Libba bray quotes

Reminds us that greatness lies even in the smallest of moments, in the humblest of hearts, and we shall, each of us, be called to greatness. Whether we shall rise to meet it or let it slip away is the challenge put before us all.

We're all strangers connected by what we reveal, what we share, what we take away--our stories. I guess that's what I love about books--they are thin strands of humanity that tether us to one another for a small bit of time, that make us feel less alone or even more comfortable with our aloneness, if need be.

Life don’t come to you, Memphis. You gotta take it. We have to take it. Because ain’t nobody handing it to us.

It is funny how you do not miss affection until it is given, but once it is, it can never be enough; you would drown in it if possible.

I don't think you should die until you're ready. Until you've wrung out every last bit of living you can.

What frightens you? What makes the hair on your arms rise, your palms sweat, the breath catch in your chest like a wild thing caged? Is it the dark? A fleeting memory of a bedtime story, ghosts and goblins and witches hiding in the shadows? Is it the way the wind picks up just before a storm, the hint of wet in the air that makes you want to scurry home to the safety of your fire? Or is it something deeper, something much more frightening, a monster deep inside that you've glimpsed only in pieces, the vast unknown of your own soul where secrets gather with a terrible power, the dark inside?

There are times when one friend requires the blind faith of another.

People always fear what they don't understand, Evangeline. History proves that.

Men have feelings too, you know. You bruise the petals of my manflower.

What if evil doesn't really exist? What if evil is something dreamed up by man, and there is nothing to struggle against except out own limitations? The constant battle between our will, our desires, and our choices?

The library card is a passport to wonders and miracles, glimpses into other lives, religions, experiences, the hopes and dreams and strivings of ALL human beings, and it is this passport that opens our eyes and hearts to the world beyond our front doors, that is one of our best hopes against tyranny, xenophobia, hopelessness, despair, anarchy, and ignorance.

No, I call. Come back. I'm here, he says. But I can't see. It's too bright. You can't hold back the light, Gemma. I'm here. Trust me.

People aren't always what you want them to be

Sometimes we seek that which we are not yet ready to find.

People have a habit of inventing fictions they will believe wholeheartedly in order to ignore the truth they cannot accept.

Sitting in my favorite coffeehouse with a new notebook and a hot cup of java is my idea of Heaven.

I think about dying every day, because I can't stop thinking about living.

I wish to live for myself. I should never want to be trapped.

The hand you hold the longest is your own.

But the past cannot be changed, and we carry our choices with us, forward, into the unknown. We can only move on.

Who but the mad would choose to keep on living? In the end, aren't we all just a little crazy?

Because you don't notice the light without a bit of shadow. Everything has both dark and light. You have to play with it till you get it exactly right.

There in the city's steam-and-smoke-smudged harbor is the most extraordinary sight of all: a great copper-clad lady with a torch in one hand and a book in the other. It is not a statesman or a god or a war hero who welcomes us to this new world. It is but an ordinary woman lighting the way- a lady offering us the liberty to pursue our dreams if we've the courage to begin.

People think boundaries and borders build nations. Nonsense-words do. Beliefs, declarations, constitutions-words. Stories. Myths. Lies. Promises. History

Come awake, Tom. Fathers can willfully hurt their children. They can be addicts too weak to give up their vices, no matter the pain it causes. Mothers can turn you invisible with neglect. They can erase you with a denial, a refusal to see. Friends can deceive you. People lie. It is a cold, hard world. I do not blame Nell Hawkins for retreating from it into a madness of her own choosing.

Just because you're funny doesn't mean you get to be cruel.

I will tell you the story of how we found ourselves in a realm where dreams are formed, destiny is chosen, and magic is as real as a handprint in the snow.

Nobody Wants to be themselves. That's why there's tv. -Ephigenia.

Our mouths and bodies speak for us in a new language as the trees shake loose a rain of petals that stick to our slickness like skins we will wear forever. And just like that, I am changed.

I'm an oddity of one, my strangeness too complicated to explain or share.

