Quotes about still
page 15

“Heathcliff, make the world stop right here. Make everything stop and stand still and never move again. Make the moors never change and you and I never change.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Source: Wuthering Heights

World, Change

“That's how a scary story works. It echoes some ancient fear. It recreates some forgotten terror. Something we'd like to think we're grown beyond. But it can still scare us to tears. It's something you'd hoped was healed.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Source: Haunted (2005), Chapter 19, Hot Potting, A story by Baroness Frostbite

Fear, Hope, Thinking, Tear

“I realize then that we never have children, we receive them. And sometimes it’s not for quite as long as we would have expected or hoped. But it is still far better than never having had those children at all.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

Children, Hope

“I was scared of one thing after another. I still am.
Naturally. How could it be otherwise? You can either be fearless or you can be free, you can’t be both.”

John Berger (1926–2017) British painter, writer and art critic

Source: Here Is Where We Meet: A Story of Crossing Paths

Nature

“She understands. There is nowhere to go but on. Still, part of her longs to go back”

Celeste Ng book Everything I Never Told You: A Novel

Source: Everything I Never Told You

Understanding, Parting

“She was right about something else too," Dimitri said after a long pause…. "That I do still love you.”

Richelle Mead book Last Sacrifice

Source: Last Sacrifice

Love

“When things get unbearable, I wrap myself into a tight ball and shut my eyes. Every muscle in my body is tense. I open my eyes and I'm still where I was when I closed them to escape. Nothing's changed.”

Elizabeth Wurtzel (1967–2020) American author and journalist

Change

“Hardly anyone still reads nowadays. People make use of the writer only in order to work off their own excess energy on him in a perverse manner, in the form of agreement or disagreement.”

Robert Musil book The Man Without Qualities

Source: The Man Without Qualities

People, Reading

“I have lost everything, Han thought. Then he corrected himself. Every time I think I’ve lost everything, I find there’s still something else to lose.”

Cinda Williams Chima (1952) Novelist

Source: The Gray Wolf Throne

Thinking, Time

“Whoever knows you when you are young can look inside you and see the person you once were, and maybe still are at certain times.”

Alice Hoffman (1952) Novelist, young-adult writer, children's writer

Source: The Marriage of Opposites

Time, Personality

“Depending upon one another's hearts, ye had still hoped that virtue were not all a dream. Now are ye undeceived. Evil is the nature of mankind.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne book Young Goodman Brown

Source: "Young Goodman Brown"
Context: "Lo, there ye stand, my children," said the figure, in a deep and solemn tone, almost sad with its despairing awfulness, as if his once angelic nature could yet mourn for our miserable race. "Depending upon one another's hearts, ye had still hoped that virtue were not all a dream. Now are ye undeceived. Evil is the nature of mankind. Evil must be your only happiness. Welcome again, my children, to the communion of your race."

Dreams, Hope, Nature, Evil

“So that's it? Your just going to give up?! After everything that has happened, your not going to even try?! You still don't know….. what truly matters….”

Masashi Kishimoto (1974) Japanese manga artist

“Every habit he's ever had is still there in his body, lying dormant like flowers in the desert. Given the right conditions, all his old addictions would burst into full and luxuriant bloom.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

Flowers, Lying

“I killed her once and died for her many times and I still have nothing to show for it. I always search for her; I always remember her. I carry the hope that someday she will remember me.”

Ann Brashares book My Name is Memory

Source: My Name Is Memory

Hope, Search, Time

“I had woven a tapestry of obscenity that as far as I know is still hanging in space over Lake Michigan.”

Jean Shepherd (1921–1999) American writer and radio host

Source: A Christmas Story

“There are dead stars that still shine because their light is trapped in time. Where do I stand in this light, which does not strictly exist?”

Don DeLillo book Cosmopolis

Source: Cosmopolis

Star, Light, Time, Dead

“Where music thundered let the mind be still,
Where the will triumphed let there be no will,
What light revealed, now let the dark fulfill.”

May Sarton (1912–1995) American poet, novelist, and memoirist

Music, Light

“I'll see you later Roza."

"At our next practice?" I asked. "We are starting those up again, right? I mean you still have things to teach me."

Standing in the doorway, he looked over at me and smiled. "Yes. Lots of things.”

