Quotes about use
page 60

“Here's what breaks us: Even though we know better, we still want everything to be all right.”

David Levithan book Love Is the Higher Law

Source: Love Is the Higher Law

“This is perhaps the most noble aim of poetry, to attach ourselves to the world around us, to turn desire into love, to embrace, finally what always evades us, what is beyond, but what is always there – the unspoken, the spirit, the soul.”

Octavio Paz (1914–1998) Mexican writer laureated with the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature

Source: The Other Voice: Essays on Modern Poetry

Love, World, Soul

“when the fierce, burning winds blow over our lives-and we cannot prevent them-let us, too, accept the inevitable. And then get busy and pick up the pieces.”

Dale Carnegie book How to Stop Worrying and Start Living

Source: How to Stop Worrying and Start Living

Business

“All we have of freedom
All we use or know
This our fathers bought for us
Long and long ago”

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

Freedom

“… just a little touches her and there. He puts his hands on your arms or back, he stands close to you, getting you used to him… it's a mating ritual. Like March of the Penguins.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Blue-Eyed Devil

“When I was a fetus, I used to sneak out at night when my mother was sleeping. I figured I should start stealing stuff while I still had no fingerprints.”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

Sleep, Night

“Maybe it's information the whitecoats never wanted anyone to figure out.' Fang said in the hollow-y voice he used sometimes when things got unusually weird- as opposed to regular weird.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Maximum Ride The Angel Experiment

“Let us give Nature a chance; she knows her business better than we do.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

Book III, Ch. 13
Essais (1595), Book III
Source: Montaigne: Essays

Business, Nature, Chance

“If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?”

Cormac McCarthy book No Country for Old Men

Source: No Country for Old Men (2005)

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”

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

March 1937
Diary entries (1914 - 1974)
Source: The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934

World, Deep, Friendship, Relationship

“How much of this truth can I bear to see and still live
unblinded?
How much of this pain
can I use?”

Audre Lorde (1934–1992) writer and activist

Source: Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

Pain, Truth

“My mother said I broke her heart… but it was my integrity that was important. Is that so selfish? It sells for so little, but it's all we have left in this place. It is the very last inch of us… but within that inch we are free.”

Alan Moore V for Vendetta

Source: V for Vendetta

Heart, Selfishness

“It is," I said. "And it's not even difficult. But I need your promise on the River Styx." "What?" Dionysus cried. "You don't trust us?" "Someone once told me," I said, looking at Hades, "you should always get a solemn oath." Hades shrugged. "Guilty.”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

“Let us be honest: most of us rather like our cats to have a streak of wickedness. I should not feel quite easy in the company of any cat that walked around the house with a saintly expression.”

Beverley Nichols (1898–1983) Author, playwright, journalist, composer

Source: Beverley Nichols' Cats' A Z

Feeling, Cats, Housing

“We didn’t know what was ahead of us then. We were just two teenagers, looking up at the sky on a cold February night. So no, he didn’t give me flowers or candy. He gave me the moon and the stars. Infinity.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Variant: We were just two teenagers, looking up at the sky on a cold February night. So no, he didn’t give me flowers or candy. He gave me the moon and the stars. Infinity.
Source: We'll Always Have Summer

Star, Flowers, Night

“The house of Life doesn’t trust our family, especially after what Dad and Mom did. Amos said we were raised apart for a reason, so we wouldn’t trigger each other’s magic.”
“Bloody awful reason to keep us apart,” I muttered.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

Life, Family, Moms, Housing

“The denigration of those we love always detaches us from them in some degree. Never touch your idols: the gilding will stick to your fingers.”

Gustave Flaubert Madame Bovary

Source: Madame Bovary

Love

“Who's going to rob us? A crackhead crab? A jellyfish junkie?”

Kathy Reichs Virals

Source: Virals

“It’s not the pain that’s inflicted on us by others that destroys us. It’s the pain we let inside our hearts that does that. Don’t let the human’s anger become yours. It can drive you mad if you do. (M'Adoc)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Upon the Midnight Clear

Pain, Heart, Madness, Anger

“Cats are cats… the world over!
These intelligent, peace-loving, four-footed friends- who are without prejudice, without hate, without greed- may someday teach us something.
-James Mackintosh Qwilleran”

Lilian Jackson Braun (1913–2011) author

Source: The Cat Who Saw Stars

Love, Hate, World, Peace

“The test we must set for ourselves is not to march alone but to march in such a way that others will wish to join us.”

Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978) Vice-President of the USA under Lyndon B. Johnson

Way

“Literature is greater than any of us, dammit.”

Romain Gary (1914–1980) French writer and diplomat

Literature

“All of us have to be prevaricators, hypocrites, and liars every day of our lives; otherwise the social structure would fall into pieces the first day. We must act in one another's presence just as we must wear clothes. It is for the best”

O. Henry (1862–1910) American short story writer

Clothes

“Sometimes, we just have to be happy with what people can offer us. Even if it's not what we want, at least it's something.”

Sarah Dessen (1970) American writer

Happiness, People

“He has fought many battles with us" (Jace)
By which you mean one battle" muttered Simon. "Two if you count the one I was a rat”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

“We may run, walk, stumble. drive, or fly, but let us never lose sight of the reason for the journey, or miss a chance to see a rainbow on the way.”

Gloria Gaither (1942) American gospel songwriter, author & scholar

Way, Chance, Flying

“There are two ways to slide easily through life; to believe everything or doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking.”

Alfred Korzybski (1879–1950) Polish scientist and philosopher

Life, Way, Thinking

“Fate gives all of us three teachers, three friends, three enemies, and three great loves in our lives. But these twelve are always disguised, and we can never know which one is which until we’ve loved them, left them, or fought them.”

Gregory David Roberts book Shantaram

Source: Shantaram

Love, Fate, Teachers

“Yeah, well, it’s what happens when we spoil the things we love. They don’t always understand the boundaries and their ridiculous wants can get us killed if we’re not careful. (Jaden)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Acheron

Love, Understanding

“Everyone is isolated from everyone else. The concept of society is like a cushion to protect us from the knowledge of that isolation. A fiction that serves as an anesthetic.”

Paul Bowles (1910–1999) American composer, writer, translator

Knowledge

“sex finds us. sex sees through us. that's why it's so shattering. it strips us of appearances."_Eric Packer”

Don DeLillo book Cosmopolis

Source: Cosmopolis

Sex, Appearance

“I used to believe. I used to think that if I wanted it bad enough, wished hard enough, everything would work out the way It was supposed to. Destiny, like Susannah said.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: It's Not Summer Without You

Way, Thinking

“Libraries allow children to ask questions about the world and find the answers. And the wonderful thing is that once a child learns to use a library, the doors to learning are always open.”

Laura Bush (1946) First Lady of the United States from 2001 to 2009

As quoted in The 21st Century Elementary Library Media Program (2009) by Carl A. Harvey, p. 3

Children, World, Question, Learning

“So you're made of detritus [from exploded stars]. Get over it. Or better yet, celebrate it. After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?”

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator

Source: Death by Black Hole - And Other Cosmic Quandaries

Star, Universe

“So everything lets us down, including curiosity and honesty and what we love best. Yes, said the voice, but cheer up, it's fun in the end.”

Roberto Bolaño book 2666

Source: 2666

Love, Hope

“I've developed a great reputation for wisdom by ordering more books than I ever had time to read, and reading more books, by far, than I learned anything useful from, except, of course, that some very tedious gentlemen have written books.”

Marilynne Robinson Gilead

Source: Gilead

Wisdom, Books, Learning, Time

“We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls.”

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

Source: The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 7: 1966-1974

Travel, Soul

“The street finds its own uses for things.”

William Gibson Burning Chrome

Burning Chrome (1982)

“There's a serendipity to real life that the Internet can't duplicate. Do you use the library? For anything? Well, sometimes you end up picking up the book next to the one you were looking for, and it's that book that changes your life.”

Laura Lippman (1959) Detective fiction writer

Source: Hardly Knew Her

Life, Books, Change

“You cannot poison what is between us with your foul words. She is my light in the darkness and Johnny is my pathway ahead.”

Juliet Marillier book Son of the Shadows

Source: Son of the Shadows

Light

“You used nunchucks on a moose?"
Wolfe got a haunted look in his eyes. "I used all sorts of things on that bastard.”

