Nancy Freund > Nancy's Quotes

“To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.”
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi

“The true alchemists do not change lead into gold; they change the world into words.”
― William H. Gass, A Temple of Texts

“Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.”
― Søren Kierkegaard , The Concept of Anxiety: A Simple Psychologically Orienting Deliberation on the Dogmatic Issue of Hereditary Sin

“A man's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions.”
― Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., Autocrat of the Breakfast Table

“Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls.”
― Anaïs Nin, Incest: From "A Journal of Love": The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1932-1934

“Don't gobblefunk around with words.”
― Roald Dahl, The BFG

“Do a loony-goony dance
'Cross the kitchen floor,
Put something silly in the world
That ain't been there before.”
― Shel Silverstein, A Light in the Attic

“What is straight? A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it's curved like a road through mountains.”
― Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire

“Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“Whatever you're meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible.”
― Doris Lessing

“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.”
― Arundhati Roy, The Cost of Living

“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

“Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“It's like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“Whatever it is you're seeking won't come in the form you're expecting.”
― Haruki Marukami

“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“Taking crazy things seriously is a serious waste of time.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“Don't you think it would be wonderful to get rid of everything and everybody and just go some place where you don't know a soul?”
― Haruki Murakami

“Is it possible, in the final analysis, for one human being to achieve perfect understanding of another?
We can invest enormous time and energy in serious efforts to know another person, but in the end, how close can we come to that person's essence? We convince ourselves that we know the other person well, but do we really know anything important about anyone?”
― Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“Chance encounters are what keep us going.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“Silence, I discover, is something you can actually hear.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“My library is an archive of longings.”
― Susan Sontag, As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980

“Begin at the beginning," the King said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

“But I don’t want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can’t help that," said the Cat: "we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad."
"How do you know I’m mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn’t have come here.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

“It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,' says the White Queen to Alice.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass

“Speak in French when you can’t think of the English for a thing--
turn your toes out when you walk---
And remember who you are!”
― Lewis Carroll, Through The Looking Glass

“And then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will yes.”
― James Joyce

“Things happen when people are not where they belong, and the world moves forward and back by that principle.”
― Richard Ford, Canada

“Most things don't stay the way they are very long.”
― Richard Ford, Canada

“The kind of happy I was that day at the Vet when "Hawk" Dawson actually doffed his red "C" cap to me, and everyone cheered and practically convulsed into tears - you can't patent that. It was one shining moment of glory that was instantly gone. Whereas life, real life, is different and can't even be appraised as simply "happy", but only in terms of "Yes, I'll take it all, thanks" or "No, I believe I won't." Happy, as my poor father used to say, is a lot of hooey. Happy is a circus clown, a sitcom, a greeting card. Life, though, life's about something sterner. But also something better. A lot better. Believe me.”
― Richard Ford, The Lay of the Land