Quotes from Charlotte Sometimes

“Of course I'm not going to look through the keyhole. That's something only servants do. I'm going to hide in the bay window.”
― Penelope Farmer, quote from Charlotte Sometimes

“Where you some particular person because people recognized you as that?”
― Penelope Farmer, quote from Charlotte Sometimes

“And, she thought uncomfortably, what would happen if people did not recognize you? Would you know who you were yourself? If tomorrow they started to call her Vanessa or Janet or Elizabeth, would she know how to be, how to feel like, Charlotte? Were you some particular person only because people recognized you as that?”
― Penelope Farmer, quote from Charlotte Sometimes

“Charlotte was used to all the marks of war: the shabbiness of things, bad food, shop queues, posters about the war effort, people with worried faces, people dressed in black. She was used to seeing the wounded men from the hospital with their bright blue uniforms and bright red ties, the colours, she thought, if not the clothes of Arthur's soldiers. Such things did not disturb her, and the war seemed quite remote. But this disturbed her, the grotesque kind of circus that came now. It did not seem remote at all, nor did it fit with her vague ideas of war gained from those books of Arthur's she had read, with their flags and glory and brave drummer boys. How could you dare to become a soldier, knowing that you might end like this? There were men like clowns with white heads, white arms, white legs, men with crutches, slings, and bloodied bandages, and all so distressingly like men you would expect to see walking down the street, two armed, two legged, in hats instead of bandages and suits of black not battered khaki. Some came on stretchers borne by whole and ordinary men, some hobbled and leaned on whole ordinary arms. Most had mud dried thick across their clothes, and all came from the dark station's mouth with the spewings of trains behind, the clankings, thumpings, grindings, the sounds like great devils taking in breaths and blowing them out again.”
― Penelope Farmer, quote from Charlotte Sometimes

“Charlotte looked up doubtfully, wondering why, as she got older, she seemed to be more afraid of things, not less.”
― Penelope Farmer, quote from Charlotte Sometimes

“Even her footsteps did not seem to belong to her. The night seized and transformed them, just as it transformed the greenhouses they passed from useful places for growing things into cold night palaces.”
― Penelope Farmer, quote from Charlotte Sometimes

“But when she put her fingers into the water and pulled a marble out, it was small by comparison with those still in the glass, and unimportant, too. It was like the difference between what you long for and what you find--the difference, for instance, between Arthur's image of war and his experience of it. It was like other times, her own and Miss Agnes' proper childhood times that seemed so near to her memory and yet so far away. It was like everything that made you ache because in on sense it was so close and in another unobtainable.”
― Penelope Farmer, quote from Charlotte Sometimes

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“Land and sea.
We may think of them as opposites; as complements. But there is a difference in how we think of them; the sea, and the land.
If we are walking around in a forest, a meadow or a town, we see our surroundings as being made up of individual elements. There are many different kinds of trees in varying sizes, those buildings, these streets. The meadow, the flowers, the bushes. Our gaze lingers on details, and if we are standing in a forest in the autumn, we become tongue-tied if we try to describe the richness around us. All this exists on land.
But the sea. The sea is something completely different. The sea is one.
We may note the shifting moods of the sea. What the sea looks like when the wind is blowing, how the sea plays with the light, how it rises and falls. But still it is always the sea we are talking about. We have given different parts of the sea different names for navigation and identification, but if we are standing before the sea, there is only one whole. The Sea.
If we are taken so far out in a small boat that no land is visible in any direction, we may catch sight of the sea. It is not a pleasant experience. The sea is a god, an unseeing, unhearing deity that does not even know we exist. We mean less than a grain of sand on an elephant's back, and if the sea wants us, it will take us. That's just the way it is. The sea knows no limits, makes no concessions. It has given us everything and it can take everything away from us.
To other gods we send our prayer: Protect us from the sea.”
― John Ajvide Lindqvist, quote from Harbor

“Pišem zato što mi to spontano dolazi! Pišem zato što ne mogu da radim običan posao kao drugi. Pišem da bi se pisale knjige kao što ih ja pišem i da ih čitam. Pišem zato što se strašno ljutim na sve vas, na svakoga. Pišem zato što mi se mnogo dopada da po celi dan sedim i pišem. Pišem zato što mogu da se pomirim sa stvarnošću jedino ako je promenim. Pišem da čitav svet sazna kakav smo život živeli i živimo – ja, drugi, svi mi u Istanbulu, u Turskoj. Pišem zato što volim miris papira, pera, mastila. Pišem zato što više od svega verujem literaturi i umetnosti romana. Pišem zato što je to navika i strast. Pišem zato što se plašim da budem zaboravljen. Pišem zato što mi se sviđa slava i zanimanje koje to donosi. Pišem da bih ostao sâm. Pišem da bih možda razumeo zašto se toliko ljutim na sve vas i svakoga. Pišem zato što mi se sviđa da me čitaju. Pišem da bih najzad završio taj roman, ovaj tekst, tu stranicu koju sam jednom započeo. Pišem zato što to svi od mene očekuju. Pišem zato što detinjasto verujem u večnost biblioteka i to da će mi knjige stajati na policama. Pišem zato što je život, svet, sve oko nas toliko lepo i zadivljujuće da je to neverovatno. Pišem zato što je zabavno u reči pretočiti svu tu lepotu i bogatstvo života. Pišem ne da bih pričao priču, već da bih je stvorio.

Pišem da bih se oslobodio osećanja da postoji neko mesto u koje uvek treba ići i u koje nikako ne mogu da odem – kao u snu. Pišem zato što nikako ne mogu da budem srećan. Pišem da bih bio srećan.”
― Orhan Pamuk, quote from Other Colors: Essays and A Story

“Such strength behind these eyes, that your soul glows through. Blinding. Captivating. Torturing. You may be as stubborn as a mule on a cliff side but any man would find the true meaning of foolishness to ever forget these facts.”
― quote from The Triple Goddess

“You can't know the answer until you ask the question.”
― Jennifer E. Smith, quote from The Geography of You and Me

“Are you in love with him?”
I rolled my head on the plank to look at Wesley.
“I don’t think I know what being in love is yet. But this is different than anything I’ve ever felt.”
“What’s it feel like?”
“Remember when you thought I was jumping off to kill myself?”
He winced.
“It’s like that,” I said.
“But no one catches you. You’re just hanging over infinity.”
― Elliot Wake, quote from Unteachable

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