Anissa > Anissa's Quotes

“Choose your leaders
with wisdom and forethought.
To be led by a coward
is to be controlled
by all that the coward fears.
To be led by a fool
is to be led
by the opportunists
who control the fool.
To be led by a thief
is to offer up
your most precious treasures
to be stolen.
To be led by a liar
is to ask
to be told lies.
To be led by a tyrant
is to sell yourself
and those you love
into slavery.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Talents

“I was attracted to science fiction because it was so wide open. I was able to do anything and there were no walls to hem you in and there was no human condition that you were stopped from examining.”
― Octavia E. Butler

“Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.”
― Robert A. Heinlein

“Next door was a vegetarian café and deli, and next to that was the Wooly Bear yarn shop. Its logo was a caterpillar in shades of yellow, green, and scarlet. Maggie went in.
The shop was warm and bright, with one entire wall given over to cubbyholes filled with yarns of every hue in many weights and fibers. The opposite wall held small skeins and spools of thread on pegs for embroidery and quilting. There were racks of pattern books and magazines, and in the back a mini classroom was set up with a small maple table and folding chairs, now accommodating a group of eight-year-olds wielding fat knitting needles and balls of oversize wool. A girl of about sixteen wearing a Rye Manor sweatshirt was helping a little boy to cast on stitches.”
― Beth Gutcheon, The Affliction

“Ben is twenty-six, and this is his first job. He is small, weedy, and terribly, terribly serious about his work. His. Not anyone else’s. He despises everyone else’s. He has, however, produced our only literary fiction in the last two years that has sold over five thousand copies, so people listen to him. Which is a pity, since he doesn’t really have anything to say.”
― Judith Flanders, A Murder of Magpies

“Woke up this morning with a terrific urge to lie in bed all day and read.”
― Raymond Carver

“April 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four.”
― Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson and Other Tales

“There’s what you’re forced to do, there’s what you choose, and everything else—most things—are a mix. At best, you’ll spend your life trying not to get hurt, but trying not to do the hurting, either. You won’t always come through, but it’s the best anyone can do. It’s the trying I’d call good.”
― Alexandra Duncan, Salvage

“What happens when people open their hearts?"
"They get better.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.”
― Ray Bradbury

“Conservatives say if you don't give the rich more money, they will lose their incentive to invest. As for the poor, they tell us they've lost all incentive because we've given them too much money.”
― George Carlin

“She feels in italics and thinks in CAPITALS.”
― Henry James

“What she was finding also was how one book led to another, doors kept opening wherever she turned and the days weren't long enough for the reading she wanted to do.”
― Alan Bennett, The Uncommon Reader

“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

“Joy is the best makeup.”
― Anne Lamott, Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.”
― James Baldwin

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

“People change and forget to tell each other.”
― Lillian Hellman

“Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods.”
― Christopher Hitchens, The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever

“I didn't have the best night's sleep. It was full of limping strangers, cats with keys, postmen wearing fright wigs and Miss Jane Marple hanging upside down like a bat.”
― Victoria Abbott, The Christie Curse

“And I will never again underestimate the power of anticipation. There is no better boost in the present than an invitation into the future.”
― Caroline Kepnes, You

“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you mad.”
― Aldous Huxley

“A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading.”
― William Styron, Conversations with William Styron

“I have often wished I had time to cultivate modesty...But I am too busy thinking about myself.”
― Edith Sitwell

“That is where my dearest and brightest dreams have ranged — to hear for the duration of a heartbeat the universe and the totality of life in its mysterious, innate harmony.”
― Hermann Hesse, Gertrude

“Good humor may be said to be one of the very best articles of dress one can wear in society.”
― William Makepeace Thackeray, Sketches and Travels, Etc.

“The impossible could not have happened, therefore the impossible must be possible in spite of appearances.”
― Agatha Christie, Murder on the Orient Express

“Open a book this minute and start reading. Don’t move until you’ve reached page fifty. Until you’ve buried your thoughts in print. Cover yourself with words. Wash yourself away. Dissolve.”
― Carol Shields, The Republic of Love

“When I pronounce the word Future,
the first syllable already belongs to the past.

When I pronounce the word Silence,
I destroy it.”
― Wisława Szymborska, Poems New and Collected

“I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”
― E. B. White