Richelle Mead book Frostbite

Source: Frostbite

Smile

“Don't get pissy with me leech." With a glare, Carrow pressed her print to his torque. "Even tapped out, I can still do a love spell to make you fall in love--with the sun.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Dreams of a Dark Warrior

Love, Sun

“I am fading away. Slowly but surely. Like the sailor who watches his home shore gradually disappear, I watch my past recede. My old life still burns within me, but more and more of it is reduced to the ashes of memory.”

Jean-Dominique Bauby book The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Source: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Life, Home, Memory, Past

“If you have experienced an evening more exciting than any in your life, you're sad to see it end; and yet you still feel grateful that it happened.”

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

Life, Sadness, Feeling

“We are all the fools of time and terror: Days
Steal on us and steal from us; yet we live,
Loathing our life, and dreading still to die.”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

Life, Fools, Time

“A Baby Sermon-
The lighting and thunder, they go and they come: But the stars and the stillness are always at home”

George MacDonald (1824–1905) Scottish journalist, novelist

Home, Star, Light, Baby

“I am ashamed of anyone who has eyes and still can't see.”

Kathryn Lasky (1944) American children's writer

Variant: I am ashamed of anyone who has eyes and still cannot see. (Mrs. Plithiver)
Source: The Journey

“A truth comes out when it must;
A dream comes true when it will.
Though the world turn to ash and dust
A secret’s a secret still.”

Sharon Shinn (1957) American science fiction writer

Source: The Safe-Keeper's Secret

Truth, Secret, World, Dreams

“If you are a writer you locate yourself behind a wall of silence and no matter what you are doing, driving a car or walking or doing housework — you can still be writing, because you have that space.”

Joyce Carol Oates (1938) American author

New York Times (27 July 1980)

Cars, Silence

“Books, I found, had the power to make time
stand still, retreat or fly into the future.”

Jim Bishop (1907–1987) American journalist and author

Books, Time, Future, Flying

“Marry an outdoors woman. That way, if you have to throw her out into the yard for the night, she can still survive.”

W.C. Fields (1880–1946) actor

Way, Night

“Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

“See, as much as you want to hold on to the bitter sore memory that someone has left this world, you are still in it”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

World, Memory

“If snow melts down to water, does it still remember being snow?”

Jennifer McMahon (1968) American writer

Source: The Winter People

Water

“Still, being able to feel pain was good, he thought. It's when you can't even feel pain anymore that you're in real trouble.”

Haruki Murakami book Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Source: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Pain, Feeling

“Sometimes just being still is the best thing you can do for yourself.”

Silas House (1971) American writer

Source: Eli the Good

“Warriors of the light are not perfect. Their beauty lies in accepting this fact and still desiring to grow and to learn.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

(1997)
Source: Warrior of the Light

Beauty, Light, Learning, Perfection

“How can the dead be truly dead when they still live in the souls of those who are left behind?”

Carson McCullers book The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

Source: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Soul, Dead

“Except for the point, the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

Dance

“I understood that as much as I had resisted the outside, as much as I had constricted my life, as much as I had closed and narrowed the channels into me, there were still many takers for the quiet heart.”

Steve Martin book The Pleasure of My Company

Source: The Pleasure of My Company

Life, Heart

“Deep down inside, my heart knew the score.
And I know that Haven was wrong.
It's not always a case of one loving more than the other.
When two people are truly meant to be, they love equally.
Differently - but still equal.”

Alyson Nöel (1965) writer

Source: Night Star

Love, People, Heart

“The wood nymph instructors left me in the dust. They told me not to worry about it. They'd had centuries of practice running away from lovesick gods. But still, it was a little humiliating to be slower than a tree.”

Rick Riordan book The Lightning Thief

Source: The Lightning Thief

God, Tree

“By virtue of creation, and still more the incarnation, nothing here is profane for those who know how to see.”

Pierre Teilhard De Chardin (1881–1955) French philosopher and Jesuit priest

The Divinisation of Our Activities, p. 66
The Divine Milieu (1960)

“Trauma is survivable, but often not much more. It kills you while allowing you to still live.”

James Frey book The Final Testament of the Holy Bible

Source: The Final Testament of the Holy Bible

“To think is to confine yourself to a single thought that one day stands still like a star in the world's sky.”

Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) German philosopher

Source: Basic Writings: Martin Heidegger

World, Star, Thinking

“Like it or not,” he said, “you're still his daughter. Run from it, spit on it, that’s your choice. Those of the blood can insult the blood. Nobody else. I won’t allow it.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Breaks

Daughters

“Still think she is worth it?” Mahon asked quietly.

“Of course. She is my mate.”

Mahon sighed. “So you decided then.”

“Do you think we’d be laying here bleeding in the snow if I wasn’t sure?”

“Good point.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bleeds - Awake

Thinking

“But if you can plant yourself in stillness long enough, you will, in time, experience the truth that everything (both uncomfortable and lovely) does eventually pass.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Love, Truth, Time

“And the worst thing was, there were no mirrors out there in the wild, so the princess was left wondering whether she in fact was still beautiful… or if the fall had changed the story completely.”

Scott Westerfeld book Pretties

Source: Pretties

Beauty, Change, Princess

“Desjardins was literally fuming. His tattered robes still smoked from battle. (Carter says I shouldn’t mention that his pink boxer shorts were showing, but they were!)”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

“But still, sometimes, in the heart of winter when the light outside seemed yellow- sleepy, like a cat curled up on a sofa…”

Stephen King book It

Source: It

Cats, Light, Winter, Heart

“Guys are great before you know who they are,' said Lucy. 'They're great when you're still with who they might be.”

Carrie Fisher book Postcards from the Edge

Source: Postcards from the Edge

Guy

“And we are magic talking to itself,
noisy and alone. I am queen of all my sins
forgotten. Am I still lost?
Once I was beautiful. Now I am myself”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

Source: To Bedlam and Part Way Back

Beauty

“You have to learn how to help a wounded child while still practicing mindful breathing. You should not allow yourself to get lost in action. Action should be meditation at the same time.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Learning, Time, Help

“take your best orgasm, multiply the feeling by twenty, and you're still fuckin miles off the pace”

Irvine Welsh book Trainspotting

Source: Trainspotting

Feeling

“I am absolutely convinced that meaninglessness does not come from being weary of pain; meaninglessness comes from being weary of pleasure. And that is why we find ourselves emptied of meaning with our pantries still full.”

Ravi Zacharias (1946) Indian philosopher

Source: Can Man Live Without God

Pain, Pleasure

“He's too much for Schuyler. They're wrong for each other. Anyone can see that.
And when he leaves her, I'll be there.
However long it takes, I'll still be there for her.
Waiting.”

Melissa de la Cruz Blue Bloods

Source: Blue Bloods

Waiting

“We look into each other's eyes as we shake. His are still full of death and horror, but in them I see my face reflected, and inside my tiny eyes inside his, I think I see some hope.”

Ned Vizzini book It's Kind of a Funny Story

Source: It's Kind of a Funny Story

Death, Hope, Thinking

“Camille leaned forward. When she did, the neckline of her black silk blouse gaped open. If Simon had still been human, he would have blushed. "Will you let me see it?"
Simon could actually feel his eyes pop out. "See”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Feeling

“It has been a mistake living my life in the past. One cannot ride a horse backwards and still hold its reins.”

Richard Paul Evans (1962) American writer

Life, Past, Horse

“People say that time slips through our fingers like sand. What they don't acknowledge is that some of the sand sticks to the skin. These are memories that will remain, memories of the time when there was still time left.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Invisibility

People, Memory, Time

“Just because you're a gutless harlot doesn't mean I won't find your… attributes attractive. I might be immortal, but I'm still a red-blooded male."

"Harlot? Who talks like that? Father Time, meet the Flinstones.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Endless Knight

Time

“A bookstore is one of the only pieces of physical evidence we have that people are still thinking.”

Jerry Seinfeld (1954) American comedian and actor

Variant: A bookstore is one of the many pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking.

People, Thinking

“The thing about light is that it really isn’t yours; it’s what you gather and shine back. And it gets more power from reflectiveness; if you sit still and take it in, it fills your cup, and then you can give it off yourself.”

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

Source: Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

Light

“When someone dies, it feels like the hole in your gum when a tooth falls out. You can chew, you can eat, you
have plenty of other teeth, but your tongue keeps going back to that empty place, where all the nerves are still a little raw.”

Jodi Picoult book House Rules

Variant: when you [lose someone], it feels like the hole in your gum when a tooth falls out. You can chew, you can eat, you have plenty of other teeth, but your tongue keeps going back to that empty place, where all nerves are still a little raw
Source: House Rules

Feeling

“I found myself jealous of the people who wrote the books. They were dead and they were still taking up my time. Who did they think they were?”

Ned Vizzini book It's Kind of a Funny Story

Source: It's Kind of a Funny Story

People, Books, Thinking, Time

“All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered.”

Kenneth Grahame book The Wind in the Willows

Source: The Wind in the Willows (1908), Ch. 7
Context: Perhaps he would never have dared to raise his eyes, but that, though the piping was now hushed, the call and the summons seemed still dominant and imperious. He might not refuse, were Death himself waiting to strike him instantly, once he had looked with mortal eye on things rightly kept hidden. Trembling he obeyed, and raised his humble head; and then, in that utter clearness of the imminent dawn, while Nature, flushed with fullness of incredible colour, seemed to hold her breath for the event, he looked in the very eyes of the Friend and Helper; saw the backward sweep of the curved horns, gleaming in the growing daylight; saw the stern, hooked nose between the kindly eyes that were looking down on them humourously, while the bearded mouth broke into a half-smile at the corners; saw the rippling muscles on the arm that lay across the broad chest, the long supple hand still holding the pan-pipes only just fallen away from the parted lips; saw the splendid curves of the shaggy limbs disposed in majestic ease on the sward; saw, last of all, nestling between his very hooves, sleeping soundly in entire peace and contentment, the little, round, podgy, childish form of the baby otter. All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered.

“I don’t want to forget any of this. The way he’s looking at me at this very moment. How, when he kisses me, I still get shivers down my back, every time. I want to hold on to everything so tight.”

Jenny Han book Always and Forever, Lara Jean

Source: Always and Forever, Lara Jean

Way, Kiss, Time, Forgetting

“You can still function as a living ruin.”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

Source: Solipsist

“She closed the book and put her cheek against it. There was still an odor of a library on it, of dust, leather, binding glue, and old paper, one book carrying the smell of hundreds.”

Shannon Hale The Goose Girl

Source: The Goose Girl

Books

“The girl behind the scrawled letters. I loved you from the moment I read them. I love you still.” - Will Herondale”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Love, Girl, Reading

“He was twenty. I remembered twenty. I'd known everything at twenty. It took me another year to realize I knew nothing. I was still hoping to learn something before I hit thirty, but I wasn't holding my breath.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Circus of the Damned

Source: Circus of the Damned

Hope, Learning

“People are going deaf because music is played louder and louder, but because they're going deaf, it has to be played louder still.”

Milan Kundera (1929–2023) Czech author of Czech and French literature

People, Music

“I still believe in the Holy Trinity, except now it's Target, Trader Joe's, and IKEA.”

Jen Lancaster (1967) American writer

“I deserve better than that, you know? I deserve… I deserve to be someone's number one girl."

"You are."

"No, I'm not. She is. You're still protecting her, her secret, whatever that is. From what, though? From me? What have I ever done to her?”

Jenny Han book P.S. I Still Love You

Source: P.S. I Still Love You

Secret, Girl

“In the economy of Heaven, God does not send thunder if a still, small voice is enough, or a prophet if a priest can do the job.”

Neal A. Maxwell (1926–2004) Mormon leader

God

“I was on the verge of crying with grief at still being alive.”

Knut Hamsun book Hunger

Source: Hunger

Cry

“I think I've been rather reasonable about this whole situation."
"How do you figure?"
"They are still breathing, aren't they?”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Burns

Thinking

“You might have lost some major battles, but you survived and you're still here.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Source: Manuscript Found in Accra

“No matter how bad things get, you can still walk away.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Lullaby

Source: Lullaby

“I 'never told my love' vocally; still, if looks have language, the merest idiot might have guessed I was over head and ears;”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Source: Wuthering Heights

Love

“There's something to be said for hunger: at least it lets you know you're still alive.”

