Quotes about likeness
page 76

“Words have always swirled around me like snowflakes-each one delicate and different, each one melting untouched in my hands.”

Sharon M. Draper book Out of My Mind

Source: Out of My Mind

“even after all these winters, I see you sitting there, perched at the edge of sunlight, feeling like the invitation of spring”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Feeling, Spring, Winter

“Just the kind of girl I liked—the weirdo in the bunch.”

Anthony Kiedis book Scar Tissue

Source: Scar Tissue

Girl

“Kissing - and I mean like, yummy, smacking kissing - is the most delicious, most beautiful and passionate thing that two people can do, bar none. Better than sex, hands down.”

Drew Barrymore (1975) American actress, director and producer

People, Beauty, Sex, Kiss

“She didn't like to be alone. Even more, she didn't like being with people. (148)”

Elizabeth Strout book Olive Kitteridge

Source: Olive Kitteridge

People

“Vin isn't… like other women."
Tindwyl raised an eyebrow, her voice softening slightly.
"I think that the more women you come to know, Your Majesty, the more you'll find that statement applies to all of them.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Well of Ascension

Women, Thinking

“Do you say that tree isn't pretty cause it doesn't look like that tree? We're all trees. You're a tree. I'm a tree. You've got to love your body, Eve. You've got to love your tree. Love your tree. (Leah)”

Eve Ensler (1953) American playwright, performer, feminist, activist and artist

Source: The Good Body

Love, Tree

“She liked to imagine that when she passed, the world looked after her, but she also knew how anonymous she was. Except when she was at work, no one knew where she was at any time of day and no one waited for her. It was immaculate anonymity.”

Alice Sebold book The Lovely Bones

Source: The Lovely Bones

World, Imagination, Time, Waiting

“And when demigods use cell phones, the signals agitate every monster within a hundred miles. It's like sending up a flare: Here I am! Please rearrange my face!”

Rick Riordan book The Last Olympian

Source: The Last Olympian

“When your sad--like really sad--you only want to be with other people who are sad.”

Nick Hornby book A Long Way Down

Source: A Long Way Down

People, Sadness

“Speed eliminates all doubt. Am I smart enough? Will people like me? Do I really look all right in this plastic jumpsuit?”

David Sedaris (1956) American author

People, Speed

“One does not travel by plane. One is merely sent, like a parcel.”

Karen Blixen (1885–1962) Danish writer

Travel

“Ah, good conversation - there's nothing like it, is there? The air of ideas is the only air worth breathing.”

Edith Wharton The Age of Innocence

Source: The Age of Innocence

Idea

“It was like the beginning of life and laughter. It was the real meaning of the sun”

Charles Bukowski book Factotum

Source: Factotum

Life, Laughter, Sun

“Intelligence is like four-wheel drive. It only allows you to get stuck in more remote places.”

Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer

Intelligence

“Men pass in front of our eyes like butterflies, creatures of a brief season. We love them; they are brave, proud, beautiful, and clever.”

Philip Pullman book Northern Lights

Source: The Golden Compass

Love, Men, Beauty, Season

“Love is a battle," said Marie-Claude, still smiling. "And I plan to go on fighting. To the end."
Love is a battle?" said Franz. "Well, I don't feel at all like fighting." And he left.”

Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Love, Smile, Feeling, Fight

“it never really occurred to her that literary men, if they like women at all, do not want literary women but girls.”

Muriel Spark book The Girls of Slender Means

Source: The Girls of Slender Means

Women, Men, Girl

“When they kissed she immediately felt his tongue, tensed and strong, pushing past her teeth, like some bully shouldering his way into a room. Entering her.”

Ian McEwan book On Chesil Beach

Source: On Chesil Beach

Way, Kiss, Strong, Past

“Uncontradicting solitude
Supports me on its giant palm;
And like a sea-anemone
Or simple snail, there cautiously
Unfolds, emerges, what I am.”

Philip Larkin (1922–1985) English poet, novelist, jazz critic and librarian

Source: Collected Poems

Support, Solitude, Sea

“Come on guys, you cant fight like this forever"
"Actually," Simon said, raising his hand,"I can".
Jace made a weird noise and I realized he was trying not to laugh-which by the way, wasn't working.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Way, Guy, Fight

“I sit in my tree
I sing like the birds
My beak is my pen
My songs are my poems.”

David Almond book My Name Is Mina

Source: My Name Is Mina

Bird, Tree, Singing

“Growing old's like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven't committed.”

Anthony Powell A Dance to the Music of Time

Temporary Kings (1973), ch. 1.
A Dance to the Music of Time (1951-1975)
Variant: Growing old's like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven't committed.

“Just like the good old days: marching together into the unknown, searching for missing magical weapons and risking painful death. I’d missed my buddies!”

Rick Riordan book The Hammer of Thor

Source: The Hammer of Thor

Death, Pain, Search

“I can imagine myself on my death-bed, spent utterly with lust to touch the next world, like a boy asking for his first kiss from a woman.”

Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) poet, mountaineer, occultist

Death, World, Imagination, Boy

“But nothing disturbs the feeling of specialness like the presence of other human beings feeling identically special.”

Jonathan Franzen book Freedom

Source: Freedom

Feeling

“A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease. Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life, every fiber thrilling like harp strings, while incense is ever flowing from the balsam bells and leaves. No wonder the hills and groves were God's first temples, and the more they are cut down and hewn into cathedrals and churches, the farther off and dimmer seems the Lord himself.”

John Muir book My First Summer in the Sierra

Terry Gifford, EWDB, pages 243-244
Source: 1860s, My First Summer in the Sierra, 1869

Life, God, Music, Tree

“Yes, I read. I have that absurd habit. I like beautiful poems, moving poetry, and all theof that poetry. I am extraordinarily sensitive to those poor, marvelous words left in our dark night by a few men I never knew.”

Louis Aragon (1897–1982) French poet, novelist and editor

Source: Treatise on Style

Men, Beauty, Reading, Night

“She's really gone, then. The little girl with the back of her shirt sticking out like a duck tail”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

Girl

“Alcide: "It's on my right butt cheek. It's shaped like a rabbit."
Sookie: "I love bunnies!”

Charlaine Harris book Club Dead

Source: Club Dead

Love

“I think pot should be legal. I don’t smoke it, but I like the smell of it.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

Thinking

“He was from a different class, too poor, and they would never approve if their daughter became serious with someone like him.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

Daughters

“The governess was not much liked in the village. She was too tall, too fond of books, too grave, and, a curious thing, never smiled unless there was something to smile at.”

Susanna Clarke book The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories

Source: The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories

Books, Smile

“either you take in believing in miracles or you stand still like the hummingbird.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Source: Stand Still Like the Hummingbird

“Happiness is like those palaces in fairytales whose gates are guarded by dragons: We must fight in order to conquer it.”

Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870) French writer and dramatist, father of the homonym writer and dramatist

Happiness, Fairytale, Fight

“They were always like two people talking to each other in different languages. But she loved him so much, when he withdrew as he had now done, it was like the warm sun going down and leaving her in chilly twilight dews.”

Margaret Mitchell book Vom Winde verweht (1937 German edition)

Source: Gone with the Wind

Love, People, Sun

“Men are like shoes. Some fit better than others. And sometimes you go out shopping and there's nothing you like. And then, as luck would have it, the next week you find two that are perfect, but you don't have the money to buy both.”

Janet Evanovich Plum Lovin'

Source: Plum Lovin'

Men, Money, Shoe, Perfection

“It wasn't torpor that kept her - she was often restless to the point of irritability. She simply liked to feel that she was prevented from leaving, that she was needed.”

Ian McEwan book Atonement

Source: Atonement

Feeling

“What is a friend if not someone you feel close to, someone you like being with, someone you can confide in and share pleasure with.

-Jeremy Malory”

Johanna Lindsey (1952–2019) American writer

Source: A Loving Scoundrel

Pleasure, Feeling, Confidence

“Now that the real and the imagined had collided, he wondered if she, like he, longed for the past, for the normal. He wondered if normalcy was something, like vision or silence, you didn't realize was precious until you lost it.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Imagination, Silence, Past

“You cannot simply ask whether people look like their demon grandfather!”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: Nothing but Shadows

People

“Life's like a penis; When it's soft you can't beat it; When it's hard you get screwed. - The Fat Man, Medical Resident in The House of God”

Samuel Shem book The House of God

Source: The House of God

Life, God, Housing

“Trying to write is very much like trying to put a Chinese puzzle together. We have a pattern in mind which we wish to work out in words; but the words will not fit the spaces, or, if they do, they will not match the design.”

Helen Keller book The Story of My Life

Source: The Story of My Life

“Our love of each other was like two long shadows kissing without hope of reality.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Love, Hope, Kiss, Reality

“The woman let out an expansive laugh that resounded through the house like a spray of broken glass.”

Gabriel García Márquez book One Hundred Years of Solitude

Source: One Hundred Years of Solitude

Housing

“Bad news has no limits. We often feel it should, like a rainstorm that can't possibly get any heavier. But a storm can always worsen, & the burdens of life can too.”

Mitch Albom (1958) American author

Source: The First Phone Call from Heaven

Life, Feeling

“She waited for the train to pass. Then she said, "I sometimes think that people’s hearts are like deep wells. Nobody knows what’s at the bottom. All you can do is imagine by what comes floating to the surface every once in a while.”

Haruki Murakami book Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

Variant: I sometimes think that people's hearts are like deep wells. Nobody knows what's at the bottom. All you can do is guess from what comes floating to the surface every once in a while.
Source: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

People, Imagination, Thinking, Waiting

“The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

Nature

“That’s life for you. All the happiness you gather to yourself, it will sweep away like it’s nothing. If you ask me I don’t think there are any such things as curses. I think there is only life. That’s enough.”

