Quotes by Canadian Authors - Page 164

I like to imagine that, on the day after my last, my library and I will crumble together, so that even when I am no more I'll still be with my books.
Alberto Manguel
I planned my death carefully, unlike my life, which meandered along from one thing to another, despite my feeble attempts to control it.
Margaret Atwood
Death is a stripping away of all that is not you. The secret of life is to "die before you die" --- and find that there is no death.
Eckhart Tolle
We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves. I wish for all this to be marked on by body when I am dead. I believe in such cartography - to be marked by nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books. We are not owned or monogamous in our taste or experience.
Michael Ondaatje
The heaviness of loss in her heart hadn't eased, but there was room there for humour, too.
Nalo Hopkinson
The world is waiting for you to seize the day and make the most of it! Who knows what could be possible. Keep dreaming, keep hoping, keep believing, keep doing!
Akiroq Brost
I wondered: what happens when a hundred thousand people memorize the same poem? Does anything change?
Madeleine Thien
What happens when a hundred thousand people memorize the same poem? Does anything change?
Madeleine Thien
Chronicling the passage of whales has led me to an understanding that we, as a species, now sand at a crossroads. We can face the possibility of our own extinction and work to avert it, or we can flow the more traditional path of earths organisms and fall blindly over the edge. If there's one trait that characterised human beings, it's the will to survive. This, I believe, will motivate us to work with the natural world rather than opposite it, which is all we need to do to give the children of earth - of all species - the opportunity to thrive.
Alexandra Morton
It’s like everyone has their own little recipe for happiness, but no one really seems all that happy.
Brent Jones
Happiness isn’t something you work toward, the same way misery isn’t something you work toward.
Brent Jones
He pondered his turmoil, wondering which he feared most—losing his father or being alone in the world. Both were inevitable. Neither could be stopped or slowed down. All he could do now was brace for impact.
Brent Jones
I argue against purism not because I want a devastated world, the Mordor of industrial capitalism emerging as from a closely aligned alternate universe through our floating islands of plastic gradually breaking down into microbeads consumed by the scant marine life left alive after generations of overfishing, bottom scraping, and coral reef–killing ocean acidification; our human-caused, place-devastating elevated sea levels; our earth-shaking, water poisoning fracking; our toxic lakes made of the externalities of rare-earth mineral production for so-called advanced electronics; our soul-and-lifedestroying prisons; our oil spills; our children playing with bits of dirty bombs; our white phosphorus; our generations of trauma held in the body; our cancers; and I could go on. I argue against purism because it is one bad but common approach to devastation in all its forms. It is a common approach for anyone who attempts to meet and control a complex situation that is fundamentally outside our control. It is a bad approach because it shuts down precisely the field of possibility that might allow us to take better collective action against the destruction of the world in all its strange, delightful, impure frolic. Purism is a de-collectivizing, de-mobilizing, paradoxical politicsof despair. This world deserves better.
Alexis Shotwell
I lost someone close to me once . . . Taught me to live in the moment. Life is short, you know?
Brent Jones
It feels like I’m stuck in one spot. It’s been this way for a long time. I know you understand, but now you’re moving on without me. And I—I’m not ready to be alone.
Brent Jones
Hopes are so well constructed, so monstrously dashed!
Emma Richler
If that’s the case, I understand why emotions are hard for you. You’ve numbed yourself to make room for the grief you carry.
Brent Jones
I gave up drinking before my twentieth birthday. I haven’t touched the stuff since. And I’ve discovered that not everyone who does horrible things is a horrible person.
Brent Jones
See, you’ve got to understand, son. There’s two types of guys in this world. There’s guys . . . who think they’re in control, and guys like us who live in the moment. Who accept life as it is.
Brent Jones
It’s like you’re always living in your head. . . . Relax and appreciate your surroundings a little.
Brent Jones
if you are suffering without a belief in God, then there is not a lot of hope that your pain has any greater purpose in the grand scheme of the universe. Suffering is just a part of naturalistic evolution weeding you out of existence for something stronger and younger to take your place on the food chain.
Jon Morrison
Suppression or Invalidation of any innate expression of who or what I am is a crime against myself.
Jean-Jacques Dalpe
Sometimes hope is like wearing someone else’s coat. You know it can shield and protect you, just as it did them, but it still doesn’t feel right. You’re just not used to it.