Richelle Mead book The Golden Lily

Source: The Golden Lily

Wolf

“Each of us, famous or infamous, is a role model for somebody, and if we aren't, we should behave as though we are -- cheerful, kind, loving, courteous. Because you can be sure someone is watching and taking deliberate and diligent notes.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Love

“He does not rule us. No one can rule us. No one can rule anyone who does not first agree to the ruling." She smiled a trace at Aeriel and patted the little camp dog, which was whining for more tidbits. "One must rule oneself.”

Meredith Ann Pierce book The Darkangel

Source: The Darkangel

Smile, Dogs

“Miss Erstwhile: “It is such a relief, Mr. Nobley, to already know that you find this exercise vulgar and your partner unworthy. It saves us the idle chitchat.”
Mr. Nobley: “And yet you chat away.”

Shannon Hale book Austenland

Source: Austenland

Exercises

“… it seems to us that the readers who want fiction to be like life are considerably outnumbered by those who would like life to be like fiction.”

Sarah Caudwell (1939–2000) English barrister and writer

Life

“Mother used to say it meant Christopher was a nice name because it was a story about being kind and helpful, but I do not want my name to mean a story about being kind and helpful. I want my name to mean me.”

Mark Haddon book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Source: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Help

“If our faith is strong, we’ll go to heaven, and we’ll understand the whole thing when we get there. As if life were a joke, and heaven the place where the cosmic punchline is finally explained to us.”

Stephen King book Revival

Source: Revival

Life, Faith, Understanding, Strong

“Let us not despair but act. Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past — let us accept our own responsibility for the future.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Remarks at "Loyola College Alumni Banquet, Baltimore, Maryland (18 February 1958) http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/JFK-Quotations.aspx; Box 899, Senate Speech Files, John F. Kennedy Papers, Pre-Presidential Papers, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library Pre-1960

Past, Future, Despair

“We have to be braver than we think we can be, because God is constantly calling us to be more than we are.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

God, Thinking, Courageous

“It's not the end of the world at all," he said. "It's only the end for us. The world will go on just the same, only we shan't be in it. I dare say it will get along all right without us.”

Nevil Shute book On the Beach

Source: On the Beach

World

“Have the courage to use your own reason- That is the motto of enlightenment.
"Foundations of the Metaphysics of
Morals" (1785)”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Courage

“For things to reveal themselves to us, we need to be ready to abandon our views about them.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: Being Peace

“Curiosity, that's what kills us. Not muggers or all that bullshit about the ozone layer. It's our own hearts and minds.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Heart

“Why is it when we talk to God we're said to be praying — but when God talks to us, we're said to be schizophrenic?”

Lily Tomlin (1939) American actress, comedian, writer, and producer

Contributions of Jane Wagner

God

“… only the victims and survivors can truly comprehend the awfulness of that time and place; the rest of us live on the other side of the fence, staring through from our own comfortable place, trying in our own clumsy ways to make sense of it all.”

John Boyne (1971) Irish novelist, author of children's and youth fiction

Source: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Way, Sense, Time

“… sometimes one feels freer speaking to a stranger than to people one knows. Why is that?"
“Probably because a stranger sees us the way we are, not as he wishes to think we are.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind

Source: The Shadow of the Wind

People, Way, Feeling, Thinking

“I can always tell when you're reading somewhere in the house,' my mother used to say. 'There's a special silence, a reading silence.”

Francis Spufford (1964) British writer

Source: The Child That Books Built: A Life in Reading

Silence, Reading, Housing

“It must happen to us all…We pack up what we’ve learned so far and leave the familiar behind. No fun, that shearing separation, but somewhere within, we must dimly know that saying goodbye to safety brings the only security we’ll ever know.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Source: Running from Safety: An Adventure of the Spirit

Learning

“What’s the Nephilim motto again?”
“ ‘We are dust and shadows,’ ” said Ty, not looking up from his book.
“Some of us are very handsome dust,” Jace added”

Cassandra Clare book Lord of Shadows

Source: Lord of Shadows

Books

“If we were always conscious of the fact that people precious to us are frighteningly mortal, hanging not even by a thread, but by a wisp of gossamer, perhaps we would be kinder to them and more grateful for the love and friendship they give to us.”

Dean Koontz book Seize the Night

Source: Seize the Night

Love, Friendship, People

“Endings to be useful must be inconclusive.”

Samuel R. Delany (1942) American author, professor and literary critic

“The things that are most precious to us are sometimes the most secret.”

Ally Carter (1974) American writer

Source: Perfect Scoundrels

Secret

“We all have choices. (Astrid)
No we don’t, princess. Only people with money and influence have choices. For the rest of us, basic necessity dictates what we have to do to survive. (Zarek)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon book Dance with the Devil

Source: Dance with the Devil

Money, People, Princess

“She stopped and leant her elbows against the parapet of the embankment. He did likewise. There is at times a magic in identity of position; it is one of the things that have suggested to us eternal comradeship.”

E.M. Forster book A Room with a View

Source: A Room with a View

Time

“Let this be a lesson to us all, said the preacher. You will be walking someday in the dark and the truth will come shining through, and behind you will be a life that you never want to see again.”

Colum McCann book Let the Great World Spin

Source: Let the Great World Spin

Life, Truth

“Liz cleared her throat. "Isn't there a more polite term we're supposed to use nowadays? Like…. little person, or vertically challenged, or-"
"I'm not going to call myself the god of vertically challenged people," Bes grumbled. "I'm a dwarf!”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

God, People, Personality

“Life don’t come to you, Memphis. You gotta take it. We have to take it. Because ain’t nobody handing it to us.”

Libba Bray book The Diviners

Source: The Diviners

Life

“Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Letter to Besso's family (March 1955) following the death of Michele Besso, as quoted in Disturbing the Universe (1979) by Freeman Dyson Ch. 17 "A Distant Mirror", p. 193 Sometimes misquoted as "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." 1950s Variant: "He has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. For us believing physicists, the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubborn illusion." Quoted in Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson (2008), p. 540 http://books.google.com/books?id=cdxWNE7NY6QC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA540#v=onepage&q&f=false. Variant: "Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That signifies nothing. For us believing physicists, the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion." Quoted in Albert Einstein: The Miracle Mind by Tabatha Yeatts (2007), p. 116 http://books.google.com/books?id=XiyyVYvQBKQC&lpg=PP1&pg=PT114#v=onepage&q&f=false. Variant: "In quitting this strange world he has once again preceded me by a little. That doesn't mean anything. For those of us who believe in physics, this separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion, however tenacious." Quoted in The Structure of Physics by Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker (1985), p. 288 http://books.google.com/books?id=DeexONN0zDgC&lpg=PR2&pg=PA288#v=onepage&q&f=false. Variant: "Now he has departed a little ahead of me from this quaint world. This means nothing. For us faithful physicists, the separation between past, present, and future has only the meaning of an illusion, though a persistent one." Quoted in Einstein and Religion by Max Jammer (2002), p. 161 http://books.google.com/books?id=TnCc1f1C25IC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA161#v=onepage&q&f=false. Variant: "Now he has preceded me by a little bit in his departure from this strange world as well. This means nothing. For those of us who believe in physics, the distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion, however tenacious this illusion may be." Quoted in Einstein: A Biography by Jürgen Neff (2007), p. 402 http://books.google.com/books?id=B8K6n177ZwcC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA402#v=onepage&q&f=false

People, World, Past, Future

“The dead are never far from us. They're in our hearts and on our minds and in the end all that separates us from them is a single breath, one final puff of air.”

William Kent Krueger book Ordinary Grace

Source: Ordinary Grace

Heart, Dead

“Actions that sometimes seem mean aren’t. Rather they are done by the ones we love in order to protect us without our knowing it. (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Acheron

Love

“It took a lot of women like that, a lot of women who said "I'm not going to do what you expect me to do, because you have no idea what I'm capable of. I'm going to get dirty and use tools and live the way I want" to move the world forward.”

Maureen Johnson (1973) writer from the USA

Source: The Last Little Blue Envelope

Women, World, Way, Idea

“The word I think of is precarious. I am struck by how precarious it all is. How the things that hold us are only as strong as the faith we have in them.”

David Levithan The Realm of Possibility

Source: The Realm of Possibility

Faith, Thinking, Strong

“America is therefore the land of the future, where, in the ages that lie before us, the burden of the World's History shall reveal itself.”

