Quotes by Novelists - Page 134

One wants to tell a story, like Scheherezade, in order not to die. It's one of the oldest urges in mankind. It's a way of stalling death.
Carlos Fuentes
I know that I shall die struggling for breath, and I know that I shall be horribly afraid. I know that I shall not be able to keep myself from regretting bitterly the life that has brought me to such a pass; but I disown that regret. I now, weak, old, diseased, poor, dying, hold still my soul in my hands, and I regret nothing.
W Somerset Maugham
Where music thundered let the mind be still,Where the will triumphed let there be no will,What light revealed, now let the dark fulfill.
May Sarton
Bu dağlarda bin kere ölmeden, bir kere dirilemezsin.
Yaşar Kemal
From too much love of livingFrom hope and fear set free,We thank with brief thanksgivingWhatever gods may beThat no life lives for ever;That dead men rise up never;That even the weariest riverWinds somewhere safe to sea.Then star nor sun shall waken,Nor any change of light:Nor sound of waters shaken,Nor any sound or sight:Nor wintry leaves nor vernal,Nor days nor things diurnal;Only the sleep eternalIn an eternal night.
Algernon Charles Swinburne
The only certainty is death.
Guy de Maupassant
Remember me, even if it's only in a corner and secretly. Don't let me go.
Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Like the pain of a bad wound, the effect of a deep shock takes some while to be felt. When a child is told, for the first time in his life, that a person he has known is dead, although he does not disbelieve it, he may well fail to comprehend it and later ask--perhaps more than once--where the dead person is and when he is coming back.
Richard Adams
If the thing they were fighting for was important enough to die for then it was also important enough for them to be thinking about it in the last minutes of their lives. That stood to reason. Life is awfully important so if you've given it away you'd ought to think with all your mind in the last moments of your life about the thing you traded it for. So did all those kids die thinking of democracy and freedom and liberty and honor and the safety of the home and the stars and stripes forever? You're goddamn right they didn't.They died crying in their minds like little babies. They forgot the thing they were fighting for the things they were dying for. They thought about things a man can understand. They died yearning for the face of a friend. They died whimpering for the voice of a mother a father a wife a child They died with their hearts sick for one more look at the place where they were born please god just one more look. They died moaning and sighing for life. They knew what was important They knew that life was everything and they died with screams and sobs. They died with only one thought in their minds and that was I want to live I want to live I want to live.He ought to know. He was the nearest thing to a dead man on earth.
Dalton Trumbo
You must know that I am made of death, from head to foot, and it is a corpse who loves you and adores you and will never, never leave you!
Gaston Leroux
What is this thing you call substance abuse? All I wanna do is forget and get loose.Drinking and smoking over and overWhat's so great about a life that's sober?There's nothing cool about being youngWhen the monsters of night have stolen the sun.I'm tired of searching for words in the sky.All I wanna do is drink and die. Nothing is real. It's all a big lie. All I wanna do is drink and die. There's nothing cool about being youngWhen the monsters of night have stolen the sun.
Benjamin Alire Sáenz
Death, I had discovered long ago, was available in varying flavors, and none of them particularly palatable.
Jasper Fforde
The first kiss can be as terrifying as the last.
Daína Chaviano
There is some delight in ale and wineAnd some in girls with ankles fineBut my delight, yes always mineIs to dance with Jak O’ the ShadowsWe will toss the dice however they fallAnd snuggle the girls be they short or tallThen follow Lord Mat whenever he callsTo dance with Jak O’ the Shadows.
Robert Jordan
Tell him,' the colonel said, smiling, 'that a person doesn’t die when he should but when he can.
Gabriel García Márquez
Today will die tomorrow.
Algernon Charles Swinburne
It’s a hard thing to explain to somebody who hasn’t felt it, but the presence of death and danger has a way of bringing you fully awake. It makes things vivid. When you’re afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world. You make close friends. You become part of a tribe and you share the same blood- you give it together, you take it together.
Tim O'Brien
You have made flowers grow where I cultivated dust and stones. Remember this, on this journey you insist on making. If you die, I will not survive you long.
Robert Jordan
Though you may hear me holler,And you may see me cry--I'll be dogged, sweet baby,If you gonna see me die.
Langston Hughes
Merciful death. How you love your precious guilt
Anne Rice
Jon Snow, is this a proper castle now? Not just a tower?”“It is.” Jon took her hand.“Good,” she whispered. “I wanted t’ see one proper castle, before … before I …”“You’ll see hundred castles. The battle’s done. Maester Aemon will see to you. You’re kissed by fire, remember? Lucky. It will take more than an arrow to kill you. Aemon will draw it out and patch you up, and we’ll get milk of the poppy for the pain.”She just smiled at that. “D’you remember that cave? We should have stayed in that cave. I told you so.”“We’ll go back to the cave,” he said.” You’re not going to die, Ygritte. You’re not.”“Oh.” Ygritte cupped his cheek with her hand. “You know nothing, Jon Snow,” she sighed, dying.
George R.R. Martin
Was there ever a war where only one side bled?
George R.R. Martin
There are always two deaths, the real one and the one people know about.
Jean Rhys
Oh Lestat, you deserved everything that's ever happened to you. You better not die. You might actually go to hell.
Anne Rice
My heart has joined the Thousand, for my friend stopped running today.
Richard Adams
I have outlasted all desire,My dreams and I have grown apart;My grief alone is left entire,The gleamings of an empty heart.The storms of ruthless dispensationHave struck my flowery garland numb,I live in lonely desolationAnd wonder when my end will come.Thus on a naked tree-limb, blastedBy tardy winter's whistling chill,A single leaf which has outlastedIts season will be trembling still.
Alexander Pushkin
I went down to the river,I set down on the bank.I tried to think but couldn't,So I jumped in and sank.
Langston Hughes
The dead can survive as part of the lives of those that still live.
Kenzaburō Ōe
When someone you love dies, and you're not expecting it, you don't lose her all at once; you lose her in pieces over a long time—the way the mail stops coming, and her scent fades from the pillows and even from the clothes in her closet and drawers. Gradually, you accumulate the parts of her that are gone. Just when the day comes—when there's a particular missing part that overwhelms you with the feeling that she's gone, forever—there comes another day, and another specifically missing part.
John Irving
Mais, j’aurai beau supplier, j’aurai beau me révolter, il n’y aura plus rien pour moi ; je ne serai, désormais, ni heureux, ni malheureux. Je ne peux pas ressusciter. Je vieillirai aussi tranquille que je le suis aujourd’hui dans cette chambre où tant d’êtres ont laissé leur trace, où aucun être n’a laissé la sienne.Cette chambre, on la retrouve à chaque pas. C’est la chambre de tout le monde. On croit qu’elle est fermée, non : elle est ouverte aux quatre vents de l’espace. Elle est perdue au milieu des chambres semblables, comme de la lumière dans le ciel, comme un jour dans les jours, comme moi partout.Moi, moi ! Je ne vois plus maintenant que la pâleur de ma figure, aux orbites profondes, enterrée dans le soir, et ma bouche pleine d’un silence qui doucement, mais sûrement, m’étouffe et m’anéantit.Je me soulève sur mon coude comme sur un moignon d’aile. Je voudrais qu’il m’arrivât quelque chose d’infini !
Henri Barbusse
I had started out in life trusting everyone and now I trusted no one. So I had a few acquaintances and no close friends. It was perhaps in reaction against the inevitable loneliness of my life that I'd find myself doing bold, risky, even outrageous things without hesitation or surprise. I was usually disappointed in these adventures and they didn't have much effect on me, good or bad, but I never quite lost the hope of something better or different.
Jean Rhys
Almost any book was better than life, Audrey thought. Or rather, life as she was living it. Of course, life would soon change, open out, become quite different. You couldn't go on if you didn't hope that, could you? But for the time being there was no doubt that it was pleasant to get away from it. And books could take her away.
Jean Rhys
Small hopes can grow surprising fruit.
Robert Jordan
This is where I belong. This is what I have always dreamt of.
Arun Joshi
There was not even any hope for Miss Roach that Mr. Thwaites would ever die.
Patrick Hamilton
Out in the fog, weary, yet buoyant from the drinks, his mind dulled along with his aches and his energy returning, Tully was free of the sense of impending ordeal that had been with him for weeks. He felt whole, self-sufficient, felt his life had at last opened up and that now nothing stood between him and the future's infinite possibilities.
