All Quotes

“I fear the line between myself and madness is as fine these days as a cobweb, and I have seen what it means when a soul crosses over into that dim and wretched place.”

-Year of Wonders, Geraldine Brooks

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“I fear the line between myself and madness is as fine these days as a cobweb, and I have seen what it means when a soul crosses over into that dim and wretched place.”

-Year Of Wonders, Geraldine Brooks

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“I never knew what it exactly means: 'to pray'. Although there has been a time that I knew all prayers, litanies and formulas of the catholic religion by heart. I quickly realised that, just the 'saying' of these texts wasn't 'praying', but that there had to be more to do with it, and I didn't know what. I stopped thinking about it. Millions of hale mary's I've recited, but not one did I 'pray'. 'Praying helps you get at ease,' my grandmother said. I get at ease by watching the flames in an open fire. That 'praying', just like staring into the flames, serves no purpose and leads to nothing, now is a part of my 'knowledge of life', a heritage of my years in the Tjideng prisoner camp.”

-Bezonken Rood, Jeroen Brouwers

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“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss
it you will land among the stars.”

-Les Brown

Recommended by Mandy.

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“It is a brave act to despise death; but where life is more terrible than death, it is then the truest valor to dare to live.”

-Sir Thomas Browne

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“I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you. I love you not only for what you have made of yourself, but for what you are making of me. I love you for the part of me that you bring out.”

-Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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“My business not to remake myself, but to make the absolute best of what God made.”

-Robert Browning

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“What in the midst lay but the Tower itself?
The round squat turret, blind as the fool's heart
Built of brown stone, without a counterpart
In the whole world.”

-The Dark Tower, Robert Browning

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“Destiny is not a matter of chance, but of choice, not something to wish for, but to attain.”

-William Jennings Bryan

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“They talk of short-lived pleasure - be it so -
pain dies as quickly: stern, hard-featured pain
Expires, and lets her weary prisoner go.
The fiercest agonies have shortest reign;
And after dreams of horror, comes again
The welcome morning with its rays of peace.”

-Mutation. A Sonne, William Cullen Bryant

Recommended by Mea Culpa.

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“To my mind, the only possibly pet is a cow. Cows love you. They are harmless, they look nice, they don't need a box to crap in, they keep the grass down, and they are so trusting and stupid that you can't help but lose your heart to them. Where I live in Yorkshire, there's a herd of cows down the lane. You can stand by the wall at any hour of the day or night, and after a minute the cows will all waddle over and stand with you, much too stupid to know what to do next, but happy just to be with you. They will stand there all day, as far as I can tell, possibly till the end of time. They will listen to your problems and never ask a thing in return. They will be your friends forever. And when you get tired of them, you can kill them and eat them. Perfect.”

-Neither Here Nor There, Travels in Europe, Bill Bryson

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“He is able who thinks he is able.”

-Buddha

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“Bottom line is, even if you see them coming, you're not ready for the big moments. No one asks for their life to change, not really. But it does. So, what are we, helpless? Puppets? Nah. The big moments are gonna come, you can't help that. It's what you do afterwards that counts. That's when you find out who you are.”

-Buffy the Vampire Slayer [television show]

Recommended by Heather.

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“It's a big rock. Can't wait to tell my friends. They don't have a rock this big.”

-Buffy the Vampire Slayer [television show]

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“The hardest thing in this world, is living in it.”

-Buffy the Vampire Slayer [television show]

Recommended by Suggested by Holly.

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“You're not friends. You'll never be friends. You'll be in love till it kills you both. You'll fight, and you'll shag, and you'll hate each other until it makes you quiver, but you'll never be friends. Love isn't brains, children, it's blood -- blood screaming inside you to work its will. I may be love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it.”

-Buffy the Vampire Slayer [television show]

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“sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think,
I'm not going to make it, but you laugh inside
remembering all the times you've felt that way.”

-gamblers all, Charles Bukowski

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“the history of melancholia
includes all of us.

me, I writhe in dirty sheets
while staring at blue walls
and nothing.

I have gotten so used to melancholia
that
I greet it like an old
friend.”

-Melancholia, Charles Bukowski

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“An intellectual is a man who says a simple thing in a difficult way; an artist is a man who says a difficult thing in a simple way.”

-Notes From a Dirty Old Man, Charles Bukowski

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“who put this brain inside of me?

it cries
it demands
it says that there is a chance.

it will not say
'no.'”

-The Crunch, Charles Bukowski

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“and the empty bottles like bled corpses
surrounded me with their uselessness”

-The Tragedy of the Leaves, Charles Bukowski

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“Human relationships didn't work anyhow. Only the first two weeks had any zing, then the participants lost their interest. Masks dropped away and real people began to appear: cranks, imbeciles, the demented, the vengeful, sadists, killers. Modern society had created its own kind and they feasted on each other. It was a duel to the death--in a cesspool.”

-Woman, Charles Bukowski

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“Women: I liked the colors of their clothing; the way they walked; the cruelty in some faces; now and then the almost pure beauty in another face, totally and enchantingly female. They had it over us: they planned much better and were better organized. While men were watching professional football or drinking beer or bowling, they, the women, were thinking about us, concentrating, studying, deciding--whether to accept us, discard us, exchange us, kill us or whether simply to leave us. In the end it hardly mattered; no matter what they did, we ended up lonely and insane.”

-Woman, Charles Bukowski

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“Pain is strange. A cat killing a bird, a car accident, a fire...Pain arrives, BANG, and there it is, it sits on you. It's real. And to anybody watching, you look foolish. Like you've suddenly become an idiot. There's no cure for it unless you know somebody who understands how you feel, and knows how to help.”

-Women, Charles Bukowski

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“Who the hell wants to be a healthy, organic whole when you can be a brilliant, injured, human fragment?”

-Sex and Sensibility, Julie Burchill

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