Priscilla > Priscilla's Quotes

“I feel you're far away,” the man might say. He is observing you, calculating, forming equations he may take to a representative of the patriarchy, such as a doctor, a lawyer, or military official. He is considering physical incarceration and/or biochemical imprisonments such as occur with antidepressants. He is dangerous.
This is a juncture where you may smile. This is optional. You might allow your lips to form the ambiguous seductive shape of slow regret. Or let your mouth fill with too much night, incinerated maple leaves and fox teeth. What you mean is, not yet.”
― Kate Braverman

“There is, after all, a kind of happiness in unhappiness, if it's the right unhappiness.”
― Jonathan Franzen, Freedom

“Remember it all, every insult, every tear. Tattoo it on the inside of your mind. In life, knowledge of poisons is essential. I've told you, nobody becomes an artist unless they have to.”
― Janet Fitch

“There's things that happen in a person's life that are so scorched in the memory and burned into the heart that there's no forgetting them.”
― John Boyne

“Standing on the edge with my patients — abiding with them — means that I must harbor a true awareness that I, too, could lose my child through the play of circumstance over which I have no control. I could lose my home, my financial security, my safety. I could lose my mind. Any of us could.”
― Christine Montross, Falling Into the Fire: A Psychiatrist's Encounters with the Mind in Crisis

“Books change us. Books save us. I know this because it happened to me.”
― Elif Shafak

“Poems are a hotline to our hearts, and we forget this emotional power at our peril.”
― Andrew Motion

“A book is not supposed to be a mirror. It's supposed to be a door.”
― Fran Lebowitz

“Claim your space. Draw a circle of light around it. Push back against the dark. Don't just survive. Celebrate.”
― Charles Frazier, Nightwoods

“Permit your dreams to see the daylight.”
― Bernard Kelvin Clive

“Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.”
― Marie Curie

“It's not enough to be nice in life. You've got to have nerve.”
― Georgia O'Keeffe

“When a person is lucky enough to live inside a story, to live inside an imaginary world, the pains of this world disappear. For as long as the story goes on, reality no longer exists.”
― Paul Auster, The Brooklyn Follies

“You couldn't relive your life, skipping the awful parts, without losing what made it worthwhile. You had to accept it as a whole--like the world, or the person you loved.”
― Stewart O'Nan, The Odds: A Love Story

“Look at the sky: that is for you. Look at each person's face as you pass them on the street: those faces are for you. And the street itself, and the ground under the street, and the ball of fire underneath the ground: all these things are for you.”
― Miranda July

“If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”
― Toni Morrison

“Writing what you wished was the most dangerous form of wishful thinking.”
― Amy Tan, The Bonesetter's Daughter

“Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart bigger.”
― Ben Okri

“Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.”
― Louis L'Amour

“I live for coincidences. They briefly give to me the illusion or the hope that there's a pattern to my life, and if there's a pattern, then maybe I'm moving toward some kind of destiny where it's all explained.”
― Jonathan Ames, My Less Than Secret Life: A Diary, Fiction, Essays

“I've got the guts to die. What I want to know is, have you got the guts to live?”
― Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

“Open your heart. Someone will come. Someone will come for you. But first you must open your heart.”
― Kate DiCamillo, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

“Everyone has talent. What's rare is the courage to follow it to the dark places where it leads.”
― Erica Jong

“The first duty of wine is to be red. Don't talk to me of your white wines.”
― Henry Murger

“Almost seventy years later I remember clearly how the magic of translating the words in books into images enriched my life, breaking the barriers of time and space...”
― Mario Vargas Llosa

“Laughter is wine for the soul - laughter soft, or loud and deep, tinged through with seriousness - the hilarious declaration made by man that life is worth living.”
― Sean O'Casey

“If you have the words, there's always a chance that you'll find the way.”
― Seamus Heaney, Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney

“She was not a slowpoke grownup. She was a girl who could not wait. Life was so interesting she had to find out what happened next.”
― Beverly Cleary, Ramona the Pest

“The helpful thought for which you look
Is written somewhere in a book.”
― Edward Gorey

“When you set sail for Ithaca,
wish for the road to be long,
full of adventures, full of knowledge.”
― C.P. Cavafy