“Scared is what you're feeling. Brave is what you're doing.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Room
“In the world I notice persons are nearly always stressed and have no time...I don't know how persons with jobs do the jobs and all the living as well...I guess the time gets spread very thin like butter all over the world, the roads and houses and playgrounds and stores, so there's only a little smear of time on each place, then everyone has to hurry on to the next bit.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Room
“People don't always want to be with people. It gets tiring.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Room
“If I was made of cake I'd eat myself before somebody else could.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Room
“Stories are a different kind of true.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Room
“When I was a little kid I thought like a little kid, but now I'm five I know everything”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Room
“Goodbye, Room." I wave up at Skylight. "Say goodbye," I tell Ma. "Goodbye, Room."
Ma says it but on mute.
I look back one more time. It's like a crater, a hole where something happened. Then we go out the door.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Room
“I've seen the world and I'm tired now.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Room
“I think buddy is man talk for sweetie.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Room
“Sometimes when persons say definitely it sounds actually less true.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Room
“People move around so much in the world, things get lost.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Room
“I think about Old Nick carrying me into the truck, I'm dizzy like I'm going to
fall down.
"Scared is what you're feeling," says Ma, "but brave is what you're doing."
"Huh?"
"Scaredybrave."
"Scave."
Word sandwiches always make her laugh but I wasn't being funny.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Room
“The world is always changing brightness and hotness and soundness, I never know how it's going to be the next minute.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Room
“[E]verywhere I'm looking at kids, adults mostly don't seem to like them, not even the parents do. They call the kids gorgeous and so cute, they make the kids do the thing all over again so they can take a photo, but they don't want to actually play with them, they'd rather drink coffee talking to other adults. Sometimes there's a small kid crying and the Ma of it doesn't even hear.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Room
“This is a bad story.”
“Sorry. I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have told you.”
“No, you should,” I say.
“But—”
“I don’t want there to be bad stories and me not know them.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Room
“I remember manners, that's when people are scared to make other persons mad.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Room
“When I tell her what I’m thinking and she tells me what she’s thinking, our each ideas jumping into the other’s head, like coulouring blue crayon on top of yellow that makes green.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Room
“It’s called mind over matter. If we don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” When a bit of me hurts, I always mind.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Room
“A lot of the world seems to repeat itself”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Room
“In the world I notice persons are nearly always stressed and have no time. Even Grandma often says that, but she and Steppa don't have jobs, so I don't know how persons with jobs do the jobs and all the living as well. In Room me and Ma had time for everything. I guess the time gets spread very thin like butter over all the world, the roads and houses and playgrounds and stores, so there's only a little smear of time on each place, then everyone has to hurry on to the next bit.
Also everywhere I'm looking at kids, adults mostly don't seem to like them, not even the parents do. They call the kids gorgeous and so cute, they make the kids do the thing all over again so they can take a photo, but they don't want to actually play with them, they'd rather drink coffee talking to other adults. Sometimes there's a small kid crying and the Ma of it doesn't even hear.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Room
“I look back one more time. It's like a crater, a hole where something happened.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Room
“Me and Ma have a deal, we're going to try everything one time so we know what we like.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Room
“There's not a thing wrong with you, you're right the whole way through.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Room
“Maybe I’m a human, but I’m a me-and-Ma as well.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Room
“When I was four I thought everything in TV was just TV, then I was five and Ma unlied about lots of it being pictures of real and Outside being totally real. Now I’m in Outside but it turns out lots of it isn’t real at all.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Room
“You know who you belong to, Jack?”
“Yeah.”
“Yourself.”
He’s wrong, actually, I belong to Ma.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Room
“Outside has everything. Whenever I think of a thing now like skis or fireworks or islands or elevators or yo-yos, I have to remember they're real, they're actually happening in Outside all together. It makes my head tired. And people too, firefighters teachers burglars babies saints soccer players and all sorts, they're all really in Outside. I'm not there, though, me and Ma, we're the only ones not there. Are we still real?”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Room
“Ma's still nodding. "You're the one who matters, though. Just you."
I shake my head till it's wobbling because there's no just me.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Room
Emma Donoghue
Born place: in Dublin, Ireland
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“Real isn't how you are made. It's a thing that happens to you. Sometimes it hurts, but when you are Real you don't mind being hurt. It doesn't happen all at once. You become. Once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand. Once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always.”
― quote from The Velveteen Rabbit
“Paul D did not answer because she didn't expect or want him to, but he did know what she meant. Listening to the doves in Alfred, Georgia, and having neither the right nor the permission to enjoy it because in that place mist, doves, sunlight, copper dirt, moon - everything belonged to the men who had the guns. Little men, some of them, big men too, each one of whom he could snap like a twig if he wanted to. Men who knew that their manhood lay in their guns and were not even embarrassed by the knowledge that without fox would laugh at them. And these "men" who made even vixen laugh could, if you let them, stop you from hearing doves or loving moonlight. So you protected yourself and loved small. Picked the tiniest stars out of the sky to own; lay down with head twisted in order to see the loved one over the rim of the trench before you slept. Stole shy glances at her between the trees at chain-up. Glass blades, salamanders, spiders, woodpeckers, beetles, a kingdom of ants. Anything bigger wouldn't do. A woman, a child, a brother - a big love like that would split you wide open in Alfred, Georgia. He knew exactly what she meant: to get to a place where you could love anything you chose - not to need permission for desire - well now, THAT was freedom.”
― Toni Morrison, quote from Beloved
“They don't have intelligence. They have what I call 'thintelligence.' They see the immediate situation. They think narrowly and they call it 'being focused.' They don't see the surround. They don't see the consequences.”
― Michael Crichton, quote from Jurassic Park
“Bruno: Why do you wear pajamas all day?
Shmuel: The soldiers. They took all our clothes away.
Bruno: My dad's a soldier, but not the sort that takes people's clothes away. ”
― John Boyne, quote from The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
“The doom of the Elves is to be immortal, to love the beauty of the world, to bring it to full flower with their gifts of delicacy and perfection, to last while it lasts, never leaving it even when ‘slain’, but returning – and yet, when the Followers come, to teach them, and make way for them, to ‘fade’ as the Followers grow and absorb the life from which both proceed. The Doom (or the Gift) of Men is mortality, freedom from the circles of the world.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, quote from The Silmarillion
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The Book of Joy: Las...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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