You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintery light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen. When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person died for no reason.
Submitted on Friday, March 5, 2010 - 06:54 — GabrielleWho Said It?:Ernest HemingwaySource:A Moveable Feast
Link to full quote: Quote #2498 from A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway.
…A girl came in the café and sat by herself at a table near the window. She was very pretty with a face as fresh as a newly minted coin if they minted coins in smooth flesh with rain-freshened skin, and her hair was black as a crow’s wing and cut sharply and diagonally across her cheek.
I looked at her and she disturbed me and made me very excited. I wished I could put her in the story, or anywhere but she had placed herself so she could watch the street and the entry and I knew she was waiting for someone. So I went on writing.
The story was writing itself and I was having a hard time keeping up with it. I ordered another Rum St James and I watched the girl whenever I looked up, or when I sharpened the pencil with a pencil-sharpener with the shavings curling into a saucer under my drink.
I’ve seen you, beauty, and you belong to me now, whoever you are waiting for and if I never see you again, I thought. You belong to me and all Paris belongs to me and I belong to this notebook and this pencil.
Submitted on Saturday, December 26, 2009 - 16:43 — GabrielleWho Said It?:Ernest HemingwaySource:A Moveable Feast
Link to full quote: Quote #2426 from A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway.
Love is just another dirty lie. I know about love. Love always hangs up behind the bathroom door. It smells like Lysol. To hell with love.
Submitted on Friday, December 25, 2009 - 19:37 — GabrielleWho Said It?:Ernest HemingwaySource:To Have and Have Not
Link to full quote: Quote #2425 from To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway.
Discomfort is worse than a wound. At least you know where you are with blood. At least other people can see it.
Submitted on Friday, December 25, 2009 - 19:25 — GabrielleWho Said It?:Emma ForrestSource:Thin Skin
Link to full quote: Quote #2424 from Thin Skin by Emma Forrest.
My thoughts are messy, my emotions are messy, my body goes in and out at will. The raised white scars on my arms and legs are the only aspect of my being that comes close to minimalism. They came from chaos, but it is hard to carve frustration and unease into the flesh. Only straight lines.
Submitted on Friday, December 25, 2009 - 19:23 — GabrielleWho Said It?:Emma ForrestSource:Thin Skin
Link to full quote: Quote #2423 from Thin Skin by Emma Forrest.
and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and
may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.
For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the seaSubmitted on Friday, December 25, 2009 - 15:26 — GabrielleWho Said It?:ee cummings
Link to full quote: Quote #2421 from maggie and milly and molly and may by ee cummings.
. . . if you train a dog to eat potatoes and then afterwards put a piece of meat in front of him, he'll snap at it, it's his nature. And if you give a man a little bit of authority he behaves just the same way, he snaps at it too. The things are precisely the same. In himself man is essentially a beast, only he butters it over like a slice of bread with a little decorum.
Submitted on Friday, December 25, 2009 - 00:49 — GabrielleWho Said It?:Erich Maria RemarqueSource:All Quiet On The Western Front
Link to full quote: Quote #2406 from All Quiet On The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque.
Life was good
before I
met
the monster.
After,
life
was great.
At
least
for a little while.
Submitted on Friday, September 4, 2009 - 09:41 — AnonymousWho Said It?:Ellen HopkinsSource:Crank
Link to full quote: Quote #2347 from Crank by Ellen Hopkins.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream beforeSubmitted on Tuesday, August 18, 2009 - 17:10 — lucy.Who Said It?:Edgar Allan PoeSource:The Raven
Link to full quote: Quote #2346 from The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe.
You haven’t the least or feeblest conception of being here, and now, and alone, and yourself. Why (you ask) should anyone want to be here, when (simply by pressing a button) anyone can be in fifty places at once? How could anyone want to be now, when anyone can go whening all over creation at the twist of a knob? What could induce anyone to desire aloneness, when billions of soi-distant dollars are mercifully squandered by good and great government lest anyone anywhere should ever for a single instant be alone? As for being yourself – why on earth should you be yourself; when instead of being yourself you can be a hundred, or a thousand, or a hundred thousand thousand, other people? The very thought of being oneself in an epoch of interchangeable selves must appear supremely ridiculous.
Fine and dandy: but so far as I am concerned, poetry and every other art was and is and forever will be strictly and distinctly a question of individuality. If poetry were anything like dropping an atombomb – which anyone did, anyone could become a poet merely by doing the necessary anything; whatever that anything might or might not entail. But (as it happens) poetry is being, not doing. If you wish to follow, even at a distance, the poet’s calling (and here, as always, I speak from my own totally biased and personal point of view) you’ve got to come out of the measurable doing universe into the immeasurable house of being. I am quite aware that, wherever our socalled...
Submitted on Sunday, August 2, 2009 - 14:50 — GabrielleWho Said It?:ee cummingsSource:i - Six Nonlectures
Link to full quote: Quote #2312 from i - Six Nonlectures by ee cummings.
in spite of everything
which breathes and moves, since Doom
(with white longest hands
neating each crease)
will smooth entirely our minds
-before leaving my room
i turn, and (stooping
through the morning) kiss
this pillow, dear
where our heads lived and wereSubmitted on Saturday, August 1, 2009 - 15:56 — GabrielleWho Said It?:ee cummingsSource:in spite of everything
Link to full quote: Quote #2292 from in spite of everything by ee cummings.
'Tell me some true things about fighting.'
'Tell me you love me.'
'I love you,' the girl said. 'You can publish it in the Gazzettino if you like. I love your hard, flat body and your strange eyes that frighten me when they become wicked. I love your hand and all the other wounded places.'Submitted on Wednesday, July 22, 2009 - 19:49 — GabrielleWho Said It?:Ernest Hemingway
Link to full quote: Quote #2284 from Across the River and Into the Trees by Ernest Hemingway.
I was born an original sinner,
I was born from original sin,
and if I had a dollar bill for all the things I've done,
there'd be a mountain of money piled up to my chin.Submitted on Wednesday, June 10, 2009 - 18:20 — GabrielleWho Said It?:EurythmicsSource:Missionary Man
Link to full quote: Quote #2263 from Missionary Man by Eurythmics.
I know I am but summer to your heart,
And not the full four seasons of the year;Submitted on Wednesday, June 10, 2009 - 18:17 — GabrielleWho Said It?:Edna St. Vincent MillaySource:Eight Sonnets
Link to full quote: Quote #2262 from Eight Sonnets by Edna St. Vincent Millay.
Homesickness is just a state of mind for me. I'm always missing someone or someplace or something. I'm always trying to get back to some imaginary somewhere. My life has been one long longing.
Submitted on Wednesday, June 10, 2009 - 18:06 — GabrielleWho Said It?:Elizabeth WurtzelSource:Prozac Nation
Link to full quote: Quote #2259 from Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel.