsley, The Winter Sea

“Tis action moves the world....[in] the game of chess, mind that: ye cannot leave your men to stand unmoving on the board and hope to win. A soldier must first step upon the battlefield if does mean to cross it.”
― Susanna Kearsley, The Winter Sea

“Set wide the window. Let me drink the day.”
― Edith Wharton, Artemis to Actaeon and Other Verses

“Learn what is to be taken seriously and laugh at the rest.”
― Herman Hesse

“You don’t think ahead in years or months: you think about this hour, and maybe the next. Anything else is speculation.”
― ML Stedman, The Light Between Oceans

“Humans withdraw to their homes, and surrender the night to the creatures that own it: the crickets, the owls, the snakes. A world that hasn't changed for hundreds of thousands of years wakes up, and carries on as if the daylight and the humans and the changes to the landscape have all been an illusion.”
― M.L. Stedman, The Light Between Oceans

“You only have to forgive once. To resent, you have to do it all day, every day. You have to keep remembering all the bad things.”
― M. L. Stedman, The Light Between Oceans

“Izz, I've learned the hard way that to have any kind of a future you've got to give up hope of ever changing your past.”
― M. L. Stedman, The Light Between Oceans

“... a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“Happiness is not a possession to be prized, it is a quality of thought, a state of mind.”
― Daphne Du Maurier, Rebecca

“The moment of crisis had come, and I must face it. My old fears, my diffidence, my shyness, my hopeless sense of inferiority, must be conquered now and thrust aside. If I failed now I should fail forever.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

“Do the things that interest you and do them with all your heart. Don't be concerned about whether people are watching you or criticizing you. The chances are that they aren't paying any attention to you. It's your attention to yourself that is so stultifying. But you have to disregard yourself as completely as possible. If you fail the first time then you'll just have to try harder the second time. After all, there's no real reason why you should fail. Just stop thinking about yourself.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life