“People often ask me why my style is so simple. It is, in fact, deceptively simple, for no two sentences are alike. It is clarity that I am striving to attain, not simplicity.
Of course, some people want literature to be difficult and there are writers who like to make their readers toil and sweat. They hope to be taken more seriously that way. I have always tried to achieve a prose that is easy and conversational. And those who think this is simple should try it for themselves.”
“And when all the wars are done, a butterfly will still be beautiful.”
“Well, it often happens that people with good eyesight fail to see what is right in front of them.”
“Everyone says she’s mad.’
‘How do they know?’ I asked.
‘Because she’s different from other people, I suppose.’
‘Is that being mad?’
‘No. Not really, I suppose madness is not seeing things as others see them.”
“It’s easy to rob a greedy man, because he deserves to be robbed; it’s easy to rob a rich man, because he can afford to be robbed; but it’s difficult to rob a poor man, even one who really doesn’t care if he’s robbed”
“To the inhabitants of the pond, the pond was the world; and to the inhabitants of the world, the world was but a muddy pond.”
“It is supposed to be in very bad taste to discuss a person behind his back; and to discuss a dead person behind his back is most unfair, for he cannot even retaliate.”
“When the whistling-thrush released
A deep sweet secret on the trembling air;
Blackbird on the wing, bird of the forest shadows,
Black rose in the long ago summer,
This was your song:
It isn’t time that’s passing by,
It is you and I.”
“When I have sung my songs to you, I’ll sing no more,’ goes the old ballad. But for one faithful listener, Nelson Eddy is still singing.”
“There is skill in all things, even in making porridge. Dry bread at home is better than curried prawns abroad. Eating and drinking should not keep men from thinking. Better a small fish than an empty dish. Let not your tongue cut your throat. I”
“when all the wars are done, a butterfly will still be beautiful. Ruskin”
“Sunlight is bad,' he wheezes. 'It's the exact same stuff as breeds maggots in wounded soldiers' legs. And when there's no war on, it fades wallpaper.”
“If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until you can hardly bear to look at it.
A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts it will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.”
“There’s less violence in my world compared to yours,” she insisted. Spade sighed. “No, darling. There are only different reasons for it.”
“Being able to restrain my emotions isn’t a great victory—it’s the pitiful proof of lost love.”
“Love is the very essence of life. It is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Yet it is not found only at the end of the rainbow. Love is at the beginning also, and from it springs the beauty that arched across the sky on a stormy day. Love is the security for which children weep, the yearning of youth, the adhesive that binds marriage, and the lubricant that prevents devastating friction in the home; it is the peace of old age, the sunlight of hope shining through death. How rich are those who enjoy it in their associations with family, friends, and neighbors! Love, like faith, is a gift of God. It is also the most enduring and most powerful virtue.”
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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