Literature Quotes

For the lovers of literature

[fromliterature]

You are never stronger...than when you land on the other side of despair.

White Teeth, Zadie Smith

[fromliterature]

Some people are uncomfortable with silences. Not me. I’ve never cared much for call and response. Sometimes I will think of something to say and then I ask myself: is it worth it? And it just isn’t.

No One Belongs Here More Than You, Miranda July

[fromliterature]

I learned not to trust people; I learned not to believe what they say but to watch what they do; I learned to suspect that anyone and everyone is capable of ‘living a lie’. I came to believe that other people — even when you think you know them well - are ultimately unknowable.

An Education, Lynn Barber

[fromliterature]

Love isn’t soft, like those poets say. Love has teeth which bite, and the wounds never close.

The Body, Stephen King

[fromliterature]

I do not want to be a person. I want to be unbearable.

Stanzas, Sexes, Seductions, Anne Carson

[fromliterature]

She imagines him imagining her. This is her salvation.

The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood 

[fromliterature]

She was desperate and she was choosy at the same time and, in a way, beautiful, but she didn’t have quite enough going for her to become what she imagined herself to be.

Factotum, Charles Bukowski

[fromliterature]

People like saying “life's short” a lot. The problem is, they don't really mean it. It actually is short, very short, but they don't believe in its shortness until the very end. Had they truly meant it, our world would have been a really different place. They would know what to do with their lives.

Ray N. Kuili, Eden Can Wait

[fromliterature]

“Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.”

The Lathe of Heaven, Ursula K. Le Guin

[fromliterature]

“What's terrible is to pretend that second-rate is first-rate. To pretend that you don't need love when you do; or you like your work when you know quite well you're capable of better.”

The Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing

[fromliterature]

“Happiness is an accident of nature, a beautiful and flawless aberration.”

The Lords of Discipline, Pat Conroy

[fromliterature]

There are no happy endings. Endings are the saddest part, So just give me a happy middle And a very happy start.

Every Thing on It, Shel Silverstein

[fromliterature]

“Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book.”

Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel, Jane Smiley

[fromliterature]

“Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.”

Confucius

[fromliterature]

Then she kissed him until the sky seemed to fade out and all her smiles and tears to vanish in an ecstasy of eternal seconds.

The Ice Palace, F. Scott Fitzgerald

[fromliterature]

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, J.K. Rowling

[fromliterature]

“I want to know what passion is. I want to feel something strongly.”

Brave New World, Aldous Huxley