“Life is stronger than anything else, there is always a solution, and I will find it. I’m sure of that.”
― quote from The Only Girl in the World: A Memoir
“With every new reading, I’m gripped by the ending’s harsh lessons. ‘Don’t expect anything of him,’ it seems to be telling me. ‘Even if someday he realizes his own folly, he is dangerous and beyond redemption. Get out!”
― quote from The Only Girl in the World: A Memoir
“My true treasure is your presence, it is the rays of intelligence that you have poured into my heart.”
― quote from The Only Girl in the World: A Memoir
“The only sustenance that matters is the love in my dog’s eyes and the hope of meeting people who dare to truly live.”
― quote from The Only Girl in the World: A Memoir
“Great minds defend values—like justice in the case of Victor Hugo, and equality for Emile Zola.”
― quote from The Only Girl in the World: A Memoir
“the fight is about believing the unbelievable’, and who also believes that ‘life flows through everything’.”
― quote from The Only Girl in the World: A Memoir
“Playing chess with my father is torture. I have to sit very upright on the edge of my chair and respect the rules of impassivity while I consider my next move. I can feel myself dissolving under his stare. When I move a pawn he asks sarcastically, 'Have you really thought about what you're doing?' I panic and want to move the pawn back. He doesn't allow it: 'You've touched the piece, now you have to follow through. Think before you act. Think.”
― quote from The Only Girl in the World: A Memoir
“Hey, did you hear about Brad Miller?” he asked, already forgetting about the Lissie conversation. “He got his car taken away for getting another speeding ticket. Of course he tried to tell his parents it was a setup.”
Violet laughed. “Yeah, because the police have nothing better to do than to plan a sting operation targeting eleventh-grade idiots.” She was more than willing to go along with this diversion from conversations about Jay and his many admirers.
Jay laughed too, shaking his head. “You’re so cold-hearted,” he said to Violet, shoving her a little but playing along. “How’s he supposed to go cruising for unsuspecting freshmen and sophomores without a car? What willing girl is going to ride on the handlebars of his ten-speed?”
“I don’t see you driving anything but your mom’s car yet. At least he has a bike,” she said, turning on him now.
He pushed her again. “Hey!” he tried to defend himself. “I’m still saving! Not all of us are born with a silver spoon in our mouths.”
They were both laughing, hard now. The silver spoon joke had been used before, whenever one of them had something the other didn’t.
“Right!” Violet protested. “Have you seen my car?” This time she shoved him, and a full-scale war broke out on the couch.
“Poor little rich girl!” Jay accused, grabbing her arm and pulling her down.
She giggled and tried to give him the dreaded “dead leg” by hitting him with her knuckle in the thigh. But he was too strong, and what used to be a fairly even matchup was now more like an annihilation of Violet’s side.
“Oh, yeah. Weren’t you the one”—she gasped, still giggling and thrashing to break free from his suddenly way-too-strong grip on her, just as his hand was almost at the sensitive spot along the side of her rib cage—“who got to go to Hawaii . . .” She bucked beneath him, trying to knock him off her. “. . . for spring break . . . last . . .” And then he startled to tickle her while she was pinned beneath him, and her last word came out in a scream: “YEAR?!”
That was how her aunt and uncle found them.”
― Kimberly Derting, quote from The Body Finder
“It is the fate of most men who mingle with the world, and attain even the prime of life, to make many real friends, and lose them in the course of nature. It is the fate of all authors or chroniclers to create imaginary friends, and lose them in the course of art. Nor is this the full extent of their misfortunes; for they are required to furnish an account of them besides.”
― Charles Dickens, quote from The Pickwick Papers
“Couples tended to be of roughly equivalent personal attractiveness, though of course factors such as money often seemed to secure a partner of significantly better looks than oneself.”
― Robert Galbraith, quote from The Cuckoo's Calling
“Poetry and art and knowledge are sacred and pure.”
― George Eliot, quote from The Mill on the Floss
“It is lonely behind these boundaries. Some people-particularly those whom psychiatrists call schizoid-because of unpleasant, traumatizing experiences in childhood, perceive the world outside of themselves as unredeemably dangerous, hostile, confusing and unnurturing. Such people feel their boundaries to be protecting and comforting and find a sense of safety in their loneliness. But most of us feel our loneliness to be painful and yearn to escape from behind the walls of our individual identities to a condition in which we can be more unified with the world outside of ourselves. The experience of falling in love allows us this escapetemporarily. The essence of the phenomenon of falling in love is a sudden collapse of a section of an individual's ego boundaries, permitting one to merge his or her identity with that of another person. The sudden release of oneself from oneself, the explosive pouring out of oneself into the beloved, and the dramatic surcease of loneliness accompanying this collapse of ego boundaries is experienced by most of us as ecstatic. We and our beloved are one! Loneliness is no more!
In some respects (but certainly not in all) the act of falling in love is an act of regression. The experience of merging with the loved one has in it echoes from the time when we were merged with our mothers in infancy. Along with the merging we also reexperience the sense of omnipotence which we had to give up in our journey out of childhood. All things seem possible! United with our beloved we feel we can conquer all obstacles. We believe that the strength of our love will cause the forces of opposition to bow down in submission and melt away into the darkness. All problems will be overcome. The future will be all light. The unreality of these feelings when we have fallen in love is essentially the same as the unreality of the two-year-old who feels itself to be king of the family and the world with power unlimited.
Just as reality intrudes upon the two-year-old's fantasy of omnipotence so does reality intrude upon the fantastic unity of the couple who have fallen in love. Sooner or later, in response to the problems of daily living, individual will reasserts itself. He wants to have sex; she doesn't. She wants to go to the movies; he doesn't. He wants to put money in the bank; she wants a dishwasher. She wants to talk about her job; he wants to talk about his. She doesn't like his friends; he doesn't like hers. So both of them, in the privacy of their hearts, begin to come to the sickening realization that they are not one with the beloved, that the beloved has and will continue to have his or her own desires, tastes, prejudices and timing different from the other's. One by one, gradually or suddenly, the ego boundaries snap back into place; gradually or suddenly, they fall out of love. Once again they are two separate individuals. At this point they begin either to dissolve the ties of their relationship or to initiate the work of real loving.”
― M. Scott Peck, quote from The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth
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For the Time BeingBookQuoters 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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