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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 08697de | So I have to create the whole thing afresh for myself each time. Probably all writers now are in the same boat. It is the penalty we pay for breaking with tradition, and the solitude makes the writing more exciting though the being read less so. One ought to sink to the bottom of the sea, probably, and live alone with ones words. | Virginia Woolf | ||
| 9129d14 | Whatever may be their use in civilized societies, mirrors are essential to all violent and heroic action. | mirror | Virginia Woolf | |
| 2c3ea2a | That was the strange thing, that one did not know where one was going, or what one wanted, and followed blindly, suffering so much in secret, always unprepared and amazed and knowing nothing; but one thing led to another and by degrees something had formed itself out of nothing, and so one reached at last this calm, this quiet, this certainty, and it was this process that people called living. | Virginia Woolf | ||
| 0eaf71a | the problem of space remained, she thought, taking up her brush again. It glared at her. The whole mass of the picture was poised upon that weight. Beautiful and bright it should be on the surface, feathery and evanescent, one colour melting into another like the colours on a butterfly's wing; but beneath the fabric must be clamped together with bolts of iron. | Virginia Woolf | ||
| b972ab7 | Well, I've had my fun; I've had it, he thought, looking up at the swinging baskets of pale geraniums. And it was smashed to atoms--his fun, for it was half made up, as he knew very well; invented, this escapade with the girl; made up, as one makes up the better part of life, he thought--making onself up; making her up; creating an exquisite amusement, and something more. But odd it was, and quite true; all this one could never share--it sma.. | imagination life truths invention | Virginia Woolf | |
| eda3814 | I have sometimes dreamt ... that when the Day of Judgment dawns and the great conquerors and lawyers and statesmen come to receive their rewards -- their crowns, their laurels, their names carved indelibly upon imperishable marble -- the Almighty will turn to Peter and will say, not without a certain envy when He sees us coming with our books under our arms, "Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them here. They have loved rea.. | Virginia Woolf | ||
| 8ed58ce | But the close withdrew: the hand softened. It was over-- the moment. | Virginia Woolf | ||
| 1f8036c | O friendship, I too will press flowers between the pages of Shakespeare's sonnets! | Virginia Woolf | ||
| af1d004 | Chastity ... has, even now, a religious importance in a woman's life, and has so wrapped itself round with nerves and instincts that to cut it free and bring it to the light of day demands courage of the rarest. | feminism self-determination women morality empowerment encroachment dignity social-norms liberty suppression misogyny hypocrisy double-standards gender sexuality | Virginia Woolf | |
| 11b2731 | There is the strange power we have of changing facts by the force of the imagination. | imagination | Virginia Woolf | |
| d2c540c | The Lighthouse was then a silvery, misty-looking tower with a yellow eye, that opened suddenly, and softly in the evening. Now-- James looked at the Lighthouse. He could see the white-washed rocks; the tower, stark and straight; he could see that it was barred with black and white; he could see windows in it; he could even see washing spread on the rocks to dry. So that was the Lighthouse, was it? No, the other was also the Lighthouse. For .. | Virginia Woolf | ||
| 2dd96aa | F]or contemporary judgment does not recognize that much depth of soul is needed to light up the picture drawn from contemptible life and elevate it into a pearl of creation... | Nikolai Gogol | ||
| 563e4fe | And following its path, we took no care To rest, but climbed: he first, then I-- so far, Through a round aperture I saw appear Some of the beautiful things that Heaven bears, Where we came forth, and once more saw the stars. | Dante Alighieri | ||
| 76c1612 | That was their way, their heathenish hope; deep in their hearts they remembered hell. | hope paganism | Seamus Heaney | |
| 8a3328a | And beyond the timeless meadows and emerald pastures, the rabbit holes and moss-covered oak and rowan trees and the "slippy sloppy" houses of frogs, the woodland-scented wind rushed between the leaves and blew around the gray veil that dipped below the fells, swirling up in a mist, blurring the edges of the distant forest. (View from Windermere in the Lake District)" | lake-district-travel windermere | Susan Branch | |
| 00c4fc6 | I wondered about Mrs. Winterbottom and what she meant about living a tiny life. If she didn't like all that baking and cleaning and jumping up to get bottles of nail polish remover and sewing hems, why did she do it? Why didn't she tell them to do some of the things themselves? Maybe she was afraid there would be nothing left for her to do. There would be no need for her and she would become invisible and no one would notice. | Sharon Creech | ||
| ebb3079 | I love it when my justifications for avoiding housework are actually legitimate. | humor | Julie Kenner | |
| 4849784 | Of course I wasn't abused. If I were; things would be so simple. I'd have a reason to for being in a shrinks office. I'd have a justification and something to work on. The world wasn't going to give me something that tidy. | Ned Vizzini | ||
| 5d9d96e | Is that the truth, Jimmy?" I ask without looking at him. "It's the truth and it come to ya!" I smile." | Ned Vizzini | ||
| 959bf0c | Even in the worst tragedies and crisis, there's no reason to add to everyone's misery by looking miserable yourself. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| b7753b2 | A friend took me to the most amazing place the other day. It's called the Augusteum. Octavian Augustus built it to house his remains. When the barbarians came they trashed it a long with everything else. The great Augustus, Rome's first true great emperor. How could he have imagined that Rome, the whole world as far as he was concerned, would be in ruins. It's one of the quietest, loneliest places in Rome. The city has grown up around it ov.. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 10b2f29 | The culture of Rome just doesn't match the culture of Yoga, not as far as I can see. In fact, I've decided that Rome and Yoga don't have anything in common at all. Except for the way they both kind of remind you of the word toga. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| 700131b | Give your mind a job to do, or else it will find a job to do, and you might not like the job it invents. | Elizabeth Gilbert | ||
