Braeden > Braeden's Quotes

“If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!”
― Rudyard Kipling, If: A Father's Advice to His Son

“In the dark that followed - Lucy said; "where I was born, the trees were always in the sun. And I left that place because it was intolerant of rain. Now, we are here in a place where there are no trees and there is only rain. And I intend to leave this place - because it is intolerant of light. Somewhere - there must be somewhere where darkness and light are reconciled. So I am starting a rumour, here and now, of yet another world. I don't know when it will present itself - I don't know where it will be. But - as with all those other worlds now past when it is ready, I intend to go there.”
― Timothy Findley, Not Wanted on the Voyage

“We all have an old knot in the heart we wish to untie.”
― Michael Ondaatje, The Cat's Table

“Miriam wished for so much in those final moments. Yet as she closed her eyes, it was not regret any longer but a sensation of abundant peace that washed over her. She thought of her entry into this world, the harami child of a lowly villager, an unintended thing, a pitiable, regrettable accident. A weed. And yet she was leaving the world as a woman who had loved and been loved back. She was leaving it as a friend, a companion, a guardian. A mother. A person of consequence at last. No. It was not so bad, Miriam thought, that she should die this way. Not so bad. This was a legitimate end to a life of illegitimate belongings.”
― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

“He wrapped himself in quotations - as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of Emperors.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Many Inventions

“I always prefer to believe the best of everybody; it saves so much trouble”
― Rudyard Kipling

“If you go home with somebody, and they don't have books, don't fuck 'em!”
― John Waters

“I never made a mistake in my life; at least, never one that I couldn't explain away afterwards.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Under The Deodars

“If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Collected Works

“Take everything you like seriously, except yourselves.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“I am, by calling, a dealer in words; and words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“You must learn to forgive a man when he's in love. He's always a nuisance.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Light That Failed

“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them have never happened.”
― Mark Twain

“Miss Lasqueti consumed mostly crime thrillers, which constantly seemed to disappoint her. I suspect that for her the world was more accidental than any book’s plot. Twice I saw her so irritated by a mystery that she half rose from the shadow of her chair and flung the paperback over the railing into the sea.”
― Michael Ondaatje, The Cat's Table

“I thought I was being loved because I was being altered.”
― Michael Ondaatje, The Cat's Table

“In spite of this, our table's status on the Oronsay continued to be minimal, while those at the Captain's Table were constantly toasting to one another's significance. That was a small lesson I learned on the journey. What is interesting and important happens mostly in secret, in places where there is no power. Nothing much of lasting value ever happens at the head table, held together by familiar rhetoric. Those who already have power continue to glide along in the familiar rut they have made for themselves.”
― Michael Ondaatje, The Cat's Table

“Every immigrant family, it seems, has someone who does not belong in the new country they have come to. It feels like permanent exile to that one brother or wife who cannot stand a silent fate in Boston or London or Melbourne. I’ve met many who remain haunted by the persistent ghost of an earlier place.”
― Michael Ondaatje, The Cat's Table

“So we came to understand that small and important thing, that our lives could be large with interesting strangers who would pass us without any personal involvement.”
― Michael Ondaatje, The Cat's Table

“...how many of us have a moved heart that shies away to a different angle, a millimetre or even less from the place where it first existed, some repositioning unknown to us.”
― Michael Ondaatje, The Cat's Table

“And it would be a spare life he would be certain to lead as a schoolteacher in some urban location. But he had a serenity that came with the choice of the life he wanted to live. And this serenity and certainty I have seen only among those who have the armour of books close by.”
― Michael Ondaatje, The Cat's Table

“So what was better for us all? An ignorance, or a cautiousness like his, towards our own hearts.”
― Michael Ondaatje, The Cat's Table

“In a breaker's yard you discover anything can have a new life, be reborn as part of a car or railway carriage, or a shovel blade. You take that older life and you link it to a stranger.”
― Michael Ondaatje, The Cat's Table

“He spoke of how viewers of his films should not assume they understood everything about the characters. As members of an audience we should never feel ourselves wiser than they; we do not have more knowledge than the characters have about themselves. We should not feel assured or certain about their motives, or look down on them. I believe this. I recognize this as a first principle of art, although I have the suspicion that many would not.”
― Michael Ondaatje, The Cat's Table

“Complaints about reality are immature.”
― Timothy Findley, NOT WANTED ON THE VO

“...with every new manoeuvre, the light was growing dimmer--fading by numbers as well as strength--and the sound could no longer be heard, but only the pulse of it--seen going out in the darkness--losing its edges--caving in at its centre--webbing, now, as if a spider was spinning against the rain--until the last few strands of brightness fell--and were extinguished--silenced and removed from life and from all that lives forever.
And the bell tolled--but the ark, as ever, was adamant. Its shape had taken on a voice. And the voice said: no.”
― Timothy Findley, Not Wanted on the Voyage

“They waited.
The door did not open.
The rain did not stop.
The darkness made a tent and covered them completely.”
― Timothy Findley, Not Wanted on the Voyage

“A society has no chance of success if its women are uneducated...”
― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

“A man's heart is a wretched, wretched thing. It isn't like a mother's womb. It won't bleed. It won't stretch to make room for you.”
― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

“Learn this now and learn it well. Like a compass facing north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman. Always. You remember that, Mariam.”
― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

“You see, some things I can teach you. Some you learn from books. But there are things that, well, you have to see and feel.”
― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns