Kara > Kara's Quotes

“When people kill themselves, they think they're ending the pain, but all they're doing is passing it on to those they leave behind.”
― Jeannette Walls

“One time I saw a tiny Joshua tree sapling growing not too far from the old tree. I wanted to dig it up and replant it near our house. I told Mom that I would protect it from the wind and water it every day so that it could grow nice and tall and straight. Mom frowned at me. "You'd be destroying what makes it special," she said. "It's the Joshua tree's struggle that gives it its beauty.”
― Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

“Memoir is about handing over you life to someone and saying, This is what I went through, this is who I am, and maybe you can learn something from it.”
― Jeanette Walls

“Mom, you have to leave Dad,” I said. She stopped doing her toe touches. “I can’t believe you would say that,” she said. “I can’t believe that you, of all people, would turn on your father.” I was Dad’s last defender, she continued, the only one who pretended to believe all his excuses and tales, and to have faith in his plans for the future. “He loves you so much,” Mom said. “How can you do this to him?” “I don’t blame Dad,” I said. And I didn’t. But Dad seemed hell-bent on destroying himself, and I was afraid he was going to pull us all down with him. “We’ve got to get away.”
― Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

“Sometimes it didn't matter how much gumption you had. What mattered were the cards you'd been dealt.”
― Jeannette Walls, Half Broke Horses

“What I wanted to say was that I knew Eric would never try to steal my paycheck or throw me out the window, that I'd always been terrified I'd fall for a hard-drinking, hellraising, charismatic scoundrel like you, Dad, but I'd wound up with a man who was exactly the opposite.”
― Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

“My favorite books all involved people dealing with hardships.”
― Jeannette Walls

“Things usually work out in the end.

What if they don't?

That just means you haven't gotten to the end yet.”
― Jeanette Walls

“So that’s why I’m such a big fan of storytelling. I think the most important thing is empathy. And it’s less about ‘those people’. Because I think we’re all ‘those people’.”
― Jeanette Walls

“...a woman does not grow old as long as she loves & is loved.”
― Vincent van Gogh

“But to die as lovers may - to die together, so that they may live together.”
― Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Carmilla

“Darling, darling. I live in you, and you would die for me. I love you so.”
― J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Carmilla

“Some ineffable piece of me had gone, rewritten by her touch, and what had been stolen was patched by a piece of her, some bit of her heart I had unknowingly taken with me.”
― S.D. Simper, Carmilla and Laura

“Reflect upon your present blessings -- of which every man has many -- not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Writings

“I will live in the past, the present, and the future. The spirits of all three shall strive within me.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“It is required of every man,” the Ghost returned, “that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world—oh, woe is me!—and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“I penetrated the outer cell membrane with a nanosyringe."
"You poked it with a stick?"
"No!" I said. "Well. Yes. But it was a scientific poke with a very scientific stick.”
― Andy Weir, Project Hail Mary

“Evolution can be insanely effective when you leave it alone for a few billion years.”
― Andy Weir, Project Hail Mary

“This is happy! Your face opening is in sad mode. Why, question?”
― Andy Weir, Project Hail Mary

“When stupid ideas work, they become genius ideas.”
― Andy Weir, Project Hail Mary

“I’m smart enough now to know I’m stupid. That’s progress.”
― Andy Weir, Project Hail Mary

“Man, being an American scientist sucks sometimes. You think in random, unpredictable units based on what situation you’re in.”
― Andy Weir, Project Hail Mary

“It’s the kids of today that’ll have to make the world of tomorrow work.”
― Andy Weir, Project Hail Mary

“When you get down to it, smell is just tasting at range.”
― Andy Weir, Project Hail Mary

“We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“I would always rather be happy than dignified.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“No sight so sad as that of a naughty child," he began, "especially a naughty little girl. Do you know where the wicked go after death?"

"They go to hell," was my ready and orthodox answer.

"And what is hell? Can you tell me that?"

"A pit full of fire."

"And should you like to fall into that pit, and to be burning there for ever?"

"No, sir."

"What must you do to avoid it?"

I deliberated a moment: my answer, when it did come was objectionable: "I must keep in good health and not die.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Jane, be still; don't struggle so like a wild, frantic bird, that is rending its own plumage in its desperation."
"I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being, with an independent will; which I now exert to leave you.”
― Charlotte Brontë , Jane Eyre

“I am not an angel,' I asserted; 'and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself. Mr. Rochester, you must neither expect nor exact anything celestial of me - for you will not get it, any more than I shall get it of you: which I do not at all anticipate.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre