Quotables @ Bookshelf

seribulan

"Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you've got to be kind."

— Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

LinguaFranca

The Darling Buds of MayWhat's the meaning of the phrase 'The darling buds of May'?

An appreciation of what is fresh and new.

What's the origin of the phrase 'The darling buds of May'?

The phrase refers to the opening buds that point toward the warm summer season ahead and to the freshness and exuberance of youth as it turns toward adult maturity. It probably refers not to the month of May directly but to the May tree (the Common Hawthorn) that flowers in England at that time of year.

Back to the phrase itself, best known these days as the title of H. E. Bates' story of idyllic country life, which has been made into a successful television series. Bates took the title from Shakespeare who coined it in his celebrated Sonnet 18.

Snack_Fruit

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.

– H.Jackson Brown Jr.,P.S. I Love You

Snack_Fruit

It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.

– Lewis Carroll,Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Snack_Fruit

"Forgiving isn't something you do for someone else. It's something you do for yourself. It's saying, 'You're not important enough to have a stranglehold on me.' It's saying, 'You don't get to trap me in the past. I am worthy of a future.'"

—Jodi Picoult,The Storyteller

LinguaFranca

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

blurp

“My father always says, to know a man, you must visit his library, for the contours of his mind have been shaped by the words on his bookshelf”
― Rehan Khan, A Tudor Turk

seribulan

      “Then you look at her and smile a smile your dissembling face will remember until the day you die. Baby, you say, baby, this is part of my novel.

This is how you lose her.”  
  ―      Junot Diaz,            This Is How You Lose Her   

dani-rox

“All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.”

- RICHARD ADAMS, Watership Down

dani-rox

dani-rox

"Perhaps she was glass. But glass is only brittle until it breaks. Then it’s sharp."

V.E. SCHWAB, Vengeful

dani-rox

“O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the marketplace." ~~Beatrice”

- WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Much Ado About Nothing

dani-rox

"Being brave doesn’t mean you aren’t scared. Being brave means that you are scared, really scared, badly scared, and you do the right thing anyway."

- NEIL GAIMAN, Coraline

dani-rox

"You have me. Until the last star in the galaxy dies, you have me."

- AMIE KAUFMAN, Illuminae

dani-rox

"Once, there was a girl who vowed she would save everyone in the world, but forgot herself."

- HOLLY BLACK, The Darkest Part of the Forest

dani-rox

"There are darknesses in life and there are lights, and you are one of the lights, the light of all lights."

- BRAM STOKER, Dracula

dani-rox

dani-rox

"We are expected to be pretty and well-dressed until we drop."

- Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth

dani-rox

"Some people turn sad awfully young. No special reason, it seems, but they seem almost to be born that way. They bruise easier, tire faster, cry quicker, remember longer and, as I say, get sadder younger than anyone else in the world. I know, for I’m one of them."

- Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

dani-rox

"She had mountains of unread books sitting in her rooms but didn’t feel like reading any of them."

- Sarah J. Maas, Crown of Midnight