Ellen Burton > Ellen's Quotes

“Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armour yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

“It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

“So do boys and men announce their intentions. They cover you like a sarcophagus lid. And call it love.”
― Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex

“You love me. Real or not real?"
I tell him, "Real.”
― Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

“Being a woman is a terribly difficult trade since it consists principally of dealings with men.”
― Joseph Conrad, Chance

“Remember, we're madly in love, so it's all right to kiss me anytime you feel like it.”
― Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games

“Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

“Noa had been a sensitive child who had believed that if he followed all the rules and was the best, then somehow, the hostile world would change its mind. His death may have been her fault for having allowed him to believe such cruel ideals.”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

“Supposed I don't want to redeem myself? Why should I fight to uphold the system that cast me out? I shall take pleasure in seeing it smashed.”
― Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind

“He's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”
― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

“There are no bargains between lion and men. I will kill you and eat you raw.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“There are times when the mind is dealt such a blow it hides itself in insanity. While this may not seem beneficial, it is. There are times when reality is nothing but pain, and to escape that pain the mind must leave reality behind.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

“I hope she'll be a fool -- that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“Women have curious ways of hurting someone else. They hurt themselves instead; or else they do it so the guy doesn't even know he's been hurt until much later. Then he finds out. Then his dick falls off.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

“Does such a thing as 'the fatal flaw,' that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature? I used to think it didn't. Now I think it does. And I think that mine is this: a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“He had carefully avoided her out of the natural cowardice that characterizes the stronger sex.”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“In the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out of the sun.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“Odysseus inclines his head. "True. But fame is a strange thing. Some men gain glory after they die, while others fade. What is admired in one generation is abhorred in another." He spread his broad hands. "We cannot say who will survive the holocaust of memory. Who knows?" He smiles. "Perhaps one day even I will be famous. Perhaps more famous than you.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“Chiron had said once that nations were the most foolish of mortal inventions. "No man is worth more than another, wherever he is from.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“Cleverness is a quality a man likes to have in his wife as long as she is some distance away from him. Up close, he'll take kindness any day of the week, if there's nothing more alluring to be had.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad

“I am tempted to think that to be despised by her sex is a very great compliment to a woman.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad

“Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad

“What a moron I was to think you were sweet and innocent, when it turns out you were actually college-educated the whole time!”
― Margaret Atwood, The Edible Woman

“You want to see a very bad man? Make an ordinary man successful beyond his imagination. Let’s see how good he is when he can do whatever he wants.”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

“...she was afraid of losing her shape, spreading out, not being able to contain herself any longer, beginning (that would be worst of all) to talk a lot, to tell everybody, to cry.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Edible Woman

“I can tell you're admiring my febrility. I know it's appealing, I practice at it; every woman loves an invalid. But be careful. You might do something destructive: hunger is more basic than love. Florence Nightingale was a cannibal you know.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Edible Woman