Elspeth Huxley · 281 pages
Rating: (4.6K votes)
“How much does one imagine, how much observe? One can no more separate those functions than divide light from air, or wetness from water.”
― Elspeth Huxley, quote from The Flame Trees of Thika: Memories of an African Childhood
“this was a moment of magic revealing to us all, for a few moments, a hidden world of grace and wonder beyond the one of which our eyes told us, a world that no words could delineate, as insubstanttial as a cloud, as iridescent as a dragon-fly and as innocent as the heart of a rose.”
― Elspeth Huxley, quote from The Flame Trees of Thika: Memories of an African Childhood
“Tilly was downcast; as with all perfectionists, it was the detail others might not notice that destroyed for her the pleasure of achievement.”
― Elspeth Huxley, quote from The Flame Trees of Thika: Memories of an African Childhood
“The best way to find out things, if you come to think of it, is not to ask questions at all. If you fire off a question, it is like firing off a gun; bang it goes, and everything takes flight and runs for shelter. But if you sit quite still and pretend not to be looking, all the little facts will come and peck round your feet, situations will venture forth from thickets and intentions will creep out and sun themselves on a stone; and if you are very patient, you will see and understand a great deal more than a man with a gun.”
― Elspeth Huxley, quote from The Flame Trees of Thika: Memories of an African Childhood
“...that's the way to tell a true story from a made-up one. A made-up story always has a neat and tidy end. But true stories don't end, at least until their heroes and heroines die, and not then really because the things they did and didn't do, sometimes live on.”
― Elspeth Huxley, quote from The Flame Trees of Thika: Memories of an African Childhood
“What sorts of sin?"
Any sort. When other people commit them, you are startled, but when you commit them yourself, they seem absolutely natural.”
― Elspeth Huxley, quote from The Flame Trees of Thika: Memories of an African Childhood
“...when the present stung her, she sought her antidote in the future, which was as sure to hold achievement as the dying flower to hold the fruit when its petals wither.”
― Elspeth Huxley, quote from The Flame Trees of Thika: Memories of an African Childhood
Elspeth Huxley
Born place: in London, The United Kingdom
Born date July 23, 1907
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“But, ah, the energy we spend hiding from one another, afraid as we are of being identified.”
― Truman Capote, quote from The Grass Harp, Including A Tree of Night and Other Stories
“What was the point of hide-and-seek if you weren’t allowed to dig pit traps or attack your opponents from behind?”
― Seanan McGuire, quote from Discount Armageddon
“I loved him not, yet I did not hate Him. I listened to Him not to hear His words but rather he sound of His voice; for His voice pleased me. All that He said was vague to my mind, but the music thereof was clear to my ear. Indeed were it not for what others have said to me of His teaching, I should not have known even so much as whether He was with Judea or against it.”
― Kahlil Gibran, quote from Jesus the Son of Man
“I have tried to live my life by: I cannot control others. I can only control myself and my reactions to others. And when all else fails, I choose kindness. I show compassion. Then, if I have made poor choices, I have at least not damaged my spirit.”
― P.C. Cast, quote from Redeemed
“Ma quando si trovò a festeggiare il compimento del terzo giorno con un panino duro accompagnato da un piatto di muffa, e si rese conto che gli mancavano centodiciassette giorni da passare a quel modo, capì che non si vive soltanto di aria, acqua, calore, luce, cibo e consapevolezza del tempo.
Ma insomma, cos’aveva da lamentarsi? Cosa voleva ancora? Di cosa si vive, oltre che di tutte queste cose?
Si vive degli altri.
Questa fu la sua conclusione.”
― Timothée de Fombelle, quote from Toby Alone
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Midnight's Children
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