Margaret Atwood book Oryx and Crake

Source: Oryx and Crake

Hunger

“I lived with the terrible knowledge that one day I would be an old man still waiting for my real life to start. Already, I pitied that old man.”

Pat Conroy book The Prince of Tides

Source: The Prince of Tides

Life, Knowledge, Waiting

“This is what a memorial is: standing still, staring at something that isn’t ther”

David Levithan book Love Is the Higher Law

Source: Love Is the Higher Law

Memory

“People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become, and they pay for it, very simply, by the lives they lead.”

James Baldwin book No Name in the Street

No Name in the Street (1972)

People

“He leaned down and whispered to me: No matter how thin you get, no matter how short you cut your hair, it's still going to be you underneath. And he let go of my arm and walked back down the hall.”

Marya Hornbacher book Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

Source: Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

“I'm still a little bent, a little crooked, but all things considered, I can't complain.”

Anthony Kiedis book Scar Tissue

Source: Scar Tissue

“His hands are off," Gabrielle pointed out.
"Posture's wrong," Kat said.
"He's still… hot," Gabrielle said, as if it were the greatest insult in the world.
"I feel so objectified. So… cheap," Hale told them.”

Ally Carter (1974) American writer

World, Feeling

“Which reminded me… I still owed the gods a debt.
"You're a genius," I (Percy) told Annabeth.”

Rick Riordan book The Sea of Monsters

Source: The Sea of Monsters

God

“It didn´t occur to me until later that there´s another truth, very simple: greed in a good cause is still greed.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Source: Wolves of the Calla

Truth

“Keep working. Keep trying. Keep believing. You still might not make it, but at least you gave it your best shot. If you don’t have calluses on your soul, this isn’t for you. Take up knitting instead.”

David Eddings (1931–2009) American novelist

Soul

“Still, I couldn't help but wonder if it was a mistake for people like us to be tied to a place. If we weren't meant to be ready and willing to wander. If everything we needed was contained in who we were.
And what we remember.”

Alice Hoffman (1952) Novelist, young-adult writer, children's writer

Source: Incantation

People, Help

“She understood how a world jammed with phones, email, and faxes could still leave you feeling utterly alone.”

Jodi Picoult Salem Falls

Source: Salem Falls

World, Feeling

“The human language, as precise as it is with its thousands of words, can still be so wonderfully vague.”

Garth Stein The Art of Racing in the Rain

Source: The Art of Racing in the Rain

“Zen masters say you cannot see your reflection in running water, only in still water.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Water

“She fell, she hurt, she felt. She lived. And for all the tumble of her experiences, she still had hope. Maybe this next time would do the trick. Or maybe not. But unless you stepped into the game, you would never know.”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

Hope, Game, Time, Hurt

“I swear to the Lord
I still can't see
Why Democracy means
Everybody but me.”

Langston Hughes (1902–1967) American writer and social activist

"The Black Man Speaks," from Jim Crow's Last Stand (1943)

Democracy

“I knew that it wouldn’t last. It was just a moment, a perfect moment, as time stood still and fleetingly everything fell back into its proper place.”

Sarah Dessen book That Summer

Source: That Summer

Time, Perfection

“I am grateful for the blessings of wealth, but it hasn't changed who I am. My feet are still on the ground. I'm just wearing better shoes.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

Shoe, Change, Wealth

“Don't ever forget the words on a postcard that my father sent me last year: "If you win the rat race, you're still a rat.”

Anna Quindlen (1952) journalist, Novelist

Source: A Short Guide to a Happy Life

Forgetting

“Funny, for all surveillance, Osama bin Laden is still freeand we're not. Guess who's winning the "war on terror?”

Cory Doctorow (1971) Canadian-British blogger, journalist, and science fiction author

War

“If any man can convince me and bring home to me that I do not think or act aright, gladly will I change; for I search after truth, by which man never yet was harmed. But he is harmed who abideth on still in his deception and ignorance.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Variant translation: If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one ever was truly harmed. Harmed is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance.
VI, 21
Source: Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VI

Truth, Home, Search, Thinking

“You’ll tell yourself anything you have to, to pretend that you’re still the one in control.”

Jodi Picoult Change of Heart

Source: Change of Heart

Quotes about still page 15

Quotes about still
page 15