Page 23 Quotes

“Sometimes I did feel like I came from a different tribe. I was not like my outgoing, ironic dad or my tough-chick mom. And as if to seal the deal, instead of learning to play electric guitar, I'd gone and chosen the cello.”
― Gayle Forman, If I Stay

“How can I be kind? How can I find bird-relief in the nest-building of day-to-day? Necessity supplies no velvet wing with which to escape. I am indeed and mortally pierced with the seeds of love.”
― Elizabeth Smart, By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept

“Ooh. British accent alert. I love accents. I sat up straighter to make sure I didn’t miss a word.”
― Heather Davis, Never Cry Werewolf

“When I finished bathing after dinner, Kumiko was sitting in the living room with the lights out. Hunched down in the dark with her gray shirt on, she looked like a piece of luggage that had been left in the wrong place.”
― Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“Any apparent somewhere which you may inhabit is always at the mercy of a ruthless and omnivorous everywhere.”
― E.E. Cummings, I : Six Nonlectures

“The alphabet Miss Poobner taught was represented on the wall above her head by a series of personified cartoonlike letters--Mr. A, Eating an Apple; Mrs. B, Buying a Broom; and so on--and something insipid about the parade of grinning letters defeated Dylan's will utterly.”
― Jonathan Lethem, The Fortress of Solitude

“Perhaps you're right," I said. "But how can one avoid the desire the genuine desire to help our fellow men?"
"How do you think one can help them?"
"By alleviating their burden. The lease one can do for our fellow men is to try to change them. You yourself are involved in doing that. Aren't you?"
"No. I'm not. I don't know what to change or why to change anything in my fellow men."
"What about me, don Juan? Weren't you teaching me so I could change?"
"No. I'm not trying to change you. It may happen that one day you may become a man of knowledge--there's no way to know that--but that will not change you. Some day perhaps you'll be able to 'see' me in another mode and then you'll realize that there's no way to change anything about them.”
― Carlos Castaneda, A Separate Reality: Further Conversations with Don Juan

“He once again pointed to that creepy theatrical smile. There were way too many teeth there. It made him look positively demented.”
― Richard E. Gropp, Bad Glass: A Novel

“Episodes. Like depression is a sitcom with a fun punch line each time. Or a TV box set loaded with cliffhangers. The only cliffhanger in my life is "Will I ever get rid of this shit?" and believe me, it gets pretty monotonous.”
― Sophie Kinsella, Finding Audrey

“The compressed mouth curved in winsome smile. “You don’t know me, do you, Mr. Durand?”
― Cornell Woolrich, Waltz into Darkness

“The compressed mouth curved in winsome smile. “You don’t know me, do you, Mr. Durand?”
He shook his head slightly. The smile notched a dimple; rose to her eyes. “I’m Julia, Louis. May I call you Louis?”
― Cornell Woolrich, Waltz into Darkness

“There was a sudden interruption. His mother stood in the doorway. Her eyes were swollen with crying. She dabbed them with a handkerchief. She stood there theatrically miserable. ‘He’s gone,’ she cried. ‘Without a word to me. Without a word. Oh, my little son. My little son.”
― Mary Westmacott, Giant's Bread

“The Guns of August may turn out to be a historical classic. Its virtues are almost Thucydidean: intelligence, concision, weight, detachment.”
― Barbara W. Tuchman, The Guns of August