If somebody from the past doesn't rise up from the grave and start talking to me, I haven't got a book. I have to hear that voice, the voice of the narrator. How she sounds will tell me who she is, and who she is will tell me how she will act - and that starts the plot in motion. ~Geraldine Brooks
#quotes #geraldine-brooks #books #past

We learn little from victory, much from defeat. ~Japanese Proverb
#proverbs #japanese-proverbs #success #failure #learning

But you know, my dad called me the laziest white kid he ever met. When I screamed back at him that he was putting down a race of people to call me lazy, his answer was that's not what he was doing, and that I was also the dumbest white kid he ever met. ~Norman Lear
#quotes #norman-lear #family #racism

I went to church with my grandparents sometimes, and I loved it. ~Anne Lamott
#quotes #anne-lamott #church

As tough as things have been, I am convinced you are tougher. I've seen your passion and I've seen your service. I've seen you engage and I've seen you turn out in record numbers. I've heard your voices amplified by creativity and a digital fluency that those of us in older generations can barely comprehend. I've seen a generation eager, impatient even, to step into the rushing waters of history and change its course. ~Barack Obama
#quotes #barack-obama #politics

Will is stronger than fact; it can mold and overcome fact. ~H. G. Wells
#quotes #h-g-wells #wish #hardship

There are no limits, only obstacles, and any obstacle can be overcome. ~David Belle
#quotes #david-belle #hardship

Reality is not meant to be only creedal, though the creeds are important. Reality is to be experienced, and experienced on the basis of a restored relationship with God through that finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. ~Francis Schaeffer
#quotes #francis-schaeffer #christianity

We like to think that our parents made a decision to bring us into the world. ~Christopher Eccleston
#quotes #christopher-eccleston #family #parents

I don't use Twitter. I'm a serious person. ~Paolo Sorrentino
#quotes #paolo-sorrentino #twitter

Musically, I have more things in common with tons of bands that have no female members. ~St. Vincent
#quotes #st-vincent #music #bands

I believe that before anything else I'm a human being; just as much as you are... or at any rate I shall try to become one. I know quite well that most people would agree with you, Torvald, and that you have warrant for it in books; but I can't be satisfied any longer with what most people say, and with what's in books. I must think things out for myself and try to understand them. ~Henrik Ibsen
#quotes #henrik-ibsen #human #believe #books #thinking

I always stayed for the first curtain call and people always said, "Who's that?" But this got me started in acting. ~James Stewart
#quotes #james-stewart #acting

I think that it is expansive for the mind, for the fantasy of children and grownups alike, to understand that the world is huge. There is so much in the world to experience, and the odds are so essential to life. ~Jessye Norman
#quotes #jessye-norman #mind #experience #world

What is to be got at to make the air sweet, the ground good under the feet, can only be got at by failure, trial, again and again and again failure. ~Sherwood Anderson
#quotes #sherwood-anderson #failure #success

The time comes upon every public man when it is best for him to keep his lips closed. ~Abraham Lincoln
#quotes #abraham-lincoln #silence

There is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather. ~John Ruskin
#quotes #john-ruskin #weather

I don't think that I could ever be a strict dad. I never grew up with anybody strict in my life. I'm not saying I'm a role model by any means or anything. I think the fact that I wasn't told what not to do all the time - my spirit kind of told me things that I shouldn't. I got to develop on my own. It's part of your common sense. ~Randy Houser
#quotes #randy-houser #parenting

I have been, or seemed, hard with everyone because I was carried away by a sort of brutality born of my distrust in myself and my ill-humor. I have felt so badly equipped, so soft, in spite of the fact that my attitude towards art seemed to me so just. I was disgusted with everyone, and especially myself. ~Edgar Degas
#quotes #edgar-degas #art #attitude

Thousands of climate scientists agree that global warming is not only the most threatening environmental problem but also one of the greatest challenges facing all of humanity. We must demand a separation between oil and state. We can get off oil and slow global warming. ~Leonardo DiCaprio
#quotes #leonardo-dicaprio #humanity #environment

Failure is fantastic, because you meet yourself and get to know your limitations. This is how I express myself, and I can't do it any other way. ~Billy Childish
#quotes #billy-childish #failure

We are to love God for Himself, because of a twofold reason; nothing is more reasonable, nothing more profitable. ~Bernard of Clairvaux
#quotes #bernard-of-clairvaux #god

No naturalist has devoted more painstaking attention to the structure of the barnacles than Mr. Darwin. ~Richard Owen
#quotes #richard-owen #nature #charles-darwin

Our deepest mature conviction is that finite and infinite interpenetrate, as time and eternity interpenetrate, and our problems must be solved in the light of that conviction. ~Lily Dougall
#quotes #lily-dougall #wisdom

Everyone agrees in theory that we can't judge a new idea or point of view unless we enter into it and try it out, but the practice itself is rare. ~Peter Elbow
#quotes #peter-elbow #ideas #practice