Reetta > Reetta's Quotes

“Them as can do has to do for them as can't. And someone has to speak up for them as has no voices.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men

“How many times, he wonders, must a person relearn everything he knows, rediscovering it over and over, and how many coverings must be torn away before he's finally able to truly grasp things, to understand them to the bone? Is a human lifetime long enough? His lifetime, or anyone else's?”
― Jenny Erpenbeck, Gehen, ging, gegangen

“Have the people living here under untroubled circumstances and at so great a distance from the wars of others been afflicted with a poverty of experience, a sort of emotional anemia? Must living in peace - so fervently wished for throughout human history and yet enjoyed in only a few parts of the world - inevitably result in refusing to share it with those seeking refuge, defending it instead so aggressively that it almost looks like war?”
― Jenny Erpenbeck, Gehen, ging, gegangen

“To understand what a person means or says, it’s basically necessary to already know what that person means or is saying.”
― Jenny Erpenbeck, Go, Went, Gone

“Peter told him that for the Incas the center of the universe wasn’t a point but a line where the two halves of the universe meet. Is this the scene unfolding before Richard’s eyes at the entrance to the asylum seekers’ residence? And are the two groups of people facing off here something like the two halves of a universe that actually belong together, but whose separation is nonetheless irrevocable? Is the rift dividing them in fact a bottomless chasm; is that why such powerful turbulences have been released? And is it a rift between Black and White? Or Poor and Rich? Stranger and Friend? Or between those whose fathers have died and those whose fathers are still alive? Or those with curly hair and those with straight? Those who call their dinner fufu and those who call it stew? Or those who like to wear yellow, red, and green t-shirts and those who prefer neckties? Or those who like to drink water and those who prefer beer? Or between speakers of one language and another? How many borders exist within a single universe?”
― Jenny Erpenbeck, Go, Went, Gone

“You don't read books." She'd meant it as an accusation, as the worst sort of insult. She said it maliciously.”
― Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen, The Rabbit Back Literature Society

“If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans.”
― James Herriot , All Creatures Great and Small

“Solitude is a human presumption. Every quiet step is thunder to beetle life underfoot, a tug of impalpable thread on the web pulling mate to mate and predator to prey, a beginning or an end. Every choice is a world made new for the chosen.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, Prodigal Summer

“I'm of a fearsome mind to throw my arms around every living librarian who crosses my path, on behalf of the souls they never knew they saved.”
― Barbara Kingsolver

“If someone asks you how you are, you are meant to say FINE. You are not meant to say that you cried yourself to sleep last night because you hadn't spoken to another person for two consecutive days. FINE is what you say.”
― Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

“One can never have enough socks," said Dumbledore. "Another Christmas has come and gone and I didn't get a single pair. People will insist on giving me books.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

“Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

“Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus

[never tickle a sleeping dragon]”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

“Even if I could, I wouldn't. Scars can come in handy. I have one myself above my left knee that is a perfect map of the London Underground.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

“Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. He didn't realize that love as powerful as your mother's for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign… to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever. It is in your very own skin. Quirrel, full of hatred, greed, and ambition, sharing his soul with Voldemort, could not touch you for this reason. It was agony to touch a person marked by something so good.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

“We are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

“Books are like mirrors: if a fool looks in, you cannot expect a genius to look out.”
― J.K. Rowling

“Would it save you a lot of time if I just gave up and went mad now?”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“To be so lovely and so lost. To be all answerful with all that knowing trapped inside. To be beautiful and broken.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Slow Regard of Silent Things

“It was wise enough to know itself, and brave enough to BE itself, and wild enough to change itself while somehow staying altogether true.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Slow Regard of Silent Things

“She felt the panic rising in her then. She knew. She knew how quickly things could break. You did the things you could. You tended to the world for the world's sake. You hoped you would be safe. But still she knew. It could come crashing down and there was nothing you could do. And yes, she knew she wasn't right. She knew her everything was canted wrong. She knew her head was all unkilter. She knew she wasn't true inside. She knew.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Slow Regard of Silent Things

“When you don't know everything that you could know, it's a fine time to shut your fucking noisemaker and be polite.”
― Scott Lynch, The Lies of Locke Lamora

“Mew," the kitten retorted, locking gazes with him. It had the expression common to all kittens, that of a tyrant in the becoming. 'I was comfortable, and you dared to move,' those jade eyes said. 'For that you must die.' When it became apparent to the cat that its two or three pounds of mass were insufficient to break Locke's neck with one mighty snap, it put its paws on his shoulders and began sharing its drool-covered nose with his lips. He recoiled.”
― Scott Lynch, Red Seas Under Red Skies

“Woman, your heart is a mapless maze. Could I bottle confusion and drink it a thousand years, I could not confound myself so much as you do between waking and breakfast. You are grown so devious that serpents would applaud your passage, would the gods but give them hands.”
― Scott Lynch, Red Seas Under Red Skies

“She pinned him to the bulkhead with a kiss that was pure alchemy, and his hands found their way down her tunic, down to her breeches, where he unhitched her weapons belt with as much gratuitous fondling of the areas not covered by it as he could manage.
She took the belt from his hands and flung it against one of the stiffened canvas walls, where it struck with a clattering racket and slid to the floor. "If there is no way, make a way, Jean Tannen. Losers don't fuck in this particular cabin."
He picked her up, making a seat for her from his crossed arms, and whirled her around so that her back was against the bulkhead and her feet were dangling. He kissed her breasts through her tunic, grinning at her reaction. He stopped to put his head against her chest; felt the rapid flutter of her heart against his left cheek.”
― Scott Lynch, Red Seas Under Red Skies

“Ahhh. Bed, book, kitten, sandwich. All one needed in life, really.”
― Jacqueline Kelly, The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

“One day I would have all the books in the world, shelves and shelves of them. I would live my life in a tower of books. I would read all day long and eat peaches. And if any young knights in armor dared to come calling on their white chargers and plead with me to let down my hair, I would pelt them with peach pits until they went home.”
― Jacqueline Kelly, The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

“It's amazing what you can see when you just sit quietly and look.”
― Jacqueline Kelly, The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

“What you make from a tree should be at least as miraculous as what you cut down.”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory

“This is not our world with trees in it. It's a world of trees, where humans have just arrived.”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory