Dee > Dee's Quotes

“You see things; you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say 'Why not?”
― George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah

“That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.”
― Dorothy Parker

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”
― Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

“As I stood outside in Cow Lane, it occurred to me that Heaven must be a place where the library is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

No ... eight days a week.”
― Alan Bradley, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

“It is not unknown for fathers with a brace of daughters to reel off their names in order of birth when summoning the youngest, and I had long ago become accustomed to being called 'Ophelia Daphne Flavia, damn it.”
― Alan Bradley, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

“Whenever I'm with other people, part of me shrinks a little. Only when I am alone can I fully enjoy my own company.”
― Alan Bradley, A Red Herring Without Mustard

“I gave her a partial smile and kept the rest of it for myself...”
― Alan Bradley, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

“Books are like oxygen to a deep-sea diver," she had once said. "Take them away and you might as well begin counting the bubbles.”
― Alan Bradley, I Am Half-Sick of Shadows

“There's a lot to be said for being alone. But you and I know, don't we, Flavia, that being alone and being lonely are not at all the same thing?”
― Alan Bradley, The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag

“How can you blame a person for his fears and weaknesses unless you have felt the same and done differently?”
― Amy Tan, The Kitchen God's Wife

“That is the way it is with a wound. The wound begins to close in on itself, to protect what is hurting so much. And once it is closed, you no longer see what is underneath, what started the pain.”
― Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club

“For unlike my mother, I did not believe I could be anything I wanted to be. I could only be me. ”
― Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club

“But I think that what you'll discover more and more as you get older is that most people aren't thinking about you at all.”
― Haven Kimmel, A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small In Mooreland, Indiana

“...she waited until she and my grandfather Anthel were just home from their honeymoon, and then sat him down and told him this: "Honey, I know you like to take a drink, and that's all right, but be forewarned that I ain't your maid and I ain't your punching bag, and if you ever raise your hand to me you'd best kill me. Because otherwise I'll wait until you're asleep; sew you into the bed; and beat you to death with a frying pan." Until he died, I am told, my grandfather was a gentle man.”
― Haven Kimmel, A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small In Mooreland, Indiana

“They did a lot of cleaning in their house, which I considered to be a sign of immoral parenting. The job of parents, as I saw it, was to watch television and step into a child's life only when absolutely necessary, like in the event of a tornado or a potential kidnapping.”
― Haven Kimmel, A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small In Mooreland, Indiana

“Now isn't that nice!' said the old lady. 'If cousins are the right kind, they're best of all: kinder than sisters and brothers, and closer than friends.”
― Elizabeth Enright, Gone-Away Lake

“Grownups! Everyone remembers them. How strange and even sad it is that we never became what they were: beings noble, infallible, and free. We never became them. One of the things we discover as we live is that we never become anything different from what we are. We are no less ourselves at forty than we were at four, and because of this we know grownups as Grownups only once in life: during our own childhood. We never meet them in our lives again, and we will miss them always.”
― Elizabeth Enright, Doublefields: Memories and Stories

“Your memory is a monster; you forget—it doesn't. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you—and summons them to your recall with will of its own. You think you have a memory; but it has you!”
― John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany

“When someone you love dies, and you're not expecting it, you don't lose her all at once; you lose her in pieces over a long time—the way the mail stops coming, and her scent fades from the pillows and even from the clothes in her closet and drawers. Gradually, you accumulate the parts of her that are gone. Just when the day comes—when there's a particular missing part that overwhelms you with the feeling that she's gone, forever—there comes another day, and another specifically missing part.”
― John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany

“The only way you get Americans to notice anything is to tax them or draft them or kill them.”
― John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany

“My life is a reading list.”
― John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany

“We live in America,' he said. 'Everyone who speaks English understands you. How they interpret you is something else.”
― Carrie Fisher, Postcards from the Edge

“I shot through my twenties like a luminous thread through a dark needle, blazing toward my destination: Nowhere.”
― Carrie Fisher, Postcards from the Edge

“Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. ”
― Carrie Fisher

“Every American should be forced to live outside the United States for a year or two. Americans should be forced to see how ridiculous they appear to the rest of the world! They should listen to someone else's version of themselves--to anyone else's version! Every country knows more about America than Americans know about themselves! And Americans know absolutely nothing about any other country!”
― John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany

“When I got [my] library card, that was when my life began.”
― Rita Mae Brown

“The Little Boy and the Old Man

Said the little boy, "Sometimes I drop my spoon."
Said the old man, "I do that too."
The little boy whispered, "I wet my pants."
I do that too," laughed the little old man.
Said the little boy, "I often cry."
The old man nodded, "So do I."
But worst of all," said the boy, "it seems
Grown-ups don't pay attention to me."
And he felt the warmth of a wrinkled old hand.
I know what you mean," said the little old man.”
― Shel Silverstein

“Tell my I'm clever,
Tell me I'm kind,
Tell me I'm talented,
Tell me I'm cute,
Tell me I'm sensitive,
Graceful and Wise
Tell me I'm perfect--
But tell me the TRUTH.”
― Shel Silverstein, Falling Up