“If you want something, you don't wait for the world to deal it out for you. You take it.”
― Poppy Z. Brite, quote from Lost Souls
“The sky is purple, the flare of a match behind a cupped hand is gold; the liquor is green, bright green, made from a thousand herbs, made from altars. Those who know enough to drink Chartreuse at Mardi Gras are lucky, because the distilled essence of the town burns in their bellies. Chartreuse glows in the dark, and if you drink enough of it, your eyes will turn bright green.”
― Poppy Z. Brite, quote from Lost Souls
“Stare at him," said Ghost. "They won't bite you if you keep staring at them."
Steve backed away. "They bite?"
Not really. They hiss at you, mostly. The only time geese are ever dangerous is when you happen to be standing on the edge of a cliff. I heard about a guy that almost got killed that way."
By geese?"
Yeah, there was a whole flock of them coming after him. All hissing and cackling and stabbing at his ankles with their big ol' beaks. He didn't know you had to stare them right in the eye, and he panicked. They backed him right over a fifty-foot cliff."
So how come he didn't die?"
This guy had wings," said Ghost. "He flew away.”
― Poppy Z. Brite, quote from Lost Souls
“Let the night come. We are not afraid.”
― Poppy Z. Brite, quote from Lost Souls
“No", said a voice from the dark doorway. A weary voice, a voice for speaking long after midnight, a voice to be used when all paths are blocked, when castles have fallen to ruins, when morning will not come again.”
― Poppy Z. Brite, quote from Lost Souls
“in until ten, not even on Mardi Gras nights. No one except the girl in the black silk dress, the thin little girl with the short, soft dark hair that fell in a curtain across her eyes. Christian always wanted to brush it away from her face, to feel it trickle through his fingers like rain. Tonight, as usual, she slipped in at nine-thirty and looked around for the friends who were never there. The wind blew the French Quarter in behind her, the night air rippling warm down Chartres Street as it slipped away toward the river, smelling of spice and fried oysters and whiskey and the dust of ancient bones stolen and violated.”
― Poppy Z. Brite, quote from Lost Souls
“The real difference between God and human beings, he thought, was that God cannot stand continuance. No sooner has he created a season of a year, or a time of the day, than he wishes for something quite different, and sweeps it all away. No sooner was one a young man, and happy at that, than the nature of things would rush one into marriage, martyrdom or old age. And human beings cleave to the existing state of things. All their lives they are striving to hold the moment fast....Their art itself is nothing but the attempt to catch by all means the one particular moment, one light, the momentary beauty of one woman or one flower, and make it everlasting.”
― Isak Dinesen, quote from Seven Gothic Tales
“Ako dopustite da vam jedna loša ocjena uništi život, onda ionako nemate budućnosti. Ako dopustite da jedna loša ocjena znači vašu propast, onda bi vas stvarni život ionako uništio. Stvarni život je mnogo teži od engleskog u srednjoj školi. A ako krivite svojeg učitelja engleskog i ako mislite da je on bio strog, onda vas čeka ružno iznenađenje kad uđete u stvarni svijet. Svijet izvan škole pun je ljudi koji su mnogo stroži, mnogo tvrđi i mnogo zahtjevniji od vašeg učitelja engleskog. Ponavljam: ako dopustite jednoj lošoj ocjeni i jednom učitelju engleskog da vam uništi život, onda ionako nemate budućnosti.”
― Robert T. Kiyosaki, quote from Rich Dad's Guide to Investing: What the Rich Invest in That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!
“Adjusting to a world that is continually inconsistent and untrustworthy is a major problem for the borderline. The borderline’s universe lacks pattern and predictability. Friends, jobs, and skills can never be relied upon. The borderline must keep testing and retesting all of these aspects of his life; he is in constant fear that a trusted person or situation will change into the total opposite—absolute betrayal. A hero becomes a devil; the perfect job becomes the bane of his existence. The borderline cannot conceive that individual or situational object constancy can endure. He has no laurels on which to rest. Every day he must begin anew trying desperately to prove to himself that the world can be trusted. Just because the sun has risen in the East for thousands of years does not mean it will happen today. He must see it for himself each and every day. CASE”
― Jerold J. Kreisman, quote from I Hate You, Don't Leave Me: Understanding the Borderline Personality
“A new force in pro football, Taylor demanded not just a tactical response but an explanation. Many people pointed to his unusual combination of size and speed. As one of the Redskins’ linemen put it, “No human being should be six four, two forty-five, and run a four-five forty.”
― Michael Lewis, quote from The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game
“As with a wound on one's own body, it is possible to develop an intimacy with the most disturbing of things”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, quote from A Pale View of Hills
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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