| fd9707d | I have no nostalgia for the patriarchy, please believe me. But what I have come to realize is that, when that patriarchic system was (rightfully) dismantled, it was not necessarily replaced by another form of protection. What I mean is--I never thought to ask a suitor the same challenging questions my father might have asked him, in a different age. | travel self-esteem | Elizabeth Gilbert | |
| 346766d | A Sanskrit word appeared in the paragraph: ANTEVASIN. It means, 'one who lives at the border.' In ancient times, this was a literal description. It indicated a person who had left the bustling center of worldly life to go live at the edge of the forest where the spiritual masters dwelled. The antevasin was not of the villager's anymore-not a householder with a conventional life. But neither was he yet a transcendent-not one of those sages w.. | border scholar | Elizabeth Gilbert | |
| e745189 | I think perfectionism is just fear in fancy shoes and a mink coat, pretending to be elegant when actually it's just terrified. Because underneath that shiny veneer, perfectionism is nothing more that a deep existential angst the says, again and again, 'I am not good enough and I will never be good enough. | perfectionism | Elizabeth Gilbert | |
| 6cb37e8 | If human nature were not base, but thoroughly honourable, we should in every debate have no other aim than the discovery of truth; we should not in the least care whether the truth proved to be in favour of the opinion which we had begun by expressing, or of the opinion of our adversary. That we should regard as a matter of no moment, or, at any rate, of very secondary consequence; but, as things are, it is the main concern. Our innate vani.. | truth falsehood vanity | Arthur Schopenhauer | |
| 4002c36 | But it is common knowledge that religions don't want conviction, on the basis of reasons, but faith, on the basis of revelation. And the capacity for faith is at its strongest in childhood: which is why religions apply themselves before all else to getting these tender years into their possession. It is in this way, even more than by threats and stories of miracles, that the doctrines of faith strike roots: for if, in earliest childhood, a .. | Arthur Schopenhauer | ||
| 5e1d65e | Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death. | life philosophy wisdom | Arthur Schopenhauer | |
| 39ecf13 | And yet, just as our body would burst asunder if the pressure of the atmosphere were removed from it, so would the arrogance of men expand, if not to the point of bursting then to that of the most unbridled folly, indeed madness, if the pressure of want, toil, calamity and frustration were removed from their life. One can even say that we require at all times a certain quantity of care or sorrow or want, as a ship requires ballast, in order.. | Arthur Schopenhauer | ||
| 3d1ecb0 | To the extent that one is responsible for one's life, one is alone. | Irvin D. Yalom | ||
| e297f06 | If I'm among men who don't agree at all with my nature, I will hardly be able to accommodate myself to them without greatly changing myself. A free man who lives among the ignorant strives as far as he can to avoid their favors. A free man acts honestly, not deceptively. Only free man are genuinely useful to one another and can form true friendships. And it's absolutely permissible, by the highest right of Nature, for everyone to employ cle.. | irvin-yalom spinoza true-self | Irvin D. Yalom | |
| 4710050 | You said something very true the other day: that for us, nudity begins with the face. | Simone de Beauvoir | ||
| 4337148 | Peter Rabbit, for all its gentle tininess, loudly proclaims that no story is worth the writing, no picture worth the making, if it is not a work of imagination. | Maurice Sendak | ||
| b2068b0 | If you can't eat it, drink it, smoke it, or snort it... then f*ck it! | Neil Gaiman | ||
| cd00c6e | But then it occured to him that any progress he had made on his quest so far he had made by accepting the help that had been offered to him. | life-lessons | Neil Gaiman | |
| 8359502 | Doing fine, thank you, I would say, never knowing how to talk about what I do. If I could talk about it, I would not have to do it. I make art, sometimes I make true art, and sometimes it fills the empty places in my heart. Some of them. Not all. | writing | Neil Gaiman | |
| 9878ddf | Nobody looks like what they really are on the inside. You don't. I don't. People are much more complicated than that. It's true of everybody.' I said, 'Are you a monster? Like Ursula Monkton?' Lettie threw a pebble into the pond. 'I don't think so,' she said. 'Monsters come in all shapes and sizes, Some of them are things people are scared of. Some of them are things that look like things people used to be scared of a long time ago. Sometim.. | fear fantasy truth adults age inside outside children childhood monsters scared | Neil Gaiman | |
| a1e1cfc | Fear is contagious. You can catch it. Sometimes all it takes is for someone to say they're scared for the fear to become real | Neil Gaiman | ||
| f909269 | Life is life, and it is infinitely better than the alternative, or so we presume, for nobody returns to dispute it. Such is my motto. | Neil Gaiman | ||
| 60f29a3 | Charitably... I think... sometimes, perhaps, one must change or die. And, in the end, there were, perhaps, limits to how much he could let himself change. | death life | Neil Gaiman | |
| 0cde5df | He entertained these thoughts awkwardly, as a man entertains unexpected guests. Then, as he reached his objective, he pushed these thoughts away, as a man apologizes to his guests, and leaves them, muttering something about a prior engagement. | Neil Gaiman | ||
| 5c744cf | Shadow looked down at the girl on the table. "What happened to her?" he asked. "Poor taste in boyfriends," said Jacquel. "It's not always fatal." | Neil Gaiman | ||
| 6475310 | Just go with it. It won't hurt.' I stared at him. Adults only ever said that when it, whatever it happened to be, was going to hurt so much. | Neil Gaiman |