Philip > Philip's Quotes

“I am reading six books at once, the only way of reading; since, as you will agree, one book is only a single unaccompanied note, and to get the full sound, one needs ten others at the same time.”
― Virginia Woolf, The Letters of Virginia Woolf: Volume Three, 1923-1928

“If every person in this room made it a rule that wherever you are, whenever you can, you will try to act a little kinder than is necessary - the world really would be a better place. And if you do this, if you act just a little kinder than is necessary, someone else, somewhere, someday, may recognize in you, in every single one of you, the face of God.”
― R.J. Palacio, Wonder

“Kinder than is necessary. Because it's not enough to be kind. One should be kinder than needed.”
― R.J. Palacio, Wonder

“It's like people you see sometimes, and you can't imagine what it would be like to be that person, whether it's somebody in a wheelchair or somebody who can't talk. Only, I know that I'm that person to other people, maybe to every single person in that whole auditorium.
To me, though, I'm just me. An ordinary kid.
But hey, if they want to give me a medal for being me, that's okay. I'll take it. I didn't destroy a Death Star or anything like that, but I did just get through the fifth grade. And that's not easy, even if you're not me.”
― R.J. Palacio, Wonder

“If you are good life is good.”
― Roald Dahl, Matilda

“Everyone has a moment in history which belongs particularly to him. It is the moment when his emotions achieve their most powerful sway over him, and afterward when you say to this person "the world today" or "life" or "reality" he will assume that you mean this moment, even if it is fifty years past. The world, through his unleashed emotions, imprinted itself upon him, and he carries the stamp of that passing moment forever.”
― John Knowles, A Separate Peace

“[F]or just one second, look at your life and see how perfect it is. Stop looking for the next secret door that is going to lead you to your real life. Stop waiting. This is it: there's nothing else. It's here, and you'd better decide to enjoy it or you're going to be miserable wherever you go, for the rest of your life, forever.”
― Lev Grossman, The Magicians

“Everyone has learning difficulties, because learning to speak French or understanding relativity is difficult.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

“You can’t just decide to be happy.”

“No, you can’t. But you can sure as hell decide to be miserable. Is that what you want?”
― Lev Grossman, The Magicians

“It's the choosing that's important, isn't it?”
― Lois Lowry, The Giver

“It was funny how just when you thought you knew yourself through and through, you stumbled on a new kind of strength, a fresh reserve of power inside you that you never knew you had, and all at once you found yourself burning a little brighter and hotter than you ever had before.”
― Lev Grossman, The Magician's Land

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night

“What if all everybody needed in the world was to be sure of one friend? What if you were the one, and you refused to say those simple words?”
― Richard Russo, Empire Falls

“it's fine to live in the now. but the best thing about now is that there's another one tomorrow. i'm going to start making them count.”
― Tim Tharp, The Spectacular Now

“I have found it impossible to talk to anyone about my problems. I couldn't face the embarrassment, and anyway I lack the courage. Any courage I had was knocked out of me when I was young. But now, all of sudden I have a sort of desperate wish to tell everything to somebody.”
― Roald Dahl, Matilda

“That was the thing about the world: it wasn't that things were harder than you thought they were going to be, it was that they were hard in ways that you didn't expect.”
― Lev Grossman, The Magician King

“I have a scholar's love of silence and solitude. To sit and pass hour after hour in idle chatter with a roomful of strangers is to me the worst sort of torment.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“Bridget blinked once. “Books do not have souls, sir.” “Those who write them do,” Ferus said. “They leave bits and pieces behind them when they lay down the words, some scraps and smears of their essential nature.” He sniffed. “Most untidy, really—but assemble enough scraps and one might have something approaching a whole.” “You believe that the library has a soul,” Bridget said carefully. “I do not believe it, young lady,” Ferus said rather stiffly. “I know it.”
― Jim Butcher, The Aeronaut's Windlass

“What I mean is, I love winter, and when you really love something, then it loves you back, in whatever way it has to love.”
― John Knowles, A Separate Peace

“So the more things remained the same, the more they changed after all. Nothing endures. Not love, not a tree, not even a death by violence.”
― John Knowles, A Separate Peace

“What nobility of feeling! To sacrifice your own pleasure to preserve the comfort of others! It is a thing, I confess, that would never occur to me.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“That was one thing about books: once you read them they couldn’t be unread.”
― Lev Grossman, The Magician's Land

“Never risking anything meant never having or doing or being anything either. Life is risk, it turned out.”
― Lev Grossman, The Magician's Land

“After the way I left, I suddenly find myself wanting very much to go home. But . . . it won’t be the same when I get back. Will it?” “It will be the same,” Grimm said. “You’re the one who has changed.”
― Jim Butcher, The Aeronaut's Windlass

“One thing I've learned about people is that the easiest way to get them to like you is to shut up and let them do the talking.”
― Jesse Andrews, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

“I entered Excessive Modesty Mode. Nothing is stupider and more ineffective than Excessive Modesty Mode. It is a mode in which you show that you’re modest by arguing with someone who is trying to compliment you. Essentially, you are going out of your way to try to convince someone that you’re a jerk.”
― Jesse Andrews, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

“Though the funny thing about never being asked for anything is that after a while you start to feel like maybe you don’t have anything worth giving.”
― Lev Grossman, The Magician King

“By now he had learned enough to know that when he was getting annoyed at somebody else, it was usually because there was something that he himself should be doing, and he wasn't doing it.”
― Lev Grossman, The Magician King

“Genuinely social people never ceased to amaze him. Their brains seemed to generate an inexhaustible fund of things to say, naturally, with no effort, out of nothing at all.”
― Lev Grossman, The Magician King

“He knew that there was no quick comfort for emotions like those. They were deeper and they did not need to be told. They were felt.”
― Lois Lowry, The Giver