Tobias > Tobias's Quotes

“I had a feeling there was something wrong with me. I guess I was a mystery even to myself.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“Scars. A sign that you had been hurt. A sign that you had healed.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“It was as if my eyes were a camera and I was photographing the moment, knowing that I would keep the photograph forever.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“There are worst things in life than kissing boys.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“If we studied birds, maybe we could learn to be free.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“Try it again," I said. "Kiss me."
"No," he said.
"Kiss me."
"No," And then he smiled. "You kiss me."
I placed my hand on the back of his neck. I pulled him toward me. And kissed him. I kissed him. And I kissed him. And I kissed him. And I kissed him. And he kept kissing me back.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“I wished it was raining," he said.
"I don't need the rain," I said. "I need you.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“You're fighting this war in the worst way possible."
"I don't know how to fight it, Dad."
"You should ask for help," he said.
"I don't know how to do that, either.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“I wanted to close my eyes and let the silence swallow me whole.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“One of the secrets of the universe was that our instincts were sometimes stronger than our minds. Another secret of the universe: Sometimes pain was like a storm that came out of nowhere.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“You belong everywhere you go. That’s just how you are.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“Man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun.”
― Clifford Geertz

“What we call our data are really our own constructions of other people’s constructions of what they and their compatriots are up to.”
― Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures

“If we wanted home truths, we should have stayed at home.”
― Clifford Geertz

“One of the most significant facts about humanity may finally be that we all begin with the natural equipment to a live a thousand kinds of life but end in the end having lived only one”
― Clifford Geertz

“For the breath of life is in the sunlight and the hand of life is in the wind.”
― Khalil Gibran, The Prophet

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”
― Mark Twain

“When someone is seeking,” said Siddartha, “It happens quite easily that he only sees the thing that he is seeking; that he is unable to find anything, unable to absorb anything, because he is only thinking of the thing he is seeking, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means: to have a goal; but finding means: to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal. You, O worthy one, are perhaps indeed a seeker, for in striving towards your goal, you do not see many things that are under your nose.”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

“Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to was never there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it. Where is there a place for you to be? No place... Nothing outside you can give you any place... In yourself right now is all the place you've got.”
― Flannery O'Connor , Wise Blood

“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

“Why are women... so much more interesting to men than men are to women?”
― Virginia Woolf

“They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.”
― Philip Larkin, High Windows

“I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“Achilles was looking at me. “Your hair never quite lies flat, here.” He touched my head, just behind my ear. “I don’t think I’ve ever told you how I like it.”

My scalp prickled where his fingers had been. “You haven’t,” I said.

“I should have.” His hand drifted down to the vee at the base of my throat, drew softly across the pulse. “What about this? Have I told you what I think of this, just here?”

“No,” I said.

“This surely then.” His hand moved across the muscles of my chest; my skin warmed beneath it. “Have I told you of this?”

“That you have told me.” My breath caught a little as I spoke.

“And what of this?” His hand lingered over my hips, drew down the line of my thigh. “Have I spoken of it?”

“You have.”

“And this? Surely I would not have forgotten this.” His cat’s smile. “Tell me I did not.”

“You did not.”

“There is this too.” His hand was ceaseless now. “I know I have told you of this.”

I closed my eyes. “Tell me again,” I said.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“He smiled, and his face was like the sun.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“I have done it," she says. At first I do not understand. But then I see the tomb, and the marks she has made on the stone. A C H I L L E S, it reads. And beside it, P A T R O C L U S.
"Go," she says. "He waits for you."

In the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out of the sun.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“He is half of my soul, as the poets say.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“We were like gods at the dawning of the world, & our joy was so bright we could see nothing else but the other.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“When he died, all things soft and beautiful and bright would be buried with him.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“In the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out of the sun.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles