“sometimes I feel like everyone else is carrying a bucket of water but I’m trying to carry an ocean. its very hard. sometimes I would rather not carry my ocean, even if it meant I couldn’t be alive.”
― Heidi Cullinan, quote from Carry the Ocean
“Depression is having a crowd of dementors live in your head twenty-four/seven.”
― Heidi Cullinan, quote from Carry the Ocean
“Frankly, I’m awesome, and anybody who doesn’t agree should get out of my way.”
― Heidi Cullinan, quote from Carry the Ocean
“I am normal. I belong. I have a friend who can kick ass from a wheelchair. I live independently and get good grades. I'm an excellent lover.
Like I said. I'm awesome. I'm Emmet David Washington. Train Man. The best autistic Blues Brother on the block.”
― Heidi Cullinan, quote from Carry the Ocean
“Sometimes I liked him for his smile. Sometimes I liked him because he didn’t smile. Sometimes I got an erection because of the way he brushed his hair away from his face. It didn’t matter to my brain that these were odd reasons to care for someone. My brain, my body, my everything wanted to be Jeremey’s boyfriend.”
― Heidi Cullinan, quote from Carry the Ocean
“No one is normal. Normal is a lie.”
― Heidi Cullinan, quote from Carry the Ocean
“That's my ocean. I have to pretend as best I can to be like people on the mean so people don't call me a robot. I'm not a robot. I'm real and I have feelings the same as everyone else. And I want a boyfriend. Except my ocean doesn't make me want to be dead. It makes me want to fight. I want you to fight too, Jeremey. I want us to carry our oceans together.”
― Heidi Cullinan, quote from Carry the Ocean
“I really am Super Emmet, and like the comic book Superman, I have a powerful secret weapon. My mom.”
― Heidi Cullinan, quote from Carry the Ocean
“my emotions feel loud and big. its hard for me to keep hold of them. they weigh me down. make me heavy and tired and overwhelmed. sometimes I feel like everyone else is carrying a bucket of water but I’m trying to carry an ocean. its very hard. sometimes I would rather not carry my ocean, even if it meant I couldn’t be alive.”
― Heidi Cullinan, quote from Carry the Ocean
“Remember having a panic attack isn’t a failure, and not having one isn’t a success. Success is not letting the attacks run your life”
― Heidi Cullinan, quote from Carry the Ocean
“It’s like Elwood Blues says: everybody needs somebody to love. I’m an everybody. I get a somebody.”
― Heidi Cullinan, quote from Carry the Ocean
“I don’t think people understand about suicidal thoughts. They act as if everyone who makes an attempt is looking for attention.”
― Heidi Cullinan, quote from Carry the Ocean
“People are good medicine, but they can’t be your foundation of functionality. You must build that yourself.”
― Heidi Cullinan, quote from Carry the Ocean
“There is no normal, not really. Not a right and a wrong way to be. But there is belonging. That day in Bohemia with Jeremey and David and the girls, I belonged. I belonged as much as anybody on the mean. Maybe even a little bit more.”
― Heidi Cullinan, quote from Carry the Ocean
“There is no normal. There is not an invisible bar you must meet to be acceptable to society.”
― Heidi Cullinan, quote from Carry the Ocean
“I can't live in the dorms and I can't stop people from calling me a freak, but I can always solve for X.”
― Heidi Cullinan, quote from Carry the Ocean
“Mental illness is no different than a heart condition. In the same way a faulty valve can cause harm to the body and require medication and care, so does a malfunctioning brain. Insanity is a crude, culturally loaded term setting the sufferer apart in a way which will not aid the patient’s recovery. The way we regard those whose brains hinder them with fault or injury is a prejudice, not a diagnosis.” Dr. North”
― Heidi Cullinan, quote from Carry the Ocean
“My anger and sadness was my ocean, and I couldn’t carry it. Not anymore. No one could really love me. Not when they could love somebody else instead.”
― Heidi Cullinan, quote from Carry the Ocean
“When you have an invisible disease, your sickness isn’t your biggest problem. What you end up battling more than anything else, every single day, is other people.”
― Heidi Cullinan, quote from Carry the Ocean
“Mrs. Samson is a bitch, Mom.”
― Heidi Cullinan, quote from Carry the Ocean
“Nothing in the world is the same as anything else, so how can anyone be normal?”
― Heidi Cullinan, quote from Carry the Ocean
“it’s okay to go slow. That everybody else’s pace and definition of success isn’t mine. What is easy for other people isn’t necessarily so for me. Though some things are easy for me and hard for other people.”
― Heidi Cullinan, quote from Carry the Ocean
“There is no normal, not really. Not a right and a wrong way to be. But there is belonging.”
― Heidi Cullinan, quote from Carry the Ocean
“Mom, stop. I have a boyfriend. Jeremey. Why do you think I’ve been hanging out with him so much? But I can’t talk about that right now. He’s upset. I have to fix it.”
― Heidi Cullinan, quote from Carry the Ocean
“Everything will change, if you wait long enough.”
― Heidi Cullinan, quote from Carry the Ocean
“Time is… too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love… time is eternity. Henry van Dyke.”
― Natalie Ward, quote from Losing Me Finding You
“It was my mother, my frequent co-conspirator in the kitchen and my conduit to our past, who suggested the means to convey this epic disjunction, this unruly collision of collectivist myths and personal antimyths. We would reconstruct every decade of Soviet history - from the prequel 1910s to the postscript present day - through the prism of food. Together, we'd embark on a yearlong journey unlike any other: eating and cooking our way through decade after decade of Soviet life, using her kitchen and dining room as a time machine and an incubator of memories. Memories of wartime rationing cards and grotesque shared kitchens in communal apartments. Of Lenin's bloody grain requisitioning and Stalin's table manners. Of Khrushchev's kitchen debates and Gorbachev's disastrous antialcohol policies. Of food as the focal point of our everyday lives, and - despite all the deprivations and shortages - of compulsive hospitality and poignant, improbable feasts.”
― Anya von Bremzen, quote from Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking: A Memoir of Food and Longing
“في المدرسة حذرتموني: احترس بكلامك! فلما أخبرتكم أن معلمي صديقي، همستم: لعله عين عليك! ولما سمعت حكاية الطنطورة فلعنتهم، همستم في أذني: احترس بكلامك!
فلما لعنوني:
احترس بكلامك!
وحين اجتمعت بأقراني، لنعلن إضرابا، قالوا لي، هم أيضا:
احترس بكلامك!
وفي الصباح قلتِ لي، يا أماه: إنك تتكلم في منامك، فاحترس بكلامك في منامك!.. وكنت أدندن في الحمام، فصاح بي أبي: غير هذا اللحن. إن للجدران آذانا، فاحترس بكلامك!
أريد ألا أحترس بكلامي، مرة واحدة!
كنت أختنق!
ضيق هذا الكهف يا أمّاه، لكنه أرحب من حياتكم!
مسدود هذا الكهف يا أماه، ولكنه منفذ!”
― quote from The Secret Life of Saeed: The Pessoptimist
“Making money and doing good in the world are not mutually exclusive.”
― Arianna Huffington, quote from Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder
“Sir, winning is usually a matter of making one less mistake than the enemy or just getting up one more time than you get knocked down.”
― Jack Campbell, quote from Valiant
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.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.