Katie > Katie's Quotes

“For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

“Life is pure adventure, and the sooner we realize that, the quicker we will be able to treat life as art.”
― Maya Angelou

“Because of the routines we follow, we often forget that life is an ongoing adventure. . . Life is pure adventure, and the sooner we realize that, the quicker we will be able to treat life as art: to bring all our energies to each encounter, to remain flexible enough to notice and admit when what we expected to happen did not happen. We need to remember that we are created creative and can invent new scenarios as frequently as they are needed.”
― Maya Angelou

“When someone shows you who they are believe them the first time.”
― Maya Angelou

“It bothers you, doesn’t it?” Mia said suddenly. “I think you can’t imagine. Why anyone would choose a different life from the one you’ve got. Why anyone might want something other than a big house with a big lawn, a fancy car, a job in an office. Why anyone would choose anything different than what you’d choose.”
― Celeste Ng, Little Fires Everywhere

“I have measured my life with coffee spoons and do I dare to eat a peach?' 'DO I DARE DISTURB THE UNIVERSE?”
― Celeste Ng, Little Fires Everywhere

“God is the color of water. Water doesn't have a color.”
― James McBride, The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother

“But at the end of the day, there are some questions that have no answers, and then one answer that has no question: love rules the game. Every time. All the time. That’s what counts.”
― James McBride, The Color of Water

“One time I saw a tiny Joshua tree sapling growing not too far from the old tree. I wanted to dig it up and replant it near our house. I told Mom that I would protect it from the wind and water it every day so that it could grow nice and tall and straight. Mom frowned at me. "You'd be destroying what makes it special," she said. "It's the Joshua tree's struggle that gives it its beauty.”
― Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

“I’ve learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow. I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights. I’ve learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you’ll miss them when they’re gone from your life. I’ve learned that making a “living” is not the same thing as making a “life.” I’ve learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance. I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back. I’ve learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision. I’ve learned that even when I have pains, I don’t have to be one. I’ve learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back. I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn. I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou

“People don’t come into our lives by accident.”
― Lisa Wingate, Before We Were Yours

“I want a pain that has a beginning and an end, not one that goes on forever and cuts all the way to the bone.”
― Lisa Wingate, Before We Were Yours

“To truly feel gratitude is to sprawl out into the light of the present. It is happiness, I think. To be indebted is to fixate on the future.”
― Cathy Park Hong, Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning

“You couldn't make yourself stop feeling a certain way, no matter what the other person did. You had to just wait. Eventually the feeling went away because others came along. Or sometimes it didn't go away but got squeezed into something tiny, and hung like a piece of tinsel in the back of your mind.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Olive Kitteridge

“Just because there's tarnish on the copper, doesn't mean there's not a shine beneath.”
― Laurence Yep, Dragon's Gate

“You can learn to change the world or go on being changed by it.”
― Laurence Yep, Dragon's Gate

“They can have their little ceremony. We know the truth.”
― Laurence Yep, Dragon's Gate

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.”
― Nelson Mandela