“I know enough to know that no woman should ever marry a man who hated his mother.”
― Martha Gellhorn, quote from Selected Letters
“Citizenship is a tough occupation which obliges the citizen to make his own informed opinion and stand by it”
― Martha Gellhorn, quote from Selected Letters
“And this urge to run away from what I love is a sort of sadism I no longer pretend to understand.”
― Martha Gellhorn, quote from Selected Letters
“It is much harder to be lonely, when you have for a while stopped being lonely. I was used to having only myself, cold and hard as that is; I could live with it. And now I wait, for a voice, a face, a body, that is not going to be here, is not mine, does not in any case wait as I do, nor share this homesickness. […] How to explain that I taught myself to be tough and indifferent, because it mattered too much and learned not even to weep in my mind not to notice.”
― Martha Gellhorn, quote from Selected Letters
“I love you. Have a hell of a good time. I don’t really know what else is worth having.”
― Martha Gellhorn, quote from Selected Letters
“People do not yet realize (because the mind isn't built that way) what war can be. They fear it but surely they fear it the way children fear nightmares, dimly, without definite images in their heads of how it will all work out.”
― Martha Gellhorn, quote from Selected Letters
Martha Gellhorn
Born place: in St. Louis, Missouri, The United States
Born date November 8, 1908
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“What strange times we live in, when good must disguise itself in the tawdry rags of evil!”
― Amin Maalouf, quote from Balthasar's Odyssey
“Japan
Today I pass the time reading
a favorite haiku,
saying the few words over and over.
It feels like eating
the same small, perfect grape
again and again.
I walk through the house reciting it
and leave its letters falling
through the air of every room.
I stand by the big silence of the piano and say it.
I say it in front of a painting of the sea.
I tap out its rhythm on an empty shelf.
I listen to myself saying it,
then I say it without listening,
then I hear it without saying it.
And when the dog looks up at me,
I kneel down on the floor
and whisper it into each of his long white ears.
It’s the one about the one-ton
temple bell
with the moth sleeping on its surface,
and every time I say it, I feel the excruciating
pressure of the moth
on the surface of the iron bell.
When I say it at the window,
the bell is the world
and I am the moth resting there.
When I say it into the mirror,
I am the heavy bell
and the moth is life with its papery wings.
And later, when I say it to you in the dark,
you are the bell,
and I am the tongue of the bell, ringing you,
and the moth has flown
from its line
and moves like a hinge in the air above our bed.”
― Billy Collins, quote from Picnic, Lightning
“All natural disasters are comforting because they reaffirm our impotence, in which, otherwise, we might stop believing. At times it is strangely sedative to know the extent of your own powerlessness.”
― Erica Jong, quote from Fear of Flying
“Have ye been naughty or nice?”
“It might be fun to get a little naughty.”
― Kerrelyn Sparks, quote from All I Want for Christmas is a Vampire
“Now you can all have a wish -- the Moomin family first!"
Moominmamma hesitated a bit. "Should it be something you can see?" she asked, "or an idea? If you know what I mean, Mr. Hobgoblin?"
"Oh, yes!" said the Hobgoblin. "Things are easier of course, but it will work with an idea too."
"Then I want to wish that Moomintroll will stop missing Snufkin," said Moominmamma.
"Oh, dear!" said Moomintroll going pink, "I didn't know it was so obvious!"
But the Hobgoblin waved his cloak once, and immediately the sadness flew out of Moomintroll's heart. His longing just became an expectancy, and that felt much better.”
― Tove Jansson, quote from Finn Family Moomintroll
As You Like It
The Hundred-Year-Old...
Monsters of Men
Days of Blood & Star...
Captive in the Dark
Lord of MisruleBookQuoters 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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