Sheba Parkins > Sheba's Quotes

“Not to change the subject, but…you do realize you’ve been going over the speed limit for quite a few miles? Never mind. And thank you Professor Ludefance. Somehow, I think this lecture is meant for me, but I have a lot more interchange of material and energy with my environment than most.”
“In a physical sense, you’re not decaying at all, you’re a very vibrant young woman. The decay I’m speaking about for you is emotional. As for the professorship, that very lecture was given to me from a Turkish friend who had inherited a great deal of wealth and didn’t know what to do with himself. I learned this from him. As for you, you interact with your environment, but you are predatory, fearless, irritable, and listless. You’re getting no emotional feedback.”
“And just where do you suggest I go to look for ‘emotional feedback,’ Mr. Professor?”
“Aha. That’s the catch. You can’t. It’s not that mechanical. You merely have to be receptive and hope it comes along.”
“Meanwhile, I’m being ground down by the second law of thermodynamics.”
“In a sense, yes.”
“Thank you so much, Professor. I never would have known.”
― Behcet Kaya, Appellate Judge

“The Profumo Affair in 1963 profoundly altered British society. It gave lie to the belief that those born into the ruling class were inherently superior and destined to lead.”
― Anne Michaud, Why They Stay: Sex Scandals, Deals, and Hidden Agendas of Nine Political Wives

“I can smack a ball-bearing between your abusive fiancé’s eyes before his wingtips hit the sidewalk.”
― M.S.M. Barkawitz

“A different vantage point gives us new information, and with that information we can begin to change our approach.”
― Steve Pemberton, The Lighthouse Effect: How Ordinary People Can Have an Extraordinary Impact in the World

“It took me a moment to speak. My heart pumped madly as though I’d run for miles in pursuit of something vital. In this case, love.”
― J.J. Sorel, A Taste of Peace

“Your realm? This is the Guardian’s and you’re just playing in his. You are nothing but a fragment of his world. A piece of it.”
― Marie Montine, Mourning Grey: Part Two

“If you can't prove your freedom in the nanosecond before you spilled rage out of your lips, you have proven your bondage.”
― Randy Loubier, Slow Brewing Tea

“Ruxandra pulled the blanket down just far enough to see the two girls shut the door behind them, stuff something under it to block any light, and throw a blanket over the shutters. A flint sparked one, twice, and a taper flared to life, lighting the faces of her friends. Adela was a short blonde whose breasts pushed against her nightdress and were the despair of the nuns’ attempts to instill modesty. Her parents had sent her to the convent in desperate hopes to keep her from scandal. And between her sweet, round face and her ability to lie shamelessly, she almost managed to make the nuns believe they were being successful. Valeria was slim and dark, a mischief-maker whose pranks had gotten her in trouble more than once. They were both her lovers. Adela called it practice for when they had husbands. Valeria called it wonderful. The nuns declared it a sin in no uncertain terms. And while Ruxandra did her best to obey the nuns in most matters, and to turn her thoughts to God and do his good work, she could not stop loving the girls. From the moment she’d first held Adela’s hand, she’d known that, whatever else their feelings were for each other, they were too sweet to be sinful.”
― John Patrick Kennedy, Princess Dracula

“Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.”
― Jane Austen

“Relationships matter. They matter as much as exercise and nutrition. And not all relationships help us reach our goals. God doesn’t give us crying, pooping children because he wants to advance our careers. He gives them to us for the same reason he confused language at the Tower of Babel, to create chaos and deter us from investing too much energy in the gluttonous idols of self-absorption.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“Imagine me; I shall not exist if you do not imagine me; try to discern the doe in me, trembling in the forest of my own iniquity; let's even smile a little. After all, there is no harm in smiling.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

“Life feels pointless.”
― Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss

“Depending on the reality one must face, one may prefer to opt for illusion.”
― Judith Guest, Ordinary People

“You aren't sick & unhappy
only alive & stuck with it.”
― Margaret Atwood, Power Politics: Poems

“I wish... I wish he wasn't quite so ashamed of me. And if he could stop feeling so ashamed of himself, then maybe we might stand a chance.”
― Malorie Blackman, Boys Don't Cry

“That there are such devices as firearms, as easy to operate as cigarette lighters and as cheap as toasters, capable at anybody's whim of killing Father or Fats or Abraham Lincoln or John Lennon or Martin Luther King, Jr., or a woman pushing a baby carriage, should be proof enough for anybody that being alive is a crock of shit.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake

“we are the creators of our own destiny. Be it through intention or ignorance, our successes and our failures have been brought on by none other than ourselves.”
― Garth Stein, Racing in the Rain: My Life as a Dog

“Under these dreadful apprehensions I looked back on the life I had led with the utmost contempt and abhorrence. I blushed, and wondered at myself how I could act thus, how I could divest myself of modesty and honour, and prostitute myself for gain; and I thought, if ever it should please God to spare me this one time from death, it would not”
― Daniel Defoe, The Fortunate Mistress; or, a History of the Life of Mademoiselle de Beleau Known by the Name of the Lady Roxana

“A man is like a novel: until the very last page you don't know how it will end. Otherwise it wouldn't even be worth reading.”
― Yevgeny Zamyatin, We

“Faith, I am no such fool; everyone for himself in this desert of selfishness which is called life.”
― Stendhal, The Red and the Black

“Oh, that fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity.”
― Cecelia Ahern

“if you gonna go into history, you can’t do it with a hate attitude. You got to remember, times was different.”
― Rebecca Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

“Please, Mogget,” whispered Lirael, too soft to be heard by anyone at all. But the white shape did hear. It stopped and turned inwards, to face Orannis, changing from a pillar of fire to a more human shape, but one with skin as bright as a burning star. “I am Yrael,” it said, casting a hand out to throw a line of silver fire into the breaking spell-ring, its voice crackling with force. “I also stand against you.”
― Garth Nix, Abhorsen

“That's the funny thing about America--the blessed thing. As many people as there are to hold you back, there are angels whose humanity makes up for all the others. I've had my share of angels.”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

“The sixth and last eulogy was from Roderick, Hugo and Verna’s oldest child. He wrote a three-page tribute to his father, and it was read by the reverend. Even Michael Geismar, a cold-blooded Presbyterian, finally succumbed to his emotions. The”
― John Grisham, The Whistler

“I will not sulk about having no boyfriend, but develop inner poise and authority and sense of self as woman of substance,complete without boyfriend, as best way to obtain boyfriend.”
― Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones’s Diary

“FOR A LITTLE while when Walter Henderson was nine years old he thought falling dead was the very zenith of romance,”
― Richard Yates, Eleven Kinds of Loneliness

“To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
― William Shakespeare, Macbeth

“She was knowingly punishing herself. That was the only reasonable explanation. There was no use in acting naive. What happened earlier in the day was proof that she was going to give in to his flirtation. It appeared she'd thrown caution to the wind and opened her arms to embrace everything that could go wrong in her life. What's one more problem to add to the pile?”
― Emem Uko, The Place That Gave

“Love?" Heeb asked, playfully pretending not to know the concept.

"Yeah. The real thing. The conviction that if you had this one woman, all other women would become irrelevant. You'd never again be unhappy. And you'd give up anything to have her and keep her." *Evan*”
― Zack Love, Sex in the Title: A Comedy about Dating, Sex, and Romance in NYC