Junot Díaz book The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Source: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Life, Happiness, Thinking

“That thing that looks like me but isn't? He'll burn down the world if Sebastian wants him to, and laugh while he's doing it. That's what you're saving, Clary.. Don't you understand? I'd rather be dead”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

World, Understanding, Dead

“What would a narrative of happiness be like? All that can be described is what prepares it, and then what destroys it.”

André Gide book The Immoralist

Source: The Immoralist

Happiness

“You just pick your head up and stare at something beautiful like the sky,
or the ocean and you move the hell on.”

James Patterson book Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas

Source: Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas

Beauty, Hell

“But she wasn’t around, and that’s the thing when your parents die, you feel like instead of going in to every fight with backup, you are going into every fight alone.”

Mitch Albom For One More Day

Source: For One More Day

Feeling, Parent, Fight, For Parents

“If a man's character is to be abused, say what you will, there's nobody like a relation to do the business.”

William Makepeace Thackeray Vanity Fair

Vol. I, ch. 19.
Source: Vanity Fair (1847–1848)

Business

“My entire life has felt like chance. Random moments of loss and connection. This is the first one that feels, instead, like fate.”

Christina Baker Kline (1964) American writer

Source: Orphan Train

Life, Fate, Feeling, Loss

“Without using the word, everyone started forgiving each other again. Just like that, from the no of all nothingness: you have a big tense mess and out of it comes some joy. It must be magic.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

Forgiveness, Joy

“Wine is like the incarnation--it is both divine and human”

Paul Tillich (1886–1965) German-American theologian and philosopher

Wine

“I thought my heart was pure. We do like to have such good opinions of our own motives when we're about to do something harmful, to someone else.”

Margaret Atwood book The Blind Assassin

Source: The Blind Assassin

Motivation, Heart

“I wondered if emotions were like menstrual cycles, if you get enough women together. Give it time, and everyone was crying.”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

Women, Time, Cry

“Phillip is a repository of random snatches of film dialogue and song lyrics. To make room for all of it in his brain, he apparently cleared out all the areas where things like reason and common sense are stored.”

Jonathan Tropper (1970) American writer

Source: This is Where I Leave You

Sense

“He knew he had no right to touch her, crave her like air, but he did both. And when he put his mouth on hers, he recognized the taste of her, like she'd been made just for him.”

Jill Shalvis (1963) American writer

Source: Lucky in Love

“An idea is like a rare bird which cannot be seen. What one sees is the trembling of the branch it has just left.”

Lawrence Durrell The Avignon Quintet

The Avignon Quintet (1974–1985), Monsieur (1974)
Context: The art of prose governed by syncopated thinking; for thoughts curdle in the heart if not expressed. An idea is like a rare bird which cannot be seen. What one sees is the trembling of the branch it has just left.

Idea, Bird

“Ender didn't like fighting. He didn't like Peter's kind, the strong against the weak, and he didn't like his own kind either, the smart against the stupid.”

Orson Scott Card book Ender's Game

Source: Ender's Game

Stupidity, Strong, Fight

“I thought only a wooden stake through the heart killed a vampire. (Amanda)
A wooden stake through the heart will kill just about anything. And if it doesn't, run like hell. (Kyrian)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon book Night Pleasures

Source: Night Pleasures

Hell, Heart

“You're not sorry to go, of course. With people like us our home is where we are not… No one person in the world is necessary to you or to me.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book This Side of Paradise

Source: This Side of Paradise

People, World, Home, Personality

“Damn it, MacRieve, if you keep calling me kitten, then I'm going to start calling you something equivalent, like hound dog - and then we'll both be losers.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night

Dogs

“She's not wearing makeup so her face just looks like skin.”

Chuck Palahniuk (1962) American novelist, essayist

“When the world is itself draped in the mantle of night, the mirror of the mind is like the sky in which thoughts twinkle like stars.”

Khushwant Singh (1915–2014) Indian novelist and journalist

Source: Delhi

World, Star, Night

“Check out that one at the end. He's taken the form of a footstool. Weird… but somehow I like his style."

"That is a footstool.”

Jonathan Stroud book The Golem's Eye

Source: The Golem's Eye

“ignorance is like a cow that a lot of people can't stop milkin!”

Mary Monroe (1951) American writer

Source: God Don't Play

People

“The way you give your name to others is a measure of how much you like and
respect yourself.”

Brian Tracy (1944) American motivational speaker and writer

Way

“Baking is like washing--the results are equally temporary.”

Patricia Briggs (1965) American writer

Source: Raven's Shadow

“It smells like heartbreak in here,” said Jace.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

“There was nothing separate about her days. Like drops on the window-pane, they ran together and trickled away.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

“I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Self-Reliance
Source: Self-Reliance and Other Essays
Context: But now we are a mob. Man does not stand in awe of man, nor is his genius admonished to stay at home, to put itself in communication with the internal ocean, but it goes abroad to beg a cup of water of the urns of other men. We must go alone. I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching.

“Like anyone cared where I was, or who I was.”

Julie Anne Peters (1952) American writer

Source: By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead