Caranaughton > Caranaughton's Quotes

“Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunk Christian.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.”
― Herman Melville, Moby Dick

“There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, the Whale

“I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“and Heaven have mercy on us all - Presbyterians and Pagans alike - for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending.”
― Herman Melville

“Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the devilish brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider, once more, the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began.

Consider all this; and then turn to the green, gentle, and most docile earth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find a strange analogy to something in yourself? For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half-known life. God keep thee! Push not off from that isle, thou canst never return!”
― Herman Melville, Moby Dick

“It is not down on any map; true places never are.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest reveries--stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region. Should you ever be athirst in the great American desert, try this experiment, if your caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical professor. Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for ever.”
― Herman Melville, Moby Dick

“Top-heavy was the ship as a dinnerless student with all Aristotle in his head.”
― Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“A noble craft, but somehow a most melancholy! All noble things are touched with that.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, the Whale

“It is the easiest thing in the world for a man to look as if he had a great secret in him.”
― Herman Melville, Moby Dick oder Der Wal

“Think not, is my eleventh commandment; and sleep when you can, is my twelfth.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“I don't put up with being messed around, and I don't suffer fools gladly. The short version of that is that I'm a bitch. Trust me, I can provide character references.”
― Robin McKinley, Sunshine

“The train is roaring toward you and the villain is twirling his moustache and you're fussing that he's tied you to the tracks with the wrong kind of rope.”
― Robin McKinley, Sunshine

“The story is always better than your ability to write it.”
― Robin McKinley

“At least I was true. My intellectual abilities gave me a release, and an excuse. I shunned company because I preferred books; and the dreams I confided to my father were of becoming a scholar in good earnest, and going to University. It was unheard-of several shocked governesses were only too quick to tell me, when I spoke a little too boldly -- but my father nodded and smiled and said, 'We'll see.' Since I believed my father could do anything -- except of course make me pretty -- I worked and studied with passionate dedication, lived in hope, and avoided society and mirrors.”
― Robin McKinley, Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast

“As I have said, you have no reason to trust me, and an excellent reason not to.”
― Robin McKinley, Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast

“Can't all beasts be tamed?”
― Robin McKinley

“People forgot; it was in the nature of people to forget, to blur boundaries, to retell stories to come out the way they wanted them to come out, to remember things as how they ought to be instead of how they were.”
― Robin McKinley, Spindle's End

“...there remained a strange formality between them, and her pleasure in his presence felt too much like missing him had felt during the last week.”
― Robin McKinley, Pegasus

“We kings do develop a certain ability to recognize objects under our noses.”
― Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown

“I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.”
― Marilyn Monroe

“Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.”
― Marilyn Monroe

“A wise girl kisses but doesn't love, listens but doesn't believe, and leaves before she is left.”
― Marilyn Monroe

“If you can make a woman laugh, you can make her do anything.”
― Marilyn Monroe

“I am good, but not an angel. I do sin, but I am not the devil. I am just a small girl in a big world trying to find someone to love.”
― Marilyn Monroe

“I've never fooled anyone. I've let people fool themselves. They didn't bother to find out who and what I was. Instead they would invent a character for me. I wouldn't argue with them. They were obviously loving somebody I wasn't.”
― Marilyn Monroe

“When it comes down to it, I let them think what they want. If they care enough to bother with what I do, then I'm already better than them.”
― Marilyn Monroe

“If you're gonna be two-faced at least make one of them pretty.”
― Marilyn Monroe

“The real lover is the man who can thrill you by kissing your forehead or smiling into your eyes or just staring into space.”
― Marilyn Monroe