Teju A > Teju 's Quotes

“I need you to come to yoga with me tomorrow and pretend to be my friend.”

“What? Why?” “It’s bring-a-friend week, and if I do, I get twenty percent off next month’s fees, so . . . you’re up.”
― Jill Shalvis, The Sweetheart List

“Just making sure you’re okay.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” she asked, trying to be a cool cucumber.
This got her another mouth twitch. “I don’t know, Speed Racer, maybe because you came in hot and just lost a fight with a manzanita bush. Do you need help?”
“No, thank you.”
He gave her car a look of doubt.”
― Jill Shalvis, The Sweetheart List

“If you only knew about the stupid crush I had on you.”
“Oh, I knew.”
Her mouth dropped open. “No way. I was stealth.”
“You mean when you used to hide in the loft and watch me work?”
She grimaced. “Fine. So I liked when you used to chop wood. You’d get hot and take off your shirt.” She slid him a sly smile. “Teenage Alice thanks you.”
“Good to know.” He cocked his head. “And grown up Alice?”
She bit her lower lip while looking at his mouth. “She’s … undecided.”
What an adorably sexy liar. “You’re flirting with me again.”
“Am I?”
He smiled. “You’re just playing with me right now. Let me know when you mean it.”
― Jill Shalvis, The Backup Plan

“Did you just call me chunks?” I asked. What on earth could that mean? “Choonks,” she corrected. “It means sweetheart in Trinidad.”
― Katherine Center, Hello Stranger

“It’s nice to have a reason to do something nice.”
― Katherine Center, Hello Stranger

“If you don't nail your feet to the ground, you can just believe - and you want to believe. It's so enticing. It felt so good. You could just become a gigantic balloon in the Thanksgiving Day parade and float over everybody.”
― Henry Winkler, Being Henry: The Fonz . . . and Beyond

“With the right words you can change the world.”
― E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web

“Anyone who thinks sitting in church can make you a Christian must also think that sitting in a garage can make you a car.”
― Garrison Keillor

“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
― C.S. Lewis

“The relentless attempts to be thin take you further and further away from what could actually end your suffering:”
― Geneen Roth, Women Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything

“If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

“Decision was simple. She’s worth a dozen of me,” Xaden says, and my breath catches at the intensity in his eyes. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he means it. “And I’m not talking about her signet. I would have told her everything discussed here anyway, so an open door is a moot point.”
― Rebecca Yarros, Iron Flame

“Because love, at its root, is hope. Hope for tomorrow. Hope for what could be. Hope that the someone you’ve entrusted your everything to will cradle and protect it. And hope? That shit is harder to kill than a dragon.”
― Rebecca Yarros, Iron Flame

“In some Native languages the term for plants translates to “those who take care of us.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants

“And maybe that was how it was supposed to be...Joy and sadness were part of the package; the trick, perhaps,was to let yourself feel all of it, but to hold on to the joy just a little more tightly...”
― Kristin Hannah, Winter Garden

“life—and love—can be gone any second. When you had it, you needed to hang on with all your strength and savor every second.”
― Kristin Hannah, Winter Garden

“Know the ways of the ones who take care of you, so that you may take care of them.
Introduce yourself. Be accountable as the one who comes asking for life. Ask permission before taking. Abide by the answer.
Never take the first. Never take the last. Take only what you need.
Take only that which is given.
Never take more than half. Leave some for others. Harvest in a way that minimizes harm.
Use it respectfully. Never waste what you have taken. Share.
Give thanks for what you have been given.
Give a gift, in reciprocity for what you have taken.
Sustain the ones who sustain you and the earth will last forever.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants

“If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.”
― Albert Einstein

“No matter how old you are now. You are never too young or too old for success or going after what you want. Here’s a short list of people who accomplished great things at different ages
1) Helen Keller, at the age of 19 months, became deaf and blind. But that didn’t stop her. She was the first deaf and blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree.
2) Mozart was already competent on keyboard and violin; he composed from the age of 5.
3) Shirley Temple was 6 when she became a movie star on “Bright Eyes.”
4) Anne Frank was 12 when she wrote the diary of Anne Frank.
5) Magnus Carlsen became a chess Grandmaster at the age of 13.
6) Nadia Comăneci was a gymnast from Romania that scored seven perfect 10.0 and won three gold medals at the Olympics at age 14.
7) Tenzin Gyatso was formally recognized as the 14th Dalai Lama in November 1950, at the age of 15.
8) Pele, a soccer superstar, was 17 years old when he won the world cup in 1958 with Brazil.
9) Elvis was a superstar by age 19.
10) John Lennon was 20 years and Paul Mcartney was 18 when the Beatles had their first concert in 1961.
11) Jesse Owens was 22 when he won 4 gold medals in Berlin 1936.
12) Beethoven was a piano virtuoso by age 23
13) Issac Newton wrote Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica at age 24
14) Roger Bannister was 25 when he broke the 4 minute mile record
15) Albert Einstein was 26 when he wrote the theory of relativity
16) Lance E. Armstrong was 27 when he won the tour de France
17) Michelangelo created two of the greatest sculptures “David” and “Pieta” by age 28
18) Alexander the Great, by age 29, had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world
19) J.K. Rowling was 30 years old when she finished the first manuscript of Harry Potter
20) Amelia Earhart was 31 years old when she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean
21) Oprah was 32 when she started her talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind
22) Edmund Hillary was 33 when he became the first man to reach Mount Everest
23) Martin Luther King Jr. was 34 when he wrote the speech “I Have a Dream."
24) Marie Curie was 35 years old when she got nominated for a Nobel Prize in Physics
25) The Wright brothers, Orville (32) and Wilbur (36) invented and built the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight
26) Vincent Van Gogh was 37 when he died virtually unknown, yet his paintings today are worth millions.
27) Neil Armstrong was 38 when he became the first man to set foot on the moon.
28) Mark Twain was 40 when he wrote "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", and 49 years old when he wrote "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"
29) Christopher Columbus was 41 when he discovered the Americas
30) Rosa Parks was 42 when she refused to obey the bus driver’s order to give up her seat to make room for a white passenger
31) John F. Kennedy was 43 years old when he became President of the United States
32) Henry Ford Was 45 when the Ford T came out.
33) Suzanne Collins was 46 when she wrote "The Hunger Games"
34) Charles Darwin was 50 years old when his book On the Origin of Species came out.
35) Leonardo Da Vinci was 51 years old when he painted the Mona Lisa.
36) Abraham Lincoln was 52 when he became president.
37) Ray Kroc Was 53 when he bought the McDonalds Franchise and took it to unprecedented levels.
38) Dr. Seuss was 54 when he wrote "The Cat in the Hat".
40) Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger III was 57 years old when he successfully ditched US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in 2009. All of the 155 passengers aboard the aircraft survived
41) Colonel Harland Sanders was 61 when he started the KFC Franchise
42) J.R.R Tolkien was 62 when the Lord of the Ring books came out
43) Ronald Reagan was 69 when he became President of the US
44) Jack Lalane at age 70 handcuffed, shackled, towed 70 rowboats
45) Nelson Mandela was 76 when he became President”
― Pablo

“Writing is the closest thing we have to real magic. Writing is creating something out of nothing, is opening doors to other lands. Writing gives you power to shape your own world when the real one hurts too much.”
― R.F. Kuang, Yellowface

“Reading should be an enjoyable experience, not a chore.”
― R.F. Kuang, Yellowface

“Reading lets us live in someone else’s shoes. Literature builds bridges; it makes our world larger, not smaller.”
― R.F. Kuang, Yellowface

“Love,” she whispers.
“Luffs!” I respond, and her smile brightens even more.”
― Shay Savage, Transcendence

“I definitely like it--lips and mouths and tongues together. When my tongue runs over my own lips, I can taste her there, and it's as if she's laid claim to me.”
― Shay Savage, Transcendence

“I give you my life, my love, my soul,” I swore to her. “As long as I’m breathing, I’m yours.”
― Shay Savage, Surviving Raine

“the pervasive element in our two-thousand-year pastoral tradition is not someone who “gets things done” but rather the person placed in the community to pay attention and call attention to “what is going on right now” between men and women, with one another and with God—this kingdom of God that is primarily local, relentlessly personal, and prayerful “without ceasing.” I want to give witness to this way of understanding pastor, a way that can’t be measured or counted, and often isn’t even noticed. I didn’t notice for a long time. I would like to provide dignity to this essentially modest and often obscure way of life in the kingdom of God. Along the way, I want to insist that there is no blueprint on file for becoming a pastor. In becoming one, I have found that it is a most context-specific way of life: the pastor’s emotional life, family life, experience in the faith, and aptitudes worked out in an actual congregation in the neighborhood in which she or he lives—these people just as they are, in this place. No copying. No trying to be successful. The ways in which the vocation of pastor is conceived, develops, and comes to birth is unique to each pastor. The only modifier I can think of that might be useful in honoring the ambiguity and mystery involved in the working life of the pastor is “maybe.” Anne Tyler a few years ago wrote a novel with the title Saint Maybe. How about Pastor Maybe? That would serve both as a disclaimer to expertise (that if we could just copy the right model, we would have it down) and a ready reminder of the unavoidable ambiguity involved in this vocation. Pastor Maybe: given the loss of cultural and ecclesiastical consensus on how to live this life, none of us is sure of what we are doing much of the time, only maybe.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, The Pastor: A Memoir

“If you don’t use your pain to press forward, you give it fuel to override you.”
― Scott J. Moses, Our Own Unique Affliction

“Claiming all power for the purpose of prosperity and justice in society is conflicting to its own cause, rather authorizing individual authority is the just way toward a better society, because each individual has the right to decide about himself, and for collective decision making in society, all individual has the right to provide their input in it, after that majorities’ rule and minorities’ rights is the key to move forward, otherwise its destruction of society.”
― Zaman Ali, GOVERNMENT Servant, Not Master

“It's a thing I am, not a thing I do. I can't stop being it.”
― Joshilyn Jackson

“Sometimes it was hard to express how much you loved someone. You said the words, but you could never quite capture the depth of it. You could never quite hold someone tightly enough.”
― Diane Chamberlain, The Midwife's Confession