Everyone's dying. A little, every day. Make it count.

I stare at the pile of discarded remnants and think of my mother. Did she touch that pillar there? Does her scent still linger in a fragment of glass or a splinter of wood? A terrible emptiness settles into my chest. No matter how much I go about living, there are always small reminders that make the loss fresh again.

Prohibition? I drink to its health whenever I can.

You're quite tall.' Just what a girl wants to be reminded of.

You're special. I'm special. The whole world's special, so don't you forget it. The universe wants us All to be happy, Full of smiles and all that stuff, All that stuff That's happy and smiley. So get happy, happy, happy right now! Get happy, happy, happy right now! Get happy, happy, happy right now!

But sons are a different matter to a man. More a duty than an indulgence.

There is a dualism inherent in democracy--opposing forces pushing against each other, always. Culture clashes. Different belief systems. All coming together to create this country. But this balance takes a great deal of energy.

Books are, at their heart, dangerous. Yes, dangerous. Because they challenge us: our prejudices, our blind spots. They open us to new ideas, new ways of seeing. They make us hurt in all the right ways. They can push down the barricades of ‘them’ & widen the circle of ‘us.

Gemma, you see how it is. They've planned our entire lives, from what we shall wear to whom we shall marry and where we shall live. It's one lump of sugar in your tea whether you like it or not and you'd best smile even if you're dying deep inside. We're like pretty horses, and just as on horses, they mean to put blinders on us so we can't look left or right but only straight ahead where they would lead. Please, please, please, Gemma, let's not die inside before we have to.

I'm sorry, Gemma. But we can't live in the light all of the time. You have to take whatever light you can hold into the dark with you.

And now I understand that truth casts a spell of its own, one I'm not sure of how to hold on to, though I'm desperate to try.

But if we are to remain a great empire, we must have a greater understanding of the hearts and minds of others.

I love you for who you are, not who the world thinks you should be.

If you tell them what they want to hear, they don't bother to try to see.

Any librarian or scholar will tell you: Close is not the same as accurate.

There's no such thing as nothing. In every nothing, there's a something. In fact, there could be everything!

Peace is not happenstance. It is a living fire that must be fed constantly. It must be tended to with vigilance, else it dies out.

Maybe girls need an island to find themselves. Maybe they need a place where no one's is watching them so they can be who they really are

Will was making a speech, something about having been young and careless once, the sort of thing old-timers said when they issued a deathblow, as if they thought their sanctimonious ramblings disguised as empathy would be welcomed, but Evie was only half listening.

There are no safe choices. Only other choices.

To each his own magic.

When she can't bring me to heal with scolding, she bends me to shape with guilt.

He said to tell you to remember your heart in all things, that it is where your honor and your destiny will be found. Does it mean anything to you?' It is something he would say from time to time-that the eye could be misled, but that the heart was true.

When I dream, I dream of him. For several nights now he’s come to me, waving from a distant shore as if he’s been waiting patiently for me to arrive. He doesn’t utter a word, but his smile says everything: I’ve missed you.

Women who have power are always feared.

I refuse to let the past find me here.

Writers are also sort of like vultures, but with fewer ethics.

You couldn't be perfect enough to keep the world from betraying you.

There is an ancient tribal proverb I once heard in India. It says that before we can see properly we must first shed our tears to clear the way.

Retribution is a dog chasing its tail.

But we can't go back. We can only go forward.

I am starting a collection of only right-hand gloves. It’s ever so bourgeois to have two.

I've never done acid, finding it hard to go willingly to a place that could be frightening, hellish, and totally beyond my control. A place much like high school.

Careful there, Poet. I might start to believe you.

Wanna rock you, girl, with a butterfly tunic. / No, I'm not gay, I'm just your emo enuch. / Gonna smile real shy, won't cop a feel, / 'cause I'm your virgin crush, your supersafe deal. / Let those other guys keep sexing. / You and me, we be texting / 'bout unicorns and rainbows and our perfect love. / Girl, we fit together like a hand in a glove. / Now I don't mean that nasty, tell your mum don't get mad. / I even wrote 'You're awesome' on your maxi pads.

