“But there were worse things than disappointment, and I'd lived through several of them already.”
― R.J. Anderson, quote from Ultraviolet
“I realized then that even though I was a tiny speck in an infinite cosmos, a blip on the timeline of eternity, I was not without purpose.”
― R.J. Anderson, quote from Ultraviolet
“I might not be ready to pour out my feelings to the world, but I’d had enough of trying to ignore them.”
― R.J. Anderson, quote from Ultraviolet
“What would happen if you stopped fighting, and gave yourself permission to feel? Not just the good things, but everything?”
― R.J. Anderson, quote from Ultraviolet
“Dark chocolate, poured over velvet: that was how his voice tasted. I wanted him to follow me around and narrate the rest of my life.”
― R.J. Anderson, quote from Ultraviolet
“I disliked numbers, and they didn't think much of me either.”
― R.J. Anderson, quote from Ultraviolet
“I heard the universe as an oratorio sung by a master choir of stars, accompanied by the orchestra of the planets and the percussion of satellites and moons. The aria they performed was a song to break the heart, full of tragic dissonance and deferred hope, and yet somewhere beneath it all was a piercing refrain of glory, glory, glory. And I sensed that not only the grand movements of the cosmos, but everything that had happened in my life, was a part of that song. Even the hurts that seemed most senseless, the mistakes I would have done anything to erase--nothing could make those things good, but good could still come out of them all the same, and in the end the oratorio would be no less beautiful for it.”
― R.J. Anderson, quote from Ultraviolet
“Every time you show your feelings, you apologize. Have you ever had an emotion in your life that you weren't ashamed of?”
― R.J. Anderson, quote from Ultraviolet
“Everybody has a story, Alison," he said. "Everybody has things they need to hide--sometimes even from themselves.”
― R.J. Anderson, quote from Ultraviolet
“I realized then that even though I was a tiny speck in an infinite cosmos, a blip on the timeline of eternity, I was not without purpose. And as long as I had a part in the music of the spheres, even if it was only a single grace note, I was not worthless. Nor was I alone.”
― R.J. Anderson, quote from Ultraviolet
“I caught Faraday's face between my hands and broke off the kiss, breathless.
"I've just thought of something," I said.
"Something we haven't tried."
"There's a lot of things we haven't tried," he said, "but I'm going to refrain from the obvious, and assume you're talking about the wormhole. What is it?”
― R.J. Anderson, quote from Ultraviolet
“I saw the whole universe laid out before me, a vast shining machine of indescribable beauty and complexity. Its design was too intricate for me to understand, and I knew I could never begin to grasp more than the smallest idea of its purpose. But I sensed that every part of it, from quark to quasar, was unique and - in some mysterious way - significant.”
― R.J. Anderson, quote from Ultraviolet
“So I pushed the bitterness down, into the black pit of my stomach along with my regret and my grief and my fear, and I said, "I'm fine. May i go now?”
― R.J. Anderson, quote from Ultraviolet
“So I couldn’t talk about the color of three, or whether triangles tasted better than circles, or how playing Bach on my keyboard made fireworks go off in my head, because people would think I was crazy.”
― R.J. Anderson, quote from Ultraviolet
“I sensed that not only the grand movements of the cosmos, but everything that had happened in my life, was a part of that song. Even the hurts that seemed most senseless, the mistakes I would have done anything to erase—nothing could make those things good, but good could still come out of them all the same, and in the end the oratorio would be no less beautiful for it.
I realized then that even though I was a tiny speck in an infinite cosmos, a blip on the timeline of eternity, I was not without purpose. And as long as I had a part in the music of the spheres, even if it was only a single grace note, I was not worthless. Nor was I alone.”
― R.J. Anderson, quote from Ultraviolet
“I'd finally reached the end of myself, all my self-reliance and denial and pride unraveling into nothingness, leaving only a blank Alison-shaped space behind. It was finished. I was done.
But just as I felt myself dissolving on the tide of my own self-condemnation, the dark waves receded, and I floated into a celestial calm.
I saw the whole universe laid out before me, a vast shining machine of indescribable beauty and complexity. Its design was too intricate for me to understand, and I knew I could never begin to grasp more than the smallest idea of its purpose. But I sensed that every part of it, from quark to quasar, was unique and - in some mysterious way - significant.
I heard the universe as an oratorio sung by a master choir of stars, accompanied by the orchestra of the planets and the percussion of satellites and moons. The aria they performed was a song to break the heart, full of tragic dissonance and deferred hope, and yet somewhere beneath it all was a peircing refrain of glory, glory, glory. And I sensed that not only the grand movements of the cosmos, but everything that had happened in my life, was a part of that song. Even the hurts that seemed most senseless, the mistakes I would have done anything to erase - nothing could make those things good, but good could still come out of them all the same, and in the end the oratorio would be no less beautiful for it.
I realized then that even though I was a tiny speck in an infinite cosmos, a blip on the timeline of eternity, I was not without purpose. And as long as I had a part in the music of the spheres, even if it was only a single grace not, I was not worthless. Nor was I alone.
God help me, I prayed as I gathered up my raw and weary sense, flung them into the wormhole -
And at last, found what I'd been looking for.”
― R.J. Anderson, quote from Ultraviolet
“I was six years old, watching my pregnant mother wash the dishes. Cutlery clinked, filling the air with sparkling bursts of colour.
'Do it again!' I begged her, bouncing in my seat.
My mother glanced back at me. 'Do what?'
'Make the stars.'
'Stars?'
It never occurred to me that she couldn't' see what I was seeing. 'The gold ones', I said.
'I don't know what you're talking about.' she replied, and with a child's impatience, I hopped down from my stool to show her.
'Like this,' I said, taking two spoons and clanging them together. Each clink produced another starburst expanding luminous through the air between us.
'You mean,' said my mother slowly, 'the sound makes you think of the stars?'
'No, it makes the stars..”
― R.J. Anderson, quote from Ultraviolet
“How are you doing?' 'I'm okay,' I replied, and it only made me feel a little queasy to say it. Maybe I was finally getting used to the taste of my own lies.”
― R.J. Anderson, quote from Ultraviolet
“I looked up, into the muddy hazel eyes of the nicest man I would ever learn to hate.”
― R.J. Anderson, quote from Ultraviolet
R.J. Anderson
Born place: in Kampala, Uganda
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“I enjoy working for my heat. I don't just press a button or twist a thermostat dial. I use the big crosscut saw and the axe, and while I'm getting my heat supply I'm working up an appetite that makes simple food just as appealing as anything a French chef could create.”
― quote from One Man's Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey
“Plantie is a very strong Protestant, that is to say, he's against all churches, especially the Protestant: and he thinks a lot of Buddha, Karma and Confucius. He is also a bit of an anarchist and three or four years ago he took up Einstein and vitamins.”
― Joyce Cary, quote from The Horse's Mouth
“Leatherbound books are an expensive form of wallpaper, and yet every English nobleman’s home seems to have had them. Their endless sets of the works of Cooper and Scott and Goethe, in finely tanned bindings with marbled endpapers, all end up with this sort of dealer sooner or later. I look through a set of Cooper and, without surprise, find uncut pages: these books were never actually read.”
― Paul Collins, quote from Sixpence House: Lost in a Town of Books
“Emmanuel Twinning, on the other hand, was gentle and very old, and made his own suits out of hospital blankets, and lived nearby with a horse.
Emmanuel and the skewbald had much in common, including the use of the kitchen, and one saw their grey heads, almost any evening, poking together out of the window. The old man himself, when seen alone, seemed to inhabit unearthly regions, so blue and remote that the girls used to sing:
O come, O come, E-mah-ah-ah-new-el!
An’ ransom captive Is-rah-ah-ah-el!…
At this he would nod and smile gently upon us, moving his lips to the hymn. He
was so very old, so far and strange, I never doubted that the hymn was his. He wore sky-blue blankets, and his name was Emmanuel; it was easy to think he was God.”
― Laurie Lee, quote from Cider With Rosie
“There was the blue sky above her and all those many roses, the ones that gave off the scent of cloves in the rain and the ones that left a trace of lemon on your fingers, the ones that were the color of blood, and those that were as white as clouds. Each one was sweeter than the next and as red as gemstones.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from The River King
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The Savage Detective...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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