“I read books when I was a kid, lots of books. Books always seemed like magic to me. They took you to the most amazing places. When I got older, I realized I couldn’t find books that took me to all the places I wanted to go. To go to those places, I had to write some books myself.”
― Pat Murphy, quote from The Wild Girls
“I've learned to write the truth. But to do that, I had to figure out what the truth was-and I had to realize that the truth isn't always the same for everyone. I had to realize that my truth may not be the same as your truth.”
― Pat Murphy, quote from The Wild Girls
“Sometimes, you gotta believe something crazy. Because all the other things you could believe hurt too much.”
― Pat Murphy, quote from The Wild Girls
“You are afraid of us. You are afraid because you don't know what we might do.”
― Pat Murphy, quote from The Wild Girls
“I thought it was a really good story,' Cindy said. She was trying to make me feel better, I think. 'I liked the way it ended. When I was halfway through, I was thinking that maybe some handsome prince was going to show up and save the princess.'
'She didn't need a handsome prince,' I said. 'Those wild girls did just fine on their own.”
― Pat Murphy, quote from The Wild Girls
“Verla says that nobody thinks of himself as a villain. Even the nastiest person thinks that he is in the right.”
― Pat Murphy, quote from The Wild Girls
“I wasn't wearing war paint. But that didn't matter. I didn't need war paint. I was a different person than I had been, back then.”
― Pat Murphy, quote from The Wild Girls
“But when you write something down, you have to think it all the way through. Sometimes, I'm not even sure how I feel about something until I write a story about it. I figure it out while I'm writing the story.”
― Pat Murphy, quote from The Wild Girls
“We talked about each story for a while, and then Verla talked about heroes and villains. 'Nobody is all good or all bad,' she told us. 'The world is painted in shades of gray.”
― Pat Murphy, quote from The Wild Girls
Pat Murphy
Born place: in The United States
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“parasites make up the majority of species on Earth. According to one estimate, parasites may outnumber free-living species four to one. In other words, the study of life is, for the most part, parasitology. The book in your”
― Carl Zimmer, quote from Parasite Rex: Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's Most Dangerous Creatures
“We were not meant for this. We were meant to live and love and play and work and even hate more simply and directly. It is only through outrageous violence that we come to see this absurdity as normal, or to not see it at all. Each new child has his eyes torn out so he will not see, his ears removed so he will not hear, his tongue ripped out so he will not speak, his mind juiced so he will not think, and his nerves scraped so he will not feel. Then he is released into a world broken in two: others, like himself, and those to be used. He will never realize that he still has all of his senses, if only he will use them. If you mention to him that he still has ears, he will not hear you. If he hears, he will not think. Perhaps most dangerously of all, if he thinks he will not feel. And so on, again.”
― Derrick Jensen, quote from The Culture of Make Believe
“Secure bases are sources of protection, energy and comfort, allowing us to free our own energy,” George Kohlrieser told me. Kohlrieser, a psychologist and professor of leadership at the International Institute for Management Development in Switzerland, observes that having a secure base at work is crucial for high performance. Feeling secure, Kohlrieser argues, lets a person focus better on the work at hand, achieve goals, and see obstacles as challenges, not threats. Those who are anxious, in contrast, readily become preoccupied with the specter of failure, fearing that doing poorly will mean they will be rejected or abandoned (in this context, fired)—and so they play it safe. People who feel that their boss provides a secure base, Kohlrieser finds, are more free to explore, be playful, take risks, innovate, and take on new challenges. Another business benefit: if leaders establish such trust and safety, then when they give tough feedback, the person receiving it not only stays more open but sees benefit in getting even hard-to-take information. Like a parent, however, a leader should not protect employees from every tension or stress; resilience grows from a modicum of discomfort generated by necessary pressures at work. But since too much stress overwhelms, an astute leader acts as a secure base by lessening overwhelming pressures if possible—or at least not making them worse.”
― Daniel Goleman, quote from Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships
“Pour alcohol on a bundle of nerves and it generally turns into a can of worms.”
― Ross Macdonald, quote from The Chill
“Some of the more industrious ones were washing the windshields of cars that had been trapped by the red light. I used to see them from inside cars and think they brought it on themselves, and they probably did but now it didn't make a difference. I went over to the fire and warmed my hands with the group. I looked at their faces: idiots, criminals, retards, schizophrenics, paranoids, rejects, fuck-ups, broken-down failures. Alone, once children, never asked to be put on this earth, they ended up as jurors. Their lives were the verdict: the system, the man, something had failed.”
― Arthur Nersesian, quote from The Fuck-Up
Aflame
Antichrista
How to Be a Pirate
The Devil Tree
Sleep Tight
Nearly GoneBookQuoters 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.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
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