A guy's gotta live, you know, gotta make his way and find his meaning in life and love, and to do that he needs coffee, he needs coffee and coffee and coffee.

And that is how change happens. One gesture. One person. One moment at a time.

What happened to the winner" Adina asked. "She tripped." "And the first runner-up?" Miss Michigan cracked her knuckles. "She tripped, too.

In this man’s smile was all the unfairness of the world in its thuggish seduction. “Just come with me. We’ll take care of you.” “No, you won’t.” Taylor stroked the man’s cheek. She reached her arms up to cradle the back of his head and, with the skill of a champion, she broke his neck. Then she dragged him into the bushes, took his gun and walkie-talkie, and kept moving.

In a world like this one, only the random makes sense.

It is a giggle full of high spirits and merry mischief, proof that we never lose our girlish selves, no matter what sort of women we become.

The best day of my life happened when I was five and almost died at Disney World. I'm sixteen now, so you can imagine that's left me with quite a few days of major suckage.

Write like it matters, and it will.

People will believe anything if it means they can go on with their lives and not have to think too hard about it.

The only thing I don't divulge is the truth about Mother killing little Carolina. I don't know why. Perhaps I sense he's not ready to know that just yet. Maybe he never will. People can live with only so much honesty. And sometimes, people can suprise you. I talk to my brother as I never have before, trusting in him, letting the river listen to my confessions on its path toward the sea. ~pg 693

I wouldn’t expect you to get it, Daisy. You don’t look at anything besides Photoplay—and even then somebody’s gotta explain the pictures to you.” Daisy’s mouth hung open in outrage. “Well, I never!” “Yeah, that’s what you tell all your fellas, but the rest of us aren’t buying it. Go away, now, Daisy. Shoo, little fly!

Please do not strain yourself, Miss Doyle. I won't have my girls going cross-eyed in the name of art.

I know because I read...Your mind is not a cage. It's a garden. And it requires cultivating.

Why do girls always feel like they have to apologize for giving an opinion or taking up space in the world? Have you ever noticed that?" Nicole asked. "You go on websites and some girl leaves a post and if it's longer than three sentences or she's expressing her thoughts about some topic, she usually ends with, 'Sorry for the rant' or 'That may be dumb, but that's what I think.

May I suggest that you all read? And often. Believe me, it's nice to have something to talk about other than the weather and the Queen's health. Your mind is not a cage. It's a garden. And it requires cultivating.

I feel like I swallowed a Magritte. Like on the inside, I'm made of clouds and floating eyes, green apples, and slowly rising men in bowler hats.

We are English, and I expect you to behave as such. No more crying.

To those who will see, the world waits.

They kept the lie going, and the people loved it.

There is a hideous invention called the Dewey Decimal System. And you have to look up your topic in books and newspapers. Pages upon pages upon pages…” Uncle Will frowned. “Didn’t they teach you how to go about research in that school of yours?” “No. But I can recite ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’ while making martinis.” “I weep for the future.” “There’s where the martinis come in.

Jeez, someone needs to push the reset button on this planet.

I can be whatever. You can be whatever. We can be whatever. Whatever, together.

Maybe that's what real friendship is -- getting so used to people that you need to be annoyed by them.

Really, being a librarian is a much more dangerous job than you realize.

Im a techno moron. I need help just to plug in my video camera.

In every end, there is also a beginning.

I had a friend who said, "You don't have an internal critic. You have an internal sadist."

Beneath the skin, there is fear. Pain. Remorse. Yearning. Desire. A fierce longing for power. All of this. We are joined. It is as if we live in the center of a great storm. Around us the world of the realms revolves like a giant kaleidoscope, images refracted again and again. So many worlds! So much to know.

So, now I've been to see a drug counselor who told me I need to lay off the drugs and talk about my feelings, and a shrink who heard what I had to say and immediately put me on drugs.