Karina Halle
But I want you to know," Cleo continued, "that there is hope. And that I am living proof of that hope. Because, even though I was forced into this marriage against my will, I have come to know Prince Magnus Lukas Damora very well these last months. And one thing I've learned is that Prince Magnus is nothing like his father. Prince Magnus is brave and compassionate, and he truly wants what's just and best for this kingdom. Kindness is what makes a good king who will put the needs and rights of his people before his own desires.
Morgan Rhodes
The Perfectionist pushed Tom onto her bed. She took off his shirt. She took off his shoes and his socks. She took off his pants. She took off his boxers.With most guys the Perfectionist would stop there. She didn’t. She was still feeling reckless. She took off his skin. She took off his nervous system. She lifted up his rib cage. His heart beat in her hand. And there, underneath it, she found a rusted tin box. She opened it. Inside she found his hopes, his dreams and his fears. She stared at them. She was surprised to find them there and surprised at how beautiful they were. At that exact moment, the Perfectionist fell in love with Tom.
Andrew Kaufman
I want things to change in The Nameless City. I want the people in the city to finally have some influence over its future. We've never had that before. If there's something I can do to make this council of nations happen, I want to know about it. Don't tell me not to be worried. Tell me how to help.
Faith Erin Hicks
Es dificilísimo que hasta los más bondadosos, los que más te quieren, se tomen tus intereses verdaderamente en serio, porque suelen aconsejarte desde una vida más segura y más aislada que la tuya, en la que escapar no es una realidad, sino algo con lo que de vez en cuando sueñan.
Rachel Cusk
Remember how we forgot?Once upon a time, we were youngOur dreams hung like applesWaiting to be picked and peeledAnd hope was something needing to be reeled-inSo we can fill the always empty big fish bin with the one that got awayAnd proudly say that "this time, impossible is not an option"Because success is so akin to effort and opportunity they could be relatedSo we took chancesWe figure skated on thin iceBelieved that each slice of life was served with something sweet on the sideAnd failure was never nearly as important as the fact that we triedThat in the war against frailty and limitationWe supplied the determination it takes to make ideas and goals the parents of PossibilityAnd we believe ourselves to be members of this familyNot just one branch on one treeBut a forest whose roots make up a dynasty
Shane L. Koyczan
My whole marriage to her, I finally realized, was a placeholder, leading me to this very day.
Barbara Avon
When we squander the moments of our lives, Peter, we are spending the most valuable currency.
Barbara Avon
My sense of self hinges upon the belief that what I do matters. That belief has compelled me to venture far from home life, and to immerse myself in the lives of strangers in the hope that my work will have an impact and connect people in some intangible way, that I can contribute some greater good.
Finbarr O'Reilly
Your purpose will fuel your hope.
Akiroq Brost
Plain Kate greased her boots and bandaged her feet, and soon she would walk like a Roamer born. She helped Drina with the water and the wood, and in the long, wet evenings she carved objarka burji.Plain Kate carved fast and learned slowly. She was bewildered most of the time, but Daj called her mira again, and when she asked Drina what it meant, the girl replied, "It means she likes you. It means your family."Family. It could have kept her walking for a hundred miles. And she did walk far.
Erin Bow
Taggle, meanwhile, made himself popular, killing rats and bringing a rabbit into camp every evening, preening in the praise - silently, thank god, though at night, he recounted choice bits to Kate: "Rye Baro says I am a princeling; he split the leg bone for me so that I could eat the marrow. They love me. And I'm sure they'll keep you, too."Mira, she thought, and treasured it each time she heard it, They must keep me. Family.
Erin Bow
Don't be such a party-pooper, missy --when you're well and truly screwed, either you just sit pissing yourself or you invent some reason to hope.
James Alan Gardner
Now I want you to remember something because I don't think we shall meet again very soon. It is this; however fashionable despair about the world and about people may be at present, and however powerful despair may become in the future, not everybody, or even most people, think and live fashionably; virtue and honour will not be banished from the world, however many popular moralists and panicky journalists say so. Sacrifice will not cease to be because psychiatrists have popularized the idea that there is often some concealed, self-serving element in it; theologians always knew that. Nor do I think love as a high condition of honour will be lost; it is a pattern in the spirit, and people long to make the pattern a reality in their own lives, whatever means they take to do so. In short, Davey, God is not dead. And I can assure you God is not mocked.
Robertson Davies
...we must be a beacon of hope, because if you tell people there's nothing they can do, they will do worse than nothing.
