“Sometimes we do not hear the Whisperer even at her loudest because she speaks in our own voice, the one we most often discount.”
― Diane Duane, quote from The Book of Night with Moon
“A legend can just as well be founded in the future as in the past."
"It's called a 'prophecy,'" Urruah said. "You may have heard of the concept.”
― Diane Duane, quote from The Book of Night with Moon
“There's no way that can be the river," Rhiow said.
"Rhi, the ceiling of Grand Central--" Saash said.
"It's backward," Rhiow snapped, "thank you very much, I know all about it."
"Is it?" Saash said. "Which direction are you coming at it from?"
Rhiow closed her mouth and thought about that.”
― Diane Duane, quote from The Book of Night with Moon
“We’re killing lots of dinosaurs though. The trains are helping.”
“The TRAINS are—“
“Only one derailed so far,” Urruah said cheerfully.”
― Diane Duane, quote from The Book of Night with Moon
“I will meet the cruel and the cowardly today, she thought, liars and the envious, the uncaring and unknowing: they will be all around. But their numbers and their carelessness do not mean I have to be like them. For my own part, I know my job; my commissions comes from Those Who Are.”
― Diane Duane, quote from The Book of Night with Moon
“There is something about that burning of all those letters that gives me pause: why should everything be made clear and be brought into the light? Why keep things, archive your intimacies? Why not let thirty years of shared conversation go spiraling in ash up into the air of Tunbridge Wells? Just because you have it does not mean you have to pass it on . Losing things can sometimes gain you a space in which to live.”
― Edmund de Waal, quote from The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Family's Century of Art and Loss
“Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He said, “Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”
― Laura Schroff, quote from An Invisible Thread: The True Story of an 11-Year-Old Panhandler, a Busy Sales Executive, and an Unlikely Meeting with Destiny
“I look at people in a different
perspective. I saw you differently. Shy
with a smart-ass mouth. Reserved, but you
know exactly how to cut loose. Girls like you
I have to watch out for. Girls like you are the
deadliest ones.”
― Shanora Williams, quote from Who He Is
“The system can be paralyzed in yet another way. Every feedback system needs a margin of “lag” or error. If we try to make a thermostat absolutely accurate–that is, if we bring the upper and lower limits of temperature very close together in an attempt to hold the temperature at a constant 70 degrees–the whole system will break down. For to the extent that the upper and lower limits coincide, the signals for switching off and switching on will coincide! If 70 degrees is both the lower and upper limit the “go” sign will also be the “stop” sign; “yes” will imply “no” and “no” will imply “yes.” Whereupon the mechanism will start “trembling,” going on and off, on and off, until it shakes itself to pieces. The system is too sensitive and shows symptoms which are startlingly like human anxiety. For when a human being is so self-conscious, so self-controlled that he cannot let go of himself, he dithers or wobbles between opposites. This is precisely what is meant in Zen by going round and round on “the wheel of birth-and-death,” for the Buddhist samsara is the prototype of all vicious circles. We saw that when the furnace responds too closely to the thermostat, it cannot go ahead without also trying to stop, or stop without also trying to go ahead. This is just what happens to the human being, to the mind, when the desire for certainty and security prompts identification between the mind and its own image of itself. It cannot let go of itself. It feels that it should not do what it is doing, and that it should do what it is not doing. It feels that it should not be what it is, and be what it isn’t. Furthermore, the effort to remain always “good” or “happy” is like trying to hold the thermostat to a constant 70 degrees by making the lower limit the same as the upper.”
― Alan W. Watts, quote from The Way of Zen
“Please don’t ask me to let you go. I can’t do it. I’m not strong enough to do it again.”
― Nashoda Rose, quote from Torn from You
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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