Why does anyone do anything? Belief. A belief that they are right and just in their actions. Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son, Isaac, because he believed that God had commanded it. To kill your son is unthinkable. A crime. But if you are acting in the belief that your God, your supreme deity whom you must obey, has demanded it of you, is it still a crime?

Evie hadn’t always felt that way. For a year after James had died, she’d cupped his half-dollar pendant between her pressed palms and prayed fervently for a miracle, for a telegram that would say GOOD NEWS! IT WAS A TERRIBLE MISTAKE, AND PRIVATE JAMES XAVIER O’NEILL HAS BEEN FOUND, SAFE, IN A FARMHOUSE IN FRANCE. But no such telegram ever arrived, and whatever possible faith might have bloomed in Evie withered and died. Now she saw it as just another advertisement for a life that belonged to a previous generation and held no meaning for hers.

Because there's nothing wrong with you... that can't be fixed.

It occurs to me that cricket is not the true sport in London - gossip is.

Libraries are the torch of the world, illuminating the path when it feels too dark to see. We mustn't allow that torch to be extinguished.

I've heard it said that God is in the details. It's the same with the truth. Leave out the details, the crucial heart, and you can damn someone with the bare bones of it.

I don't know. Sometimes, I feel nothing, and I'm so afraid. Afraid I'll stop feeling anything at all. I'll just slip away inside myself...I just need to feel something" A Great and Terrible Beauty, Page 177, by

There is no greater power on this earth than story.

Judge not, lest ye be judged.

She never utters a sound even when she's crying, and that makes me a little sad. Doesn't seem right. When you cry, people should hear you. The world should stop.

True affection and love have a purity which shall always prevail over bigotry.

My personal motto is: WWWWD?: What Would Wonder Woman Do?

I’m not interested in being polite. It’s false.

We create the illusions we need to go on. And one day, when they no longer dazzle or comfort, we tear them down, brick by glittering brick, until we are left with nothing but the bright light of honesty. The light is liberating. Necessary. Terrifying. We stand naked and emptied before it. And when it is too much for our eyes to take, we build a new illusion to shield us from its relentless truth.

I should never be left alone with my mind for too long.

You must remember, my dear lady, the most important rule of any successful illusion: First, the people must want to believe in it.

We create the illusions we need to go on.

I thought I was having an existential crisis, but it was nothing. Please don't tailgate: body in trunk.

Travel opens your mind as few other things do. It is its own form of hypnotism, and I am forever under its spell

I do not want to pass the time. I want to grab hold of it and leave my mark upon the world.

We all do things we desperately wish we could undo. Those regrets just become part of who we are, along with everything else. To spend time trying to change that, well, it's like chasing clouds.

One can never go back. One always has to move forward.

All the small, simple, conscious acts of living a sudden defense against the dying we do every day.

They would place their hands together inside the circle so that they could walk in each other's dreams. It forged a bond that could not be broken. The circle represents love in eternity. For there is no beginning and no end.

In each of us lie good and bad, light and dark, art and pain, choice and regret, cruelty and sacrifice... No one can live in the light all the time.

I'm like everyone else in this stupid, bloody, amazing world. I'm flawed. Impossibly so. But hopeful. I'm still me.

The man in the shop peered disapprovingly at Evie through the glass. She pumped her arms and legs up and down in imitation of a marching band, gave the man a salute, and continued her meandering walk to the museum.

I am a jumble of passions, misgivings, and wants. It seems that I am always in a state of wishing and rarely in a state of contentment.

It isn't that we do what we want. It's that we're allowed to want at all.

In each of us lie good and bad, light and dark, art and pain, choice and regret, cruelty and sacrifice. We’re each of us our own chiaroscuro, our own bit of illusion fighting to emerge into something solid, something real. We’ve got to forgive ourselves that. I must remember to forgive myself. Because there is a lot of grey to work with. No one can live in the light all the time.

Board the cows! We've come to enslave your marigolds.