Howard Larsson > Howard's Quotes

“The boy manifested the sort of submissive dimness that foretold a long sad future in minimum-security institutions”
― Carl Hiaasen

“I have no choice but to believe in free will" Tomlinson”
― Randy Wayne White, The Mangrove Coast

“In any conflict the boundaries of behavior are defined by the party that cares the least about morality”
― Randy Wayne White, The Mangrove Coast

“I have said that Texas is a state of mind, but I think it is more than that. It is a mystique closely approximating a religion. And this is true to the extent that people either passionately love Texas or passionately hate it and, as in other religions, few people dare to inspect it for fear of losing their bearings in mystery or paradox. But I think there will be little quarrel with my feeling that Texas is one thing. For all its enormous range of space, climate, and physical appearance, and for all the internal squabbles, contentions, and strivings, Texas has a tight cohesiveness perhaps stronger than any other section of America. Rich, poor, Panhandle, Gulf, city, country, Texas is the obsession, the proper study, and the passionate possession of all Texans.”
― John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America

“Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart
until, in our own despair, against our will,
comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”
― Aeschylus

“Sometimes you're going to be faced with situations where the line isn't clear between what's right and what's wrong.Your heart will tell you to do one thing and your brain will tell you to do something different. In the end, all that's left is to look at both sides and go with your best judgment.”
― Carl Hiaasen, Hoot

“Roy remembered the time he and his father had a talk about fighting. 'It's important to stand up for what's right,' Mr. Eberhardt had said, 'but sometimes there's a fine line between courage and stupidity.”
― Carl Hiaasen, Hoot

“That's what people do when they find a special place that wild and full of life, they trample it to death.”
― Carl Hiaasen, Flush

“The evening news made her wonder if God was dead; the morning sun made her believe He wasn't.”
― Carl Hiaasen

“Please don't grow up to be one of those men who lie for the sport of it, and most men do. That's a fact. That's why the world is so messed up, Noah. That's why history books are full of so much heartache, and tragedy. Politicians, dictators, kings, phoney-baloney preachers-most of 'em are men, and most of 'em lie like rugs”
― Carl Hiaasen, Flush

“He was a man of black and white. And she was color. All the color he had.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“They say best men are molded out of faults,
And, for the most, become much more the better
For being a little bad”
― William Shakespeare

“You're either reading a book or you're not.”
― Jonathan Franzen

“The only way to avoid despair was not to involve himself at all.”
― Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections

“The world was hers for the reading.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“From that time on, the world was hers for the reading. She would never be lonely again, never miss the lack of intimate friends. Books became her friends and there was one for every mood. There was poetry for quiet companionship. There was adventure when she tired of quiet hours. There would be love stories when she came into adolescence and when she wanted to feel a closeness to someone she could read a biography. On that day when she first knew she could read, she made a vow to read one book a day as long as she lived.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“People always think that happiness is a faraway thing," thought Francie, "something complicated and hard to get. Yet, what little things can make it up; a place of shelter when it rains - a cup of strong hot coffee when you're blue; for a man, a cigarette for contentment; a book to read when you're alone - just to be with someone you love. Those things make happiness.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“Forgiveness is a gift of high value. Yet its cost is nothing.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“A lie was something you told because you were mean or a coward.

A story was something you made up out of something that might have happened. Only you didn't tell it like it was, you told it like you thought it should have been.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“But she needs me more than she needs him and I guess being needed is almost as good as being loved. Maybe better.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“A person who pulls himself up from a low environment via the bootstrap route has two choices. Having risen above his environment, he can forget it; or, he can rise above it and never forget it and keep compassion and understanding in his heart for those he has left behind him in the cruel upclimb. The nurse had chosen the forgetting way. Yet, as she stood there, she knew that years later she would be haunted by the sorrow in the face of that starveling child and that she would wish bitterly that she had said a comforting word then and done something towards the saving of her immortal soul. She had the knowledge that she was small but she lacked the courage to be otherwise.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“The library was a little old shabby place. Francie thought it was beautiful. The feeling she had about it was as good as the feeling she had about church. She pushed open the door and went in. She liked the combined smell of worn leather bindings, library past and freshly inked stamping pads better than she liked the smell of burning incense at high mass.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“Intolerance is a thing that causes war, pogroms, crucifixions, lynchings, and makes people cruel to little children and each other. It is responsible for most of the viciousness, violence, terror, and heart and soul breaking of the world.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“It's a beautiful religion and I wish I understood it more. No, I don't want to understand it all. It's beautiful because it's always a mystery. Sometimes I say I don't believe in God and Jesus and Mary. I'm a bad Catholic because I miss mass once in a while and I grumble when, at confession, I get a heavy penance for something I couldn't help doing. But good or bad, I am a Catholic and I'll never be anything else.
Of course, I didn't ask to be born Catholic, no more than I asked to be born American. But I'm glad it turned out that I'm both these things.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“Isn't hot coffee a wonderful thing? How did people get along before it was invented?”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“When night draws back the curtain,
And pins it with a star,
Remember you are still my friend,
Though you may wander far”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“The tree man eulogized them by screaming, 'And now get the hell out of here with your tree, you lousy bastards.'

Francie had heard swearing since she had heard words. Obscenity and profanity had no meaning as such among those people. They were emotional expressions of inarticulate people with small vocabularies; they made a kind of dialect. The phrases could mean many things according to the expression and tone used in saying them. So now, when Francie heard themselves called lousy bastards, she smiled tremulously at the kind man. She knew that he was really saying, 'Good-bye--God bless you.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“If what Granma Mary Rommely said is true, then it must be that no one ever dies, really. Papa is gone, but he's still here in many ways. He's here in Neeley who looks just like him and in Mama who knew him so long. He's here in his mother who began him and who is still living. Maybe I will have a boy some day who looks like Papa and has all of Papa's good without the drinking. And that boy will have a boy. And that boy will have a boy. It might be there is no real death.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“Laurie's going to have a mighty easy life all right.
Annie Laurie McShane! She'll never have the hard times we had, will she?
No. And she'll never have the fun we had, either.
"Gosh! We did have fun, didn't we, Neeley?"
Yeah!
Poor Laurie, said Francie pityingly.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“Obscenity and profanity had no meaning as such among those people. They were emotional expressions of inarticulate people with small vocabularies.”
― Betty Smith