Cindy > Cindy's Quotes

“Friendship ... is born at the moment when one man says to another "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“She had so much love to give - she had always felt that - and now there was somebody to whom she could give this love, and that, she knew, was good; for that is what redeems us, that is what makes our pain and sorrow bearable - this giving of love to others, this sharing of the heart.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, In the Company of Cheerful Ladies

“O, there is lovely to feel a book, a good book, firm in the hand, for its fatness holds rich promise, and you are hot inside to think of good hours to come.”
― Richard Llewellyn, How Green Was My Valley

“What does it matter, she thought, if businesses are left unattended, if people are not always as we want them to be; we need the time just to be human, to enjoy something like this: a boy chasing ants, a dry land drinking at last, birds in the the sky, a rainbow.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Miracle at Speedy Motors

“...what I dread more than anything else in this life is noise...silence helps you to go inward..anyone who is interested in something more than just life outside actually needs silence.”
― Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog

“Saudade": a yearning for one's childhood, when the days would merge into one another and the passing of time was of no consequence. It is the sense of being loved in a way that will never come again. It is a unique experience of abandon. It is everything that words cannot capture.”
― Nina George, The Little Paris Bookshop

“The problem, of course, was that people did not seem to understand the difference between right and wrong. They needed to be reminded about this, because if you left it to them to work out for themselves, they would never bother. They would just find out what was best for them, and then they would call that the right thing. That's how most people thought.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

“If you want a golden rule that will fit everything, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”
― William Morris

“In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the eartha — 2   * and the earth was without form or shape, with darkness over the abyss and a mighty wind sweeping over the waters —”
― Anonymous, The New American Bible

“There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“So the small things came into their own: small acts of helping others, if one could; small ways of making one's own life better: acts of love, acts of tea, acts of laughter. Clever people might laugh at such simplicity, but, she asked herself, what was their own solution?”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Good Husband of Zebra Drive

“Everything in the world exists in order to end up as a book.”
― Stéphane Mallarmé

“There is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate.”
― Linda Grayson

“This morning I understand what it means to die: when we disappear, it is the others who die for us, for here I am , lying on a cold pavement and it is not the dying I care about; it has no more meaning this morning that it did yesterday. But never again will I see those I love, and if that is what dying is about then it really is the tragedy they say it is.”
― Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog

“I don't give a damn about where I happen to be, provided nothing stops me from going into my mind.”
― Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
― Mary Oliver

“Jesus first, others next, and yourself last spells J-O-Y.”
― Linda Byler, Running Around (And Such)

“A man's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions.”
― Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., Autocrat of the Breakfast Table

“When someone works for less pay than she can live on — when, for example, she goes hungry so that you can eat more cheaply and conveniently — then she has made a great sacrifice for you, she has made you a gift of some part of her abilities, her health, and her life. The 'working poor,' as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropists of our society. They neglect their own children so that the children of others will be cared for; they live in substandard housing so that other homes will be shiny and perfect; they endure privation so that inflation will be low and stock prices high. To be a member of the working poor is to be an anonymous donor, a nameless benefactor, to everyone else.”
― Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America

“If more women were in power, they wouldn't let wars break out," she said. "Women can't be bothered with all this fighting. We see war for what it is- a matter of broken bodies and crying mothers.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

“I want a life that sizzles and pops and makes me laugh out loud. And I don't want to get to the end, or to tomorrow, even, and realize that my life is a collection of meetings and pop cans and errands and receipts and dirty dishes. I want to eat cold tangerines and sing out loud in the car with the windows open and wear pink shoes and stay up all night laughing and paint my walls the exact color of the sky right now. I want to sleep hard on clean white sheets and throw parties and eat ripe tomatoes and read books so good they make me jump up and down, and I want my everyday to make God belly laugh, glad that he gave life to someone who loves the gift.”
― Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life

“When you haven’t yet had your heart really broken, the gospel isn’t about death and rebirth. It’s about life and more life. It’s about hope and possibility and a brighter future. And it is, certainly, about those things.
But when you’ve faced some kind of death— the loss of someone you loved dearly, the failure of a dream, the fracture of a relationship— that’s when you start understanding the central metaphor. When your life is easy, a lot of the really crucial parts of Christian doctrine and life are nice theories, but you don’t really need them. When, however, death of any kind is staring you in the face, all of a sudden rebirth and new life are very, very important to you.”
― Shauna Niequist

“It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“It's not hard to decide what you want your life to be about. What's hard, she said, is figuring out what you're willing to give up in order to do the things you really care about.”
― Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way

“Grownups! Everyone remembers them. How strange and even sad it is that we never became what they were: beings noble, infallible, and free. We never became them. One of the things we discover as we live is that we never become anything different from what we are. We are no less ourselves at forty than we were at four, and because of this we know grownups as Grownups only once in life: during our own childhood. We never meet them in our lives again, and we will miss them always.”
― Elizabeth Enright, Doublefields: Memories and Stories

“Without love, deeds, even the most brilliant, count as nothing.”
― St. Therese of Lisieux

“Sister Katerina’s calm is in her eyes, in the way she sits, the way she talks. ‘I think people are people the world over. They will treat you as you allow them to treat you.’ She takes a sip of water. A brightly coloured butterfly settles on the windowsill. ‘Most people describe their own lives in the way they treat others. Those who feel the world is harming them harm others in word or deed, and those who feel the world is a gift, who are grateful, treat others as if they are part of the gift.’ The words are soft as silk, spun from a compassionate heart.”
― Sara Alexi, The Unquiet Mind

“Ah but it was so romantic lying in our bed looking up at the stars, just you and me.’ He nudges her shoulder as he passes. ‘You forget all that?’ She giggles and stops sewing, eyeing her husband from head to toe, seeing not the bent and aged man he has become but the Adonis she remembers.”
― Sara Alexi, The Unquiet Mind

“I don't think we've explained it very well, Prudencia, said Hortensia. It's not the husband who has to be the source of harmony. It's not in him that you have to seek harmony. No, it's in the marriage, in the combination of the two of you, that you've got to look for it.”
― Natalia Sanmartin Fenollera, The Awakening of Miss Prim

“I have to tell you that equality has nothing to do with marriage. The basis of a good marriage, a reasonably happy marriage-don't delude yourself, there is no such thing as an entirely happy marriage-is, precisely, inequality. It's essential if two people are to feel mutual admiration. ................................
if you reflected a little more deeply you'd realize that you can only admire that which you do not possess. You do not admire in another a quality you have yourself, you admire what you don't have and which you see shining in another in all its splendor.”
― Natalia Sanmartin Fenollera, The Awakening of Miss Prim