Mass Quotes #13
May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.
- Neil Gaiman
“Saying ‘I notice you’re a nerd’ is like saying, ‘Hey, I notice that you’d rather be intelligent than be stupid, that you’d rather be thoughtful than be vapid, that you believe that there are things that matter more than the arrest record of Lindsay Lohan. Why is that?’ In fact, it seems to me that most contemporary insults are pretty lame. Even ‘lame’ is kind of lame. Saying ‘You’re lame’ is like saying ‘You walk with a limp.’ Yeah, whatever, so does 50 Cent, and he’s done all right for himself.”
- John Green
I try to live life so that I can live with myself.
- John Green
Here’s to all the places we went. And all the places we’ll go. And here’s to me, whispering again and again and again and again: iloveyou.
- John Green, Looking for Alaska
“Influenced by my hopeless romantic and super sensitive mindset, I pay far too much attention to the little things in life and in the relationship between two people. In constant need of reassurance, explanation, closure, and attention, my paintings are made.”
- Kurt Halsey
By the time Lionel was six, he knew what he wanted to be.
John Wayne.
Not the actor, but the character. Not the man, but the hero. The John Wayne who cleaned up cattle towns and made them safe for decent folk. The John Wayne who shot guns out of the hands of outlaws. The John Wayne who saved stagecoaches and wagon trains from Indian attacks.
When Lionel told his father he wanted to be John Wayne, his father said it might be a good idea, but that he should keep his options open.
- Thomas King, Green Grass, Running Water
In the end all that’s left is the beating of my heart, the in and out of my breath. Of Sarah’s. Tayshawn’s. The rest of us who are left behind.
We still tick. We still tock.
It hurts.
- Justine Larbalestier, LIAR
Among my most prized possessions are words that I have never spoken.
– Orson Scott Card
But who needs love when there’s Law and Order?
And who needs love when there’s Southern Comfort?
And who needs love when the sandwiches are wicked
and they know you at the Mac store?
- Amanda Palmer, Leeds United
Give in to love or live in fear. No other path, no other way. No day but today.
- Jonathan Larson, Rent
Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible.
- Carl Jung
Life can sometimes suck. Like, a lot. People will break your trust. Secrets will fly and everyone will turn on each other. But you’ll keep going. Life doesn’t stop because it’s especially sucky. Such is the way of the world. Also: There are some friends who are abso-bloody-lutely wonderful. Keep a hold of them.
- Casye Davidson
“When you’re a kid you assume your parents are soulmates. My kids are going to be right about that.”
- Pam Beesly, The Office
But don’t forget who you really are. And I’m not talking about your so-called real name. All names are made up by someone else, even the one your parents gave you. You know who you really are. when you’re alone at night, looking up at the stars, or maybe lying in your bed in total darkness, you know that nameless person inside you… Your muscles with toughen. So will your heart and soul. That’s necessary for survival. But don’t lose touch with that person deep inside you, or else you won’t really have survived at all.
- Louis Sachar
“I’ve kissed a guy… I’ve kissed guys. I just haven’t felt that thing… that thing… That moment when you kiss someone and everything around you becomes hazy, and the only thing in focus is you and this person. And you realize that that person is the only person you’re supposed to kiss for the rest of your life. And for one moment you get this amazing gift. and you wanna laugh and you wanna cry, cause you feel so lucky that you’ve found it, and so scared that it’ll go away all at the same time.”
- Drew Berrymore, “Never Been Kissed”
You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You’re on your own.
And you know what you know.
And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go.
- Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You’ll Go!
“I’ve lost everything: my job, my future, everything people think is important, but I don’t care – because even if I have to dig ditches for the rest of my life, I shall be a ditch-digger who once had a wonderful day.”
- Cornelius Hackl, Hello Dolly
“Smile, it enhances your face value”
- Dolly Parton in Steel Magnolias
Have you ever thought about what protects our hearts? Just a cage of rib bones and other various parts. So it’s fairly simple to cut right through the mess and to stop the muscle that makes us confess. We are so fragile, and our cracking bones make noise. And we are just breakable, breakable, breakable girls and boys.
- Ingrid Michaelson, Breakable
I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I’m awake, you know?
- Ernest Hemingway
The world is ours, ours for the taking.
Yes there’s scars, but nothing that a little love won’t heal.
- Seabird, Trust
I know you’ve been afraid,
that’s why you stay awake all night and sleep through the day.
Hoping to find a hand you can hold, before you grow up and grow old.
- Seabird, This Ain’t Home
Mass Quotes #4
Today’s my last day of summer school, so hopefully I’ll be able to update this more often again. The good thing about summer school though is that I read a ton of amazing books for my children’s literature class, so I’ve got lots of new quotes for you. I’m waiting to take my children’s lit exam right now actually, so I don’t know how many I can post at the moment, but let’s find out.
“And even if you carry a survival kit around with you at all times, it won’t guarantee you’ll survive. No kit in the world can protect you from all the possible bad things.”
-Susan Patron, The Higher Power of Lucky
“The world is a wonderful place when you’re young.”
-Goose, E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web
“I don’t think it’s normal. You know perfectly well animals don’t talk.”
Mr. Arable grinned. “Maybe our ears aren’t as sharp as Fern’s,” he said.
-E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web
Time can play all sorts of tricks on you. In the blink of an eye, babies appear in carriages, coffins disappear into the ground, wars are won and lost, and children transform, like butterflies, into adults.
-Brian Selznick, The Invention of Hugo Cabret
Something was happening — no one was sure what. But out there back of beyond, far past the coastal ranges and the leagues of forest, the land changed and began opening to the sky.
-John Madson, Where the Sky Began
“Stand up and walk. Keep going forward. At least you have strong legs to take you there.”
-Ed, Hiromu Arakawa, Fullmetal Alchemist Vol 1
“But you will be faced now,” she explained gently, “with a pain of a magnitude that none of us here can comprehend because it is beyond our experience. The Receiver himself was not able to describe it, only to remind us that you would be faced with it, that you would need immense courage. We cannot prepare you for that.
“But we feel certain that you are brave,” she said to him.
-Lois Lowry, The Giver
Rules and Things Number 83: If an adult tells you not to worry, and you weren’t worried before, you better hurry up and start ’cause you’re already running late.
-Christopher Paul Curtis, Bud, Not Buddy
“But Grandmamma,” I said, “if nobody has ever seen The Grand High Witch, how can you be so sure she exists?”
My grandmother gave me a long and very severe look. “Nobody has ever seen the Devil,” she said,” but we know he exists.”
-Roald Dahl, The Witches
I found myself thinking, What’s so wonderful about being a little boy anyway? Why is that necessarily any better than being a mouse? I know that mice get hunted and they sometimes get poisoned or caught in traps. But little boys sometimes get killed, too. Little boys can be run over by motor-cars or they can die of some awful illness. Little boys have to go to school. Mice don’t. Mice don’t have to pass exams. Mice don’t have to worry about money. Mice, as far as I can see, have only two enemies, humans and cats. My grandmother is a human, but I know for certain she will always love me whoever I am. And she never, thank goodness, keeps a cat. When mice grow up, they don’t ever have to go to war and fight against other mice. Mice, I felt pretty certain, all like each other. People don’t.
-Roald Dahl, The Witches
If you’re looking for good reads this summer I highly recommend all of these (except for Where the Sky Began, that’s a boring book about the prairie I had to read for Eco). I’m having trouble deciding if my new favorite children’s book is The Witches, if it’s The Higher Power of Lucky, or if it will continue to be Through the Looking Glass. Probably Looking Glass, but the other two are definitely vying for second place.
