Ben > Ben's Quotes

“Home isn't where you're from, it's where you find light when all grows dark.”
― Pierce Brown, Golden Son

“Why is love intensified by absence? Long ago, men went to sea and women wait for them, standing on the edge of the water, standing in the horizon for the tiny ship.”
― Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife

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

“If this is the end, I will rage toward it.”
― Pierce Brown, Morning Star

“The fact is that the Listeners are trying to work out precisely what it is that the Creator said when He made the universe.
The theory is quite straightforward.
Clearly, nothing that the Creator makes could ever be destroyed, which means that the echoes of those first syllables must still be around somewhere, bouncing and rebounding off all the matter in the cosmos but still audible to a really good listener.
Eons ago the Listeners found that ice and chance had carved this one valley into the perfect acoustic opposite of an echo valley, and had built their multic-hambered temple in the exact position that the one comfy chair always occupies in the home of a rabid hi-fi fanatic. Complex baffles caught and amplified the sound that was funnelled up the chilly valley, steering it ever inwards to the central chamber where, at any hour of the day or night, three monks always sat.
Listening.
There were certain problems caused by the fact that they didn't hear only the subtle echoes of the first words, but every other sound made on the Disc. In order to recognise the sound of the Words, they had to learn to recognise all other noises. This called for a certain talent, and a novice was only accepted for training if he could distinguish by sound alone, at a distance of a thousand yards, which side a dropped coin landed. He wasn;t actually accepted into the order until he could tell what colour it was.”
― Terry Pratchett, Mort

“Because children grow up, we think a child's purpose is to grow up. But a child's purpose is to be a child. Nature doesn't disdain what lives only for a day. It pours the whole of itself into the each moment. We don't value the lily less for not being made of flint and built to last. Life's bounty is in its flow, later is too late. Where is the song when it's been sung? The dance when it's been danced? It's only we humans who want to own the future, too. We persuade ourselves that the universe is modestly employed in unfolding our destination. We note the haphazard chaos of history by the day, by the hour, but there is something wrong with the picture. Where is the unity, the meaning, of nature's highest creation? Surely those millions of little streams of accident and wilfulness have their correction in the vast underground river which, without a doubt, is carrying us to the place where we're expected! But there is no such place, that's why it's called utopia. The death of a child has no more meaning than the death of armies, of nations. Was the child happy while he lived? That is a proper question, the only question. If we can't arrange our own happiness, it's a conceit beyond vulgarity to arrange the happiness of those who come after us.”
― Tom Stoppard, The Coast of Utopia

“Because every path we walk changes us, Spensa,”
― Brandon Sanderson, Cytonic

“You cannot be defined by your questions. Only by what you do with them.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Cytonic

“No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.”
― Mary Shelley

“I think we dream so we don’t have to be apart for so long. If we’re in each other’s dreams, we can be together all the time.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

“We didn't know we were making memories, we were just having fun”
― A. A. Milne

“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.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of each man which cannot be satisfied by any created thing but only by God the Creator, made know through Jesus Christ.”
― Pascal

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves