Arden > Arden's Quotes

“Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.”
― Marie Curie

“An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.”
― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid

“You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.”
― Madeleine L'Engle

“A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest.”
― C.S. Lewis

“Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It's a way of understanding it.”
― Lloyd Alexander

“So what? All writers are lunatics!”
― Cornelia Funke, Inkspell

“Be with me always - take any form - drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I can not live without my life! I can not live without my soul!”
― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

“If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger.”
― Emily Jane Brontë , Wuthering Heights

“He's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”
― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

“If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.”
― Jane Austen, Emma

“Actually, you said Love, for you,
is larger than the usual romantic love. It’s like a religion. It’s
terrifying. No one
will ever want to sleep with you.”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“There is a man who would give his life to keep a life you love beside you.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“Reader, I married him.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free... Why am I so changed? I'm sure I should be myself were I once among the heather on those hills.”
― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights: Includes eBook, Library Edition

“If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry.”
― Emily Dickinson

“Nature is a haunted house--but Art--is a house that tries to be haunted.”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“You have been the last dream of my soul.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”
― Mark Twain

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“You don't write about the horrors of war. No. You write about a kid's burnt socks lying in the road.”
― Richard Price

“I have never understood how people can blithely disregard the damage they do by following their hearts.”
― Paula Hawkins, The Girl on the Train

“If I love you, is that a fact or a weapon?”
― Margaret Atwood, Power Politics: Poems

“So you start to take pieces of your own life.

And somewhat selfishly
Other people's lives
And feed them to the song
At what cost
This wondrous creature
That becomes more precious to you
Than the people that you took from

How awful

To make human sacrifices
A late night conversation
A private thought
All placed upon the altar

But you have to satisfy the monster
The monster has loved you for longer
Than anyone else.”
― Florence Welch, Useless Magic: Lyrics and Poetry

“At the trial of God, we will ask: why did you allow all this?
And the answer will be an echo: why did you allow all this?”
― Ilya Kaminsky, Deaf Republic

“If you only write when you’re inspired you may be a fairly decent poet, but you’ll never be a novelist because you’re going to have to make your word count today and those words aren’t going to wait for you whether you’re inspired or not.

You have to write when you’re not inspired. And you have to write the scenes that don’t inspire you. And the weird thing is that six months later, a year later, you’ll look back at them and you can’t remember which scenes you wrote when you were inspired and which scenes you just wrote because they had to be written next.

The process of writing can be magical. …Mostly it’s a process of putting one word after another.”
― Neil Gaiman

“I guess I won't write poetry
I'll just stare at my phone for fucking eternity”
― Florence Welch, Useless Magic: Lyrics and Poetry

“I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday. I will love you as the starfish loves a coral reef and as kudzu loves trees, even if the oceans turn to sawdust and the trees fall in the forest without anyone around to hear them. I will love you as the pesto loves the fettuccini and ats the horseradish loves the miyagi, and the pepperoni loves the pizza. I will love you as the manatee loves the head of lettuce and as the dark spot loves the leopard, as the leech loves the ankle of a wader and as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you as the doctor loves his sickest patient and a lake loves its thirstiest swimmer. I will love you as the beard loves the chin, and the crumbs love the beard, and the damp napkin loves the crumbs, and the precious document loves the dampness of the napkin, and the squinting eye of the reader loves the smudged document, and the tears of sadness love the squinting eye as it misreads what is written.

I will love you as the iceberg loves the ship, and the passengers love the lifeboat, and the lifeboat loves the teeth of the sperm whale, and the sperm whale loves the flavor of naval uniforms. I will love you as a drawer loves a secret compartment, and as a secret compartment loves a secret, and as a secret loves to make a person gasp... I will love you until all such compartments are discovered and opened, and all the secrets have gone gasping into the world. I will love you until all the codes and hearts have been broken and until every anagram and egg has been unscrambled. I will love you until every fire is extinguished and rebuilt from the handsomest and most susceptible of woods. I will love you until the bird hates a nest and the worm hates an apple. I will love you as we find ourselves farther and farther from one another, where once we were so close... I will love you until your face is fogged by distant memory. I will love you no matter where you go and who you see, I will love you if you don't marry me. I will love you if you marry someone else--and i will love you if you never marry at all, and spend your years wishing you had married me after all. That is how I will love you even as the world goes on its wicked way.”
― Lemony Snicket, The Beatrice Letters

“We tell ourselves stories in order to live.”
― Joan Didion, The White Album