Catherine > Catherine's Quotes

“Sometimes I feel like New Yorkers do New York wrong. Where are the people swinging from subway poles and dancing on fire escapes and kissing in Times Square? The post office flash mob proposal was a start, but when’s the next big number? I pictured New York like West Side Story plus In the Heights plus Avenue Q—but really, it’s just construction and traffic and iPhones and humidity.”
― Becky Albertalli, What If It's Us

“I believe in love at first sight. Fate, the universe, all of it. But not how you’re thinking. I don’t mean it in the 'our souls were split and you’re my other half forever and ever' sort of way. I just think you’re mean to meet some people. I think the universe nudges them into your path. Even on random Monday afternoons in July. Even at the post office.”
― Becky Albertalli, What If It's Us

“We are asleep until we fall in Love!”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“I simply want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“Everything I know, I know because of love.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“Kings are the slaves of history.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“Here I am alive, and it's not my fault, so I have to try and get by as best I can without hurting anybody until death takes over.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Война и мир

“All we can know is that we know nothing. And that's the height of human wisdom.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“Everything ends in death, everything. Death is terrible.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“And there in the middle, high above Prechistensky Boulevard, amidst a scattering of stars on every side but catching the eye through its closeness to the earth, its pure white light and the long uplift of its tail, shone the comet, the huge, brilliant comet of 1812, that popular harbinger of untold horrors and the end of the world. But this bright comet with its long, shiny tail held no fears for Pierre. Quite the reverse: Pierre’s eyes glittered with tears of rapture as he gazed up at this radiant star, which must have traced its parabola through infinite space at speeds unimaginable and now suddenly seemed to have picked its spot in the black sky and impaled itself like an arrow piercing the earth, and stuck there, with its strong upthrusting tail and its brilliant display of whiteness amidst the infinity of scintillating stars. This heavenly body seemed perfectly attuned to Pierre’s newly melted heart, as it gathered reassurance and blossomed into new life.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“But one thing I beg of you, look on me as your friend; and if you want some help, advice, or simply want to open your heart to someone- not now, but when things are clearer in your heart- think of me.' He took her hand and kissed it. 'I shall be happy, if I am able...' Pierre was confused.
'Don't speak to me like that; I'm not worth it!' cried Natasha...
'Hush, hush your whole life lies before you,' he said to her.
'Before me! No! All is over for me,' she said, with shame and humiliation.
'All over?' he repeated. 'If I were not myself, but the handsomest, cleverest, best man in the world, and if I were free I would be on my knees this minute to beg for your hand and your love.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“When you convert a good book to a film. stupid things happen”
― Jesse Andrews, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

“This book probably makes it seem like I hate myself and everything I do. But that's not totally true. I mostly just hate every person I've ever been. I'm actually fine with myself right now.”
― Jesse Andrews, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

“I am the Thomas Edison of conversational stupidity.”
― Jesse Andrews, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

“Who else is there to lead the masses? The smart kids? Please. They have no interests in politics. They're hoping simply to attract as little attention as possible until high school is over. Then they can escape to some college where no one will mock them for knowing how an adverb works.”
― Jesse Andrews, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

“Basically, my point is not that you listen to people to learn anything listening. You're doing it to be nice and make them like you, because everyone likes to talk.”
― Jesse Andrews, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

“The best books, they don't talk about things you never thought about before. They talk about things you'd always thought about, but that you didn't think anyone else had thought about. You read them, and suddenly you're a little bit less alone in the world. You're part of this cosmic community of people who've thought about this thing, whatever it happens to be.”
― Tommy Wallach, We All Looked Up

“You didn’t win the game of life by losing the least. That would be one of those—what were they called again?—Pyrrhic victories. Real winning was having the most to lose, even if it meant you might lose it all. Even though it meant you would lose it all, sooner or later.”
― Tommy Wallach, We All Looked Up

“Those who have much to hope and nothing to lose will always be dangerous.”
― Tommy Wallach, We All Looked Up

“Do you think it is better to fail at something worthwhile, or succeed at something meaningless”
― Tommy Wallach, We All Looked Up

“Beauty always made a target of its possessor. Every other human quality was hidden easily enough – intelligence, talent, selfishness, even madness – but beauty would not be concealed.”
― Tommy Wallach, We All Looked Up

“the fundamental rule of life: Things were never so bad that they couldn’t get worse.”
― Tommy Wallach, We All Looked Up

“Red Rover, Red Rover, send Ardor right over," Eliza said. They laughed. The asteroid was a little bigger now, brighter, and still they went on laughing. Laughing in the face of what they couldn't predict or change or control. Would it be fire and brimstone? Would it be Armageddon? Or would it be a second chance? Eliza held tight to her friends, laughing, and a pair of hands land soft as feathers on her shoulders, like the hands of a ghost, laughing and laughing as Ardor swept along its fated course, laughing and through that laughter, praying. Praying for forgiveness. Praying for grace. Praying for mercy.
















0”
― Tommy Wallach, We All Looked Up

“She was miserable because she kept hoping things would change. If she could eradicate the hope, she could eradicate the sadness.”
― Tommy Wallach, We All Looked Up

“She looked up toward the sky, toward the implacable sparkle of good old Ardor, and saw that the two of them—she and the asteroid—were caught up I a battle of wills. In that moment, she stopped being afraid of it, even dared it to come, because she knew thre was mo way it could crave death as much as she craved life.”
― Tommy Wallach, We All Looked Up

“Fiction described reality better than non-fiction.”
― Tommy Wallach, We All Looked Up

“People always said that photography is an attempt to capture something fleeting.
And suddenly everything is fleeting.
It's like Ardor is this special tone of light we've never had before, and it's shining down and infusinf every single object and person on the planet.
I just want to document that light, before it's gone.
-Eliza”
― Tommy Wallach, We All Looked Up

“That was the problem with understanding someone too well – you couldn’t help but forgive them, no matter what they did.”
― Tommy Wallach, We All Looked Up

“This may come as a shock for you, but some of us actually care about stuff.”
― Tommy Wallach, We All Looked Up

“I'm nobody. I'm just a tiny little character in the big book of your life. And you're right. People do die. All of them. Bar none. So what does it even mean? I call someone crazy because not everybody is crazy. I call someone brilliant because not everyone is brilliant. But everybody dies. Squirrels die. Tress die. Skin cells die and your inner organs die and the person you were yesterday's dead too. So what does it mean to die? Not much.”
― Tommy Wallach, We All Looked Up