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) German philosopher

Lie, Age, World, History

“I don't know what frightens me more, the power that crushes us, or our endless ability to endure it.”

Gregory David Roberts book Shantaram

Source: Shantaram

“It may help us, in those times of trouble, to remember that love is not only about relationship, it is also an affair of the soul.”

Thomas Moore (1779–1852) Irish poet, singer and songwriter

Source: Care of the Soul: Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life

Love, Soul, Time, Help

“I used to tell your mother she looked like Sophia Lauren." He looks at me, frowning, and then it registers.
"Oh God, some guy's using that line on you, isn't he?"
"Not just 'some guy'." I tell him. "The guy.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Saving Francesca

God, Guy

“The certainty that everything has already been written annuls us, or renders us phantasmal.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

“I'm a vampire, idiot. I don't have x-ray vision." "Some supernatural monster you are, remind me to trade you in for a werewolf, bro. Probably be more useful right now.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Kiss of Death

“It's not the tragedies that kill us; it's the messes.”

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

Interview, The Paris Review (Summer 1956)
Source: The Portable Dorothy Parker

“He shook his head and squeezed my hand tight. "You are my courage, as I am your conscience," he whispered, "You are my heart-- I am your compassion. We are neither of us whole, alone. Do ye not know that, Sassenach?" --Jamie”

Diana Gabaldon book Drums of Autumn

Variant: You are my courage, as I am your conscience," he whispered. "You are my heart---and I your compassion. We are neither of us whole, alone. Do ye not know that, Sassenach?
Source: Drums of Autumn

Courage, Heart

“Loneliness, when accepted, becomes a gift that will lead us to find a purpose in life.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Life, Loneliness

“No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from.”

George Eliot book Daniel Deronda

Source: Daniel Deronda

Love, Effort, Evil

“Concepts that have proven useful in ordering things easily achieve such authority over us that we forget their earthly origins and accept them as unalterable givens.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Obituary for physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach (Nachruf auf Ernst Mach), Physikalische Zeitschrift 17 (1916), p. 101
1910s
Context: How does it happen that a properly endowed natural scientist comes to concern himself with epistemology? Is there not some more valuable work to be done in his specialty? That's what I hear many of my colleagues ask, and I sense it from many more. But I cannot share this sentiment. When I think about the ablest students whom I have encountered in my teaching — that is, those who distinguish themselves by their independence of judgment and not just their quick-wittedness — I can affirm that they had a vigorous interest in epistemology. They happily began discussions about the goals and methods of science, and they showed unequivocally, through tenacious defense of their views, that the subject seemed important to them.
Concepts that have proven useful in ordering things easily achieve such authority over us that we forget their earthly origins and accept them as unalterable givens. [Begriffe, welche sich bei der Ordnung der Dinge als nützlich erwiesen haben, erlangen über uns leicht eine solche Autorität, dass wir ihres irdischen Ursprungs vergessen und sie als unabänderliche Gegebenheiten hinnehmen. ] Thus they might come to be stamped as "necessities of thought," "a priori givens," etc. The path of scientific progress is often made impassable for a long time by such errors. [Der Weg des wissenschaftlichen Fortschritts wird durch solche Irrtümer oft für längere Zeit ungangbar gemacht. ] Therefore it is by no means an idle game if we become practiced in analysing long-held commonplace concepts and showing the circumstances on which their justification and usefulness depend, and how they have grown up, individually, out of the givens of experience. Thus their excessive authority will be broken. They will be removed if they cannot be properly legitimated, corrected if their correlation with given things be far too superfluous, or replaced if a new system can be established that we prefer for whatever reason.

Forgetting

“Lothaire betrayed us! Again.” -Random demon.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Dreams of a Dark Warrior

“If she know how strongly he felt, she'd have run out the door. He wasn't used to the possessive, or the savage joy she brought to his heart. It ate at his control, so he turned his attention to the music. He understood music.”

Patricia Briggs book Cry Wolf

Source: Cry Wolf

Music, Heart, Joy

“What life gives us, good or bad, we seldom deserve.”

William Kent Krueger (1950) author, novelist

Source: Iron Lake

Life