Quotes from A Woman of Independent Means

288 pages

Rating: (2.7K votes)


“Sometimes being a good mother gets in the way of being a good person.”
― quote from A Woman of Independent Means


“Life causes estrangement enough—why do we add to it out of misplaced pride?”
― quote from A Woman of Independent Means


“I know now one must plan one’s old age as surely as one plans any other stage of life. The tragedy of Cousin Josie’s life is that she never knew what she wanted at any age—only what she did not want. She never wanted to marry nor to pursue a career, and in life, unlike grammar, double negatives do not produce an affirmative.”
― quote from A Woman of Independent Means


“Would that we could soar forever beyond the reach of earth, away from the dangers that await us the moment we alight.”
― quote from A Woman of Independent Means


“Es irracional creer —e incluso querer, sin duda— que se puedan tener todas las experiencias de la vida con la misma persona. Somos mucho más complicados y muy capaces de ser leales de por vida a muchas personas distintas de cualquier edad y sexo. ¿Por qué se empeña la sociedad en restringir al hombre y a la mujer a una sola relación de esa clase para siempre? Espero no romper jamás una promesa que haya hecho, pero si en este momento estuviera libre y sin compromiso, nunca volvería a prometer dedicación exclusiva a nadie.”
― quote from A Woman of Independent Means



“La vejez tendría que ser la recompensa de una vida de mucho trabajo, pero no será más que un castigo si insistimos en seguir haciendo lo mismo de siempre, midiendo los logros del presente por el baremo de los del pasado y quedándonos cortos sin remedio.”
― quote from A Woman of Independent Means


“Algunas veces, ser buena madre está reñido con ser buena persona.”
― quote from A Woman of Independent Means


Popular quotes

“Él las detestaba y desconfiaba de ellas, pero era siempre un adversario caballeroso.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from His Last Bow


“It's easier to fake it. When you fake it for sixteen years, it becomes part of you, something you don't think about.”
― Alex Flinn, quote from Breathing Underwater


“I always thought eating was a ridiculous activity anyway. I'd get out of it myself if I could, though you've got to do it to stay alive, they tell me.”
― Margaret Atwood, quote from The Edible Woman


“This way," she said, veering toward the roof's edge. "Can you jump?"
"Oh, I can jump!"
"Then jump!
― Kenneth Oppel, quote from Skybreaker


“Some things you carry around inside you as though they were part of your blood and bones, and when that happens, there’s nothing you can do to forget

…But I had never been much of a believer. If anything, I believed that things got worse before they got better. I believed good people suffered... people who have faith were so lucky; you didn’t want to ruin it for them. You didn’t want to plant doubt where there was none. You had to treat suck individuals tenderly and hope that some of whatever they were feeling rubs off on you

Those who love you will love you forever, without questions or boundaries or the constraints of time. Daily life is real, unchanging as a well-built house. But houses burn; they catch fire in the middle of the night.

The night is like any other night of disaster, with every fact filtered through a veil of disbelief. The rational world has spun so completely out of its orbit, there is no way to chart or expect what might happen next

At that point, they were both convinced that love was a figment of other people’s imaginations, an illusion fashioned out of smoke and air that really didn’t exist

Fear, like heat, rises; it drifts up to the ceiling and when it falls down it pours out in a hot and horrible rain



True love, after all, could bind a man where he didn’t belong. It could wrap him in cords that were all but impossible to break

Fear is contagious. It doubles within minutes; it grows in places where there’s never been any doubt before

The past stays with a man, sticking to his heels like glue, invisible and heartbreaking and unavoidable, threaded to the future, just as surely as day is sewn to night

He looked at girls and saw only sweet little fuckboxes, there for him to use, no hearts involved, no souls, and, most assuredly no responsibilities.

Welcome to the real world. Herein is the place where no one can tell you whether or not you’ve done the right thing.

I could tell people anything I wanted to, and whatever I told them, that would be the truth as far as they were concerned. Whoever I said I was, well then, that’s who id be

The truths by which she has lived her life have evaporated, leaving her empty of everything except the faint blue static of her own skepticism. She has never been a person to question herself; now she questions everything

Something’s, are true no matter how hard you might try to bloc them out, and a lie is always a lie, no matter how prettily told

You were nothing more than a speck of dust, good-looking dust, but dust all the same

Some people needed saving

She doesn’t want to waste precious time with something as prosaic as sleep. Every second is a second that belongs to her; one she understands could well be her last

Why wait for anything when the world is so cockeyed and dangerous? Why sit and stare into the mirror, too fearful of what may come to pass to make a move?

At last she knows how it feels to take a chance when everything in the world is at stake, breathless and heedless and desperate for more

She’ll be imagining everything that’s out in front of them, road and cloud and sky, all the elements of a future, the sort you have to put together by hand, slowly and carefully until the world is yours once more”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from Blue Diary


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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

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