Amy > Amy's Quotes

“To be a librarian is to be in rebellion against time, against the world.”
― A.J. Hackwith, The Archive of the Forgotten

“There is no library of secrets. Secrets cannot be kept or curated. Secrets have no need for a library but each library needs secrets. Books are a secret hidden in plain sight. Read me, they say. Look at me. Turn my pages. Touch my spine. Read my words, and content yourself.

Every book is a secret that only readers know.”
― A.J. Hackwith, The Archive of the Forgotten

“What on earth would become of me if I should ever grow brave?”
― Patti Callahan, Becoming Mrs. Lewis

“Thou shalt not be a victim, thou shalt not be a perpetrator, but, above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.”
― Yehuda Bauer

“Worrying is the correct worldview. Life is worrisome.”
― John Green, Turtles All the Way Down

“She always told me, “When the world gives you a hard time, pick up a book and join another.”
― Abby Fabiaschi, I Liked My Life

“Dying isn’t brave,’ I said, ‘it’s accidental. I’m not brave, I’m just not dead yet.”
― Marianne Cronin, The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot

“The cruelty of strangers never usually upsets me, but the kindness of strangers is oddly devastating.”
― Marianne Cronin, The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot

“That’s what retirement’s for, isn’t it? Doing the things you always wanted to do but never dared.”
― Marianne Cronin, The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot

“Because every time I accept that I'm worth less - less than a man, or a white person, or a gosh-darn oil baron - it punches a hole in my spirit. Punch enough holes and your spirit breaks.”
― Kelly McWilliams, Mirror Girls

“An adult friend of Lincoln's: "Life was to him a school.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

“With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

“History is told by the victors, isn’t that how it goes? Fight for something and lose, you’re insurrectionists, conspirators, terrorists. Fight for something and win, you’re rebels, freedom fighters, founding fathers. History is a story told in past tense, the best kind of propaganda. What everyone forgets is that, at one point in the story, every villain thinks they are the hero. History happens in the edit.”
― A.J. Hackwith, The God of Lost Words

“Maybe a library isn’t defined by what it holds. Maybe it is defined by what it does.”
― A.J. Hackwith, The God of Lost Words

“Churches gave sanctuary, in my time. To the unwanted, the unloved, and also the criminals, whether they repented or not. I don't see why a library in Hell shouldn't be a kind of church - lord knows that we have enough altars to longing, to regret, to mistakes, here in the stacks. Few souls find their way down here, but if they do, what shelter we can provide, the Library should. Libraries have always been a kind of church, a kind of sanctuary.”
― A.J. Hackwith, The God of Lost Words

“Mirrors only show us what we are. Books show us what we can be.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Beauty and the Beast: Lost in a Book

“Don’t spend all of your ambition on other people’s dreams.”
― Alice Feeney , Daisy Darker

“Families are like fingerprints; no two are the same, and they tend to leave their mark.”
― Alice Feeney, Daisy Darker

“weak people revenge, strong people forgive, and intelligent people ignore.”
― Alice Feeney, Daisy Darker

“But if I do know more than most, it's because I read. Books will teach you anything you want to know, and they tend to be more honest than people.”
― Alice Feeney, Daisy Darker

“People don't write their own endings'" he said.
"Well, I'm planning on writing mine.”
― Monica Wood, The One-in-a-Million Boy

“When I was a little girl, I believed that books had been written for me, that the only copy in the world was the one in my house. I was completely convinced of this: my parents, at that time generous, all-powerful giants, had in their free time made up the tales they told me. As I savored them in bed, huddled under the blanket pulled up to my chin, my favorite stories read in my mother's unmistakable voice clearly existed only so that I could hear them. And they fulfilled their only purpose when I demanded of the giant storytellers, "More!"

I may have grown up, but my relationship with books is still very self-centered. When a story takes hold of me, when its shower of words seep through me and I reach an almost painful understanding of what it tells, I'm convinced in my own private way that the author has changed my life, and once again I believe that I, and especially I, am the reader for whom that book was searching.”
― Irene Vallejo, El infinito en un junco: La invención de los libros en el mundo antiguo

“Without books, a library was just a quiet room.”
― Ann H. Gabhart, Along a Storied Trail

“I fix myself a hot chocolate because it is a gateway drug to reading.”
― Helen Ellis, American Housewife

“Looking at these photos in this special light we have remembered the past without grief and if we can do that, we can also look ahead without fear.”
― Heather Morris, Three Sisters

“Heaven truly was an untouched stash of books, just waiting to be opened and read.”
― Hester Fox, The Last Heir to Blackwood Library

“Inside was always preferable simply by virture of there being books.”
― Hester Fox, The Last Heir to Blackwood Library

“He liked books and anyone who liked books had to be at the very least, a decent person.”
― Hester Fox, The Last Heir to Blackwood Library

“The sky had never held much interest for her, being in the opposite direction one must look if one wants to enjoy a book.”
― Hester Fox, The Last Heir to Blackwood Library

“If anyone should be afraid up here, it’s me,” she says. “After all, I know what you’re all capable of.”
― Sian Gilbert, She Started It