Margaret Atwood
I'm a writer and this is what I do no matter what name we put to it. Year by year, the world is turning into a darker and stranger place than any of us could want. This is the only thing I do that has potential to shine a little further than my immediate surroundings. For me, each story is a little candle held up to the dark of night, trying to illuminate the hope for a better world where we all respect and care for each other.
Charles de Lint
Life is a precious possession...It is what one makes of it. - Charity Duncan
Mary Balogh
You're all incredibly thoughtful souls who keep my head attached to my body.
Jenny Sampirisi
Farming is a profession of hope
Brian Brett
You can curse the moonCurse the day your’re bornBut the pilot of your plane is youWe’re all in this world, by a greater plan Look up, lift your wings, Because you canThe Light Said (The First Song album)
Phyllis Wheaton
Old folks live on memory, young folk live on hope.
Gayla Reid
But only a person in the depths of despair neglected to look beyond winter to the spring that inevitably followed, bringing back color and life and hope.
Mary Balogh
By the time the last few notes fade, his hope will be restored, but each time he's force to resort to the Adagio it becomes harder, and he knows its effect is finite. There are only a certain number of Adagios left in him, and he will not recklessly spend this precious currency.
Steven Galloway
Hope is a flicker, a candle flame kept burning by the simple act of breathing.
Joan Clark
Everyone runs around trying to find a place where they still serve breakfast because eating breakfast, even if it's 5 o'clock in the afternoon, is a sign that the day has just begun and good things can still happen. Having lunch is like throwing in the towel.
Jonathan Goldstein
Hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark.
George Iles
A man is a fool to live in hopes of a better tomorrow. I have a thousand, better ways today to spend what time remains ahead of me, and I have brighter, lighter and more pleasant places in which to spend it.
Jack Whyte
She comforted him in his darkness and gave him hope. She seemed to cherish a sincere affection for him, despite his failings. 'She saved me'.
Sylvain Reynard
If justice takes place, there may be hope, even in the face of a seemingly capricious divinity.
Alberto Manguel
Despair is a free man—hope isa slave.
L.M. Montgomery
To believe and yet to have no hope is to thirst beside a fountain.
Ann-Marie MacDonald
Dear God Please take away my pain and despair of yesterday and any unpleasant memories and replace them with Your glorious promise of new hope. Show me a fresh HS-inspired way of relating to negative things that have happened. I ask You for the mind of Christ so I can discern Your voice from the voice of my past. I pray that former rejection and deep hurts will not color what I see and hear now. Help me to see all the choices I have ahead of me that can alter the direction of my life. I ask You to empower me to let go of the painful events and heartaches that would keep me bound. Thank You for Your forgiveness that You have offered to me at such a great price. Pour it into my heart so I can relinquish bitterness hurts and disappointments that have no place in my life. Please set me free to forgive those who have sinned against me and caused me pain and also myself. Open my heart to receive Your complete forgiveness and amazing grace. You have promised to bind up my wounds Psa 147:3 and restore my soul Psa 23:3 . Help me to relinquish my past surrender to You my present and move to the future You have prepared for me. I ask You to come into my heart and make me who You would have me to be so that I might do Your will here on earth. I thank You Lord for all that’s happened in my past and for all I have become through those experiences. I pray You will begin to gloriously renew my present.
Sue Augustine
There was no hope in death, only an end.
Morgan Rhodes
Your mother sets you up blind dates? With guys like that?" The corners of his mouth twitched. "She doesn't like you very much, does she?
Kelley Armstrong
A loss of any kind is horrible. Not because it takes away, but because it makes you believe- in newspapers, in tomatoes, in empty whiskey bottles.
Anosh Irani
Behind us, the man laughed. "Looks like we aren't the only ones looking for a little diversion. There's an empty office right over there, guys." Marsten raised his hand in thanks. The couple moved on. I let the kiss continue for five more seconds, then pulled away. "They're gone," I said. Marsten frowned, as if surprised-and disappointed-that I'd noticed. I tugged my hair from his hands. "Okay, coast clear," I said. "Let's go." He let out a small laugh. "I see I need to brush up on my kissing." "No, you have that down pat." "She says with all the excitement of a teacher grading a math quiz..." "A-plus. Now let's move. Before someone else comes along.
Kelley Armstrong
And I sometimes think that a moment of touching is the difference between complete utter despair and the ability to carry on.
Eleanor Cameron
One of the gravestones in the cemetery near the earliest church has an anchor on it and an hourglass, and the words In Hope.In Hope. Why did they put that above a dead person? Was it the corpse hoping, or those still alive?
Margaret Atwood