Quotes about use
page 67

“He looked blank. “He’s the one who’s been doing the magic against us?”

“Duh,” I said.

“Doona be ‘duh’ing me, lass,” he growled, his burr thickening.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Faefever

“Christmas is a necessity. There has to be at least one day of the year to remind us that we're here for something else besides ourselves.”

Eric Sevareid (1912–1992) American journalist

Christmas, Christmas

“Many of us have made our world so familiar that we do not see it anymore. An interesting question to ask yourself at night is, What did I really see this day?”

John O'Donohue (1956–2008) Irish writer, priest and philosopher

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

World, Question, Night

“Our eyelashes brushed like they would weave together by themselves, turning us into one wild thing. I say, “I think I missed you before I met you even.”

Francesca Lia Block (1962) American children's writer

Thinking

“Or perhaps it is some combination of spirit and desire, love and hope, some alchemy that we each possess and can put to use, if we first know where to look without flinching.”

Libba Bray book Rebel Angels

Source: Rebel Angels

Love, Hope

“Maybe language is kind, giving us these double meanings. Maybe it's trying to teach us a lesson, that we can always be two things at once.”

David Levithan The Lover's Dictionary

Source: The Lover's Dictionary

“She didn't quite know what the relationship was between lunatics and the moon, but it must be a strong one, if they used a word like that to describe the insane.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: Veronika Decides to Die

Strong

“magic persists without us
no matter what we may do to try to spoil it”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: The Pleasures of the Damned

“The whole world is a series of miracles, but we're so used to them we call them ordinary things.”

Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) Danish author, fairy tale writer, and poet

World

“Sometimes people surprise us. People we believe we know.”

Joyce Carol Oates book The Falls

Source: The Falls

People

“Let us cry for the, by all means, if by doing so we learn how to avoid spilling any more. Let us cry for the, and remember how, and where, and why, we spilt it. Much wisdom is learnt through tears, but none by forgetting our lessons.”

María Amparo Ruiz de Burton (1832–1895) Mexican-American writer

Source: The Squatter and the Don

Wisdom, Tear, Learning, Cry

“Great," Percy said. "Seven of us against Hercules."

"And a satyr!" Hedge added. "We can take him.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

“Luna! Artemis! lovers' spats are icing on the cake! Your just showing off to us single people! -Minako”

Naoko Takeuchi (1967) Japanese manga artist

Source: Sailor Moon, #11

People, Lovers

“The purpose of poetry is to remind us / how difficult it is to remain just one person…”

Czeslaw Milosz (1911–2004) Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator

Personality

“Let us beware of common folk, common sense, sentiment, inspiration, and the obvious.”

Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) French poet

Sense

“Remember that any meal can be your last. You chose to travel with us, so tonight you will eat fish. Tomorrow, you may die.”

Robert Jordan The Dragon Reborn

Source: The Dragon Reborn

Travel, Fish

“Time punishes us by taking everything, but it also saves us — by taking everything.”

Sarah Manguso (1974) writer, poet

Source: Ongoingness: The End of a Diary

Time

“It’s really hard to do nothing totally. Even just sitting here, like this, our bodies are churning, our minds are chattering. There’s a whole commotion going on inside us.”

Jerry Spinelli book Stargirl

Source: Stargirl

“God has privileged us in Christ Jesus to live above the ordinary human plane of life. Those who want to be ordinary and live on a lower plane can do so, but as for me, I will not.”

Smith Wigglesworth (1859–1947) British evangelist

Life, God, Christ

“Certificates from top US universities adorned the walls like tiger head in a hunter’s home.”

Chetan Bhagat book 2 States: The Story of My Marriage

Source: 2 States: The Story of My Marriage

Home, Universe

“How do you forget something? You just walk away from it, those who are still alive. There are so few clearings in our hearts and minds, so few places where something can't grow on top of whatever happened to us before, and this is love too.”

Daniel Handler book Adverbs

Source: Adverbs

Love, Heart, Forgetting

“You Keep Using the Word Help. I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means”

Rick Riordan book The Hammer of Thor

Source: The Hammer of Thor

Thinking, Help

“All around the world, we are gazing skyward waiting for God…
Never realizing that God is waiting for us.”

Dan Brown (1964) American author

God, World, Waiting

“Death Makes Angels of us all.”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

Death, Angels

“How can we live without our lives? How will we know it’s us without our past?”

John Steinbeck book The Grapes of Wrath

Source: The Grapes of Wrath (1939)

Past

“Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly -- they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.”

Aldous Huxley book Brave New World

Source: Brave New World

Reading

“Its our actions that define us. What we choose. What we resist. What we're willing to die for.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

“Obstreperous, ‘huh,” said Tad. “I see you’ve been using that Big Word of the Day calendar I got you last Christmas.”

“That is irrefragable,” I told him solemnly.”

Patricia Briggs book Frost Burned

Source: Frost Burned

Christmas

“Clean, quick, and easy as lying. We know how it ends practically before it starts. That’s why stories appeal to us. They give us the clarity and simplicity our real lives lack.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind (2007), Chapter 45, “Interlude—Some Tavern Tale” (p. 333)

Lying

“The elevator to success is out of order. You'll have to use the stairs… one step at a time.”

Joe Girard (1928–2019) American salesman

Time, Success, For Team

“Creative work is more accurately a machine that digs down and finds stuff, emotional stuff that will someday be raw material that can be used to produce more stuff, stuff like itself - clay to be available for future use.”

David Byrne (1952) Scottish alternative rock musician and promoter of world music

Source: Bicycle Diaries

Future

“Our desires reveal us. They show us for who we really are.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

“If we will but let our God and Father work His will with us, there can be no limit to His enlargement of our existence”

George MacDonald (1824–1905) Scottish journalist, novelist

Source: Unspoken Sermons: Series I, II, III

God

“Doctor."" Gideon set one ankle on the opposite knee and settled back, creating a picture of unyielding decisiveness.
""The only way I'm keeping my hands off her is if I'm dead. Find another way to fix us.""”

Sylvia Day (1973) American writer

Chapter 3 pg 50
Source: Reflected in You

Way, Decision, Dead

“Folks, I don't trust children. They're here to replace us.”

Stephen Colbert (1964) American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor

Children, Funny

“It's because you're too scared to tell anyone who you really love. Love makes us liars.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

Love

“Magic, madam, is like wine and, if you are not used to it, it will make you drunk.”

Susanna Clarke book The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories

Source: The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories

Wine

“What were you going to do with it?” McCain asked.

"I just thought it might come in useful.”

"Were you planning to attack me?”

"No. But that’s a good idea.”

Anthony Horowitz book Crocodile Tears

Source: Crocodile Tears

Idea

“Men didn't respect beauty… they used it.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

Source: Montana Sky

Men, Beauty

“The stars are filming us for no one.”

Carol Ann Duffy (1955) British writer and professor of contemporary poetry

Star

“When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

Love, Hope, Relationship, Valentine's Day

“I merely feel emptyness. A hollow of dead brush where flowers use to bloom.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

Feeling, Flowers, Dead

“It's no use saying, "We are doing our best." You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

“…. he said it was interesting. He used the word 'textured'. He said 'smooth' is boring but 'textured' was interesting, and the scar meant that I was stronger than whatever had tried to hurt me.”

Jeannette Walls book The Glass Castle

Source: The Glass Castle

Hurt

“I buried a nickel under the porch when I was 8, she said, but one day my grandma died & they sold the house & I never got to go back for it.
A nickel used to mean something, I said.
She nodded. It still does, she said & then she started to cry.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Source: Story People: Selected Stories & Drawings of Brian Andreas

Grandma, Housing, Cry

“Our nemesis is time, against which we have a single ally, memory, and even it betrays us.”

Sam Tanenhaus (1955) American writer

Source: Literature Unbound

Memory, Time

“Love easily confuses us because it is always in flux between illusion and substance, between memory and wish, between contentment and need.”

Tom Robbins Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

Source: Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

Love, Memory, For Him, For Boyfriend

“stanchion, n.

I don't want to be the strong one, but I don't want to be the weak one either. Why does it feel like it's always one or the other? When we embrace, one of us is always holding the other a little tighter.”

David Levithan The Lover's Dictionary

Source: The Lover's Dictionary

Feeling, Strong

“Maybe crazy is just the word we use for feelings that will not be contained.”

Anna Quindlen (1952) journalist, Novelist

Source: Every Last One

Feeling

“Inanimate objects are harmless indeed, Mr. Mortmain. But one cannot always say the same of the men who use them.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: The Infernal Devices, Clockwork Angel (2010), p. 150, spoken by Henry

Men

“There are two occasions when the sacred beauty of Creation becomes dazzlingly apparent, and they occur together. One is when we feel our mortal insufficiency to the world, and the other is when we feel the world's mortal insufficiency to us.”

Marilynne Robinson Gilead

Source: Gilead

World, Beauty, Feeling

“Blessed be you, mighty matter, irresistible march of evolution, reality ever newborn; you who, by constantly shattering our mental categories, force us to go ever further and further in our pursuit of the truth.”

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

Source: Hymn of the Universe

Truth, Reality

“He could see Bonzo's anger growing hot. Hot anger was bad. Ender's anger was cold, and he could use it. Bonzo's was hot, and so it used him.”

Orson Scott Card book Ender's Game

Source: Ender's Game

Anger

“The true way to live is to enjoy every moment as it passes, and surely it is in the everyday things around us that the beauty of life lies.”

Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867–1957) American children's writer, diarist, and journalist

Source: Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farm Journalist: Writings from the Ozarks

Life, Beauty, Way

“You see? I know where every single book used to be in the library.' She pointed to the shelf opposite. 'Over there was, which was a hugely popular fishing book and one of a series, I believe.”

Jasper Fforde (1961) British novelist

Source: Shades of Grey

Books, Fish

“God wants us to live consistently, He wants us to enjoy every single day of our lives.”

Joel Osteen (1963) American televangelist and author

Source: Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential

God

“Books fall open, you fall in. When you climb out again, you're a bit larger than you used to be.”

Gregory Maguire (1954) Novelist

Books

“The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us.”

Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451

Source: Fahrenheit 451

Books, Universe

“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

Books, Thinking, Reading

“I'm just not having a very good time and I don't have any reason to think it'll get anything but worse. I'm tired. I'm hurt. I'm sad. I feel used.”

Marsha Norman 'night, Mother

Source: 'night, Mother

Sadness, Feeling, Thinking, Time

“Each of us has his own alphabet with which to create poetry.”

Irving Stone (1903–1989) American writer

“Everyone,” she continues, looking around at all of us, “has something to say. But not everyone can bear to say it. Your job is to find a way.”

Meg Wolitzer (1959) American writer

Source: Belzhar

Way

“When the sins of our fathers visit us
We do not have to play host.
We can banish them with forgiveness
As God, in his His Largeness and Laws.”

August Wilson Fences

Source: Fences

God, Law, Forgiveness

“Ranger locked eyes with me. "Please," he said.
Tank and Hal were goggle-eyed. They weren't used to "please." I wasn't used to it either. But I liked it.
Okay," I said. "Be careful. He's insane.”

Janet Evanovich (1943) Novelist

“Give us this day our daily mask.”

Tom Stoppard book Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Source: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

“Frankly, our ancestors don't seem much to brag about. I mean, look at the state they left us in, with the wars, the broken planet. Clearly, they didn't care about what would happen to the people who came after them.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

War, People

“But love has to be stronger than hate, or there is no future for us.”

Kristin Hannah book The Nightingale

Source: The Nightingale

Love, Hate, Future

“Patrick actually used to be popular before Sam bought him some good music.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Music

“Writers and artists build by hand little worlds that they hope might effect change in real minds, in the real world where stories are read. A story can make us cry and laugh, break our hearts, or make us angry enough to change the world.”

Grant Morrison (1960) writer

Source: Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human

World, Hope, Change, Reading

“Percy, lesser beings do many horrible things in the name of the gods. That does not mean we gods approve. The way our sons and daughters act in our names… well, it usually says more about THEM than it does about us.”

Rick Riordan book The Battle of the Labyrinth

Source: The Battle of the Labyrinth

God, Way, Daughters

“I love the relationship that anyone has with music… because there's something in us that is beyond the reach of words, something that eludes and defies our best attempts to spit it out…. It's the best part of us probably…”

Nick Hornby book Songbook

Source: Songbook

Love, Music, Parting

“The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.”

Rachel Carson (1907–1964) American marine biologist and conservationist

Speech accepting the John Burroughs Medal (April 1952); also in Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson (1999) edited by Linda Lear, p. 94
Context: Mankind has gone very far into an artificial world of his own creation. He has sought to insulate himself, in his cities of steel and concrete, from the realities of earth and water and the growing seed. Intoxicated with a sense of his own power, he seems to be going farther and farther into more experiments for the destruction of himself and his world.
There is certainly no single remedy for this condition and I am offering no panacea. But it seems reasonable to believe — and I do believe — that the more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us the less taste we shall have for the destruction of our race. Wonder and humility are wholesome emotions, and they do not exist side by side with a lust for destruction.

Reality, Universe

“If it's us", she whispered, "how come you get to decide?"

When he didn't answer - couldn't answer - she turned and stared out the front window. As it turned out, they were still in the parking lot.

They hadn't gotten anywhere at all.”

Jodi Picoult book The Tenth Circle

Source: The Tenth Circle

“i can win but you cant lose, this makes us all even in our ways.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

Way

“Run faster, jump higher, reach farther, and you'll always win!

live life expecting the worst, hoping for the best, and living for the future!

Somebody has to do something, and it's just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us.”

Jerry Garcia (1942–1995) American musician and member of the Grateful Dead

Life, Hope, Future

“I’ve learned that everything happens for a reason,” the yogi Krishnan told him. “Every event has a why and all adversity teaches us a lesson… Never regret your past. Accept it as the teacher that it is.”

Robin S. Sharma book The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari

Source: The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari

Learning, Teachers, Past

“… we shall board our imagined ship and wildly sail among sacred islands of the mad till death shatters the fabulous stars and makes us real.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: The Collected Poems

Death, Imagination, Star, Madness

“We are fated to love one another; we hardly exist outside our love, we are just animals without it, with a birth and a death and constant fear between. Our love has lifted us up, out of the dreadfulness of merely living.”

John Updike Brazil

Source: Brazil

Love, Death, Fate, Fear

“Every poem holds the unspeakable inside it. The unsayable… The thing that you can't really say because it's too complicated. It's too complex for us. Every poem has that silence deep in the center of it.”

Marie Howe (1950) American writer

Silence

“music isn't just something that comforts or distracts us, it goes beyond that - it's an ideology. you can judge people by the kind of music they listen to.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: The Witch Of Portobello

People, Music

“Do certain events in our lives leave a permanent mark, freezing a piece of us in time, and that becomes a touchstone that we measure the rest of our lives against?”

Mary E. Pearson book The Adoration of Jenna Fox

Source: The Adoration of Jenna Fox

Time

“You should stop and listen to yourselves sometimes. 'We're practically adults, let us run wild.' 'We're only kids, leave us alone.'… You can't have it both ways.”

Ally Carter (1974) American writer

Source: United We Spy

Way

“Hard times require furious dancing. Each of us is proof.”

Alice Walker (1944) American author and activist

Source: Hard Times Require Furious Dancing: New Poems

Time, Dance

“Mahon's wife stared down at us. Her hands went to her hips. "Which one of you idiots wants to explain to me what the hell is going on?"
With great effort I raised my arm and pointed in Mahon's general direction. "Him.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bleeds - Awake

Hell, Effort

“Aretmis gripped her bow. “Let us pray I am wrong.”
Can goddesses pray?”

Rick Riordan book The Titan's Curse

Source: The Titan's Curse

“Our lies reveal as much about us as our truths.”

J.M. Coetzee book Slow Man

Source: Slow Man (2004)

Truth

“When we are young, the words are scattered all around us. As they are assembled by experience, so also are we, sentence by sentence, until the story takes shape.”

Louise Erdrich (1954) writer from the United States

Source: The Plague of Doves

“It is not the literal past, the 'facts' of history, that shape us, but images of the past embodied in language.”

Brian Friel (1929–2015) Irish dramatist, author and theatre director

History, Past

“You cannot blame porn. When I was young, I used to masturbate to Gilligan's Island.”

Ron Jeremy (1953) Prolific American pornographic actor

“The truth is, the world isn't easy for any of us. It never has been and it never will be.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Best of Me

Source: The Best of Me

Truth, World

“I used to think the years would go by in order, that you get older one year at a time. But it's not like that. It happens overnight.”

Haruki Murakami book Dance Dance Dance

Source: Dance Dance Dance

Thinking, Time

“The key then to attaining this higher level of intelligence is to make our years of study qualitatively rich. We don't simply absorb information - we internalize it and make it our own by finding some way to put this knowledge to practical use.”

Robert Greene book Mastery

Source: Mastery

Way, Intelligence, Knowledge, Study

“What we see before us is just one tiny part of the world. We get in the habit of thinking, this is the world, but that's not true at all. The real world is a much darker and deeper place than this, and much of it is occupied by jellyfish and things.”

Haruki Murakami book The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Source: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

World, Thinking, Parting

“If we seek something, that same thing is seeking us.”

Paulo Coelho book Aleph

Source: Aleph

“There’s no use saying anything in the schoolyard because there’s always someone with an answer and there’s nothing you can do but punch them in the nose and if you were to punch everyone who has an answer you’d be punching morning noon and night.”

Frank McCourt book Angela's Ashes

Source: Angela's Ashes (1996)

Night

“We are not here concerned with hopes or fears, only with truth as far as our reason permits us to discover it.”

Charles Darwin book The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex

Source: The Descent of Man

Truth, Fear, Hope

“I begin with the young. We older ones are used up but my magnificent youngsters! Are there finer ones anywhere in the world? Look at all these men and boys! What material! With you and I, we can make a new world.”

Adolf Hitler book Hitler's Letters and Notes

Adolf Hitler c. 1933; as quoted in Hitler Speaks http://books.google.com/books?id=PndurCstDZMC&pg=PA251 (1939), by Hermann Rauschning, London: Thornton Butterworth, p. 247. <br class="br">Misattributed <br class="br">Source: Hitler's Letters and Notes <br class="br">Context: I am beginning with the young. We older ones are used up. Yes, we are old already. We are rotten to the marrow. We have no unrestrained instincts left. We are cowardly and sentimental. We are bearing the burden of a humiliating past, and have in our blood the dull recollection of serfdom and servility. But my magnificent youngsters! Are there finer ones anywhere in the world? Look at these young men and boys! What material! With them, I can make a new world.

Men, World, Boy