Leonard Gardner
It seemed that out of every tear of a martyr new confessors were born, and that every groan on the arena found an echo in thousands of breasts. Caesar was swimming in blood, Rome and the whole pagan world was mad. But those who had had enough of transgression and madness, those who were trampled upon, those whose lives were misery and oppression, all the weighed down, all the sad, all the unfortunate, came to hear the wonderful tidings of God, who out of love for men had given Himself to be crucified and redeem their sins.When they found a God whom they could love, they had found that which the society of the time could not give any one, -- happiness and love.
Henryk Sienkiewicz
Dream anything hard enough, and it can be yours.
George R.R. Martin
Defying the Dark One no matter the length of his shadow. We will live, that defiance said. We will love and we will hope.
Robert Jordan
Cine a ucis stelele? Cine a surpat drumul spre viitor al celor din morminte?
Ionel Teodoreanu
There, about a dozen times during the day, the wind drives over the sky the swollen clouds, which water the earth copiously, after which the sun shines brightly, as if freshly bathed, and floods with a golden luster the rocks, the river, the trees, and the entire jungle.
Henryk Sienkiewicz
I pondered all these things, and how men fight and lose the battle, and the thing that they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat, and when it comes turns out not to be what they meant, and other men have to fight for what they meant under another name.
William Morris
I had turned away from the picture and was going back to the world where events move, men change, light flickers, life flows in a clear stream, no matter whether over mud or over stones.
Joseph Conrad
Nevertheless, in this sea of human wretchedness and malice there bloomed at times compassion, as a pale flower blooms in a putrid marsh.
Henryk Sienkiewicz
Hope was always out ahead of fact, possibility obscured the outlines of reality.
Wallace Stegner
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
How does one kill fear, I wonder? How do you shoot a spectre through the heart, slash off its spectral head, take it by its spectral throat?
Joseph Conrad
I couldn't help thinking that if I, by pure chance, had found a whole universe in a single unknown book, buried in that endless necropolis, tens of thousands more would remain unexplored, forgotten forever.
Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Hope and desire,All unfulfilled,Have more than ropeAnd hangman killed.
Stevie Smith
I dalje verujem da Sunce izlazi svakoga dana i da svako novo Sunce najavljuje novi dan;dan koji je juče bio budućnost. I dalje verujem da će današnji dan, u trenutku zatvaranja jedne stranice vremena, obećati sutra – ranije nepredvidivo, kasnije neponovljivo
Carlos Fuentes
There is a trick to flying. The angels told me." He had smiled at my wide-eyed awe. "You need to forget everything you know as a human being. When you are human, you discover that there is great power in hating the earth. And it can almost make you fly. But it never will."I had frowned, not quite understanding him. "So, what's the trick?""Love the sky.
Anne Fortier
It is the privilege of the richTo waste the time of the poorTo water with tears in secretA tree that grows in secretThat bears fruit in secretThat ripened falls to the ground in secretAnd manures the parent treeOh the wicked tree of hatred and the secretThe sap rising and the tears falling.
Stevie Smith
Summertime. It was a song. It was a season. I wondered if that season would ever live inside of me.
Benjamin Alire Sáenz
Hope is the greatest madness. What can we expect of a world that we enter with the assurance of seeing our fathers and mothers die? A world where, if two beings love each other and give their lives to each other, both can be sure that one will watch the other perish?
Alfred de Vigny
We can be friends. We can be anything we want to be.
Muriel Barbery
I like the immaterial world. I like to live among thoughts and images of the past and the possible, and even of the impossible, now and then.
Thomas Love Peacock
Time has taught me not to lose hope, yet not to trust too much in hope either.
Carlos Ruiz Zafón
You can't eat hope,' the woman said.You can't eat it, but it sustains you,' the colonel replied.
Gabriel García Márquez
And books, they offer one hope -- that a whole universe might open up from between the covers, and falling into that universe, one is saved.
Anne Rice
The chief beauty about timeis that you cannot waste it in advance.The next year, the next day, the next hour are lying ready for you,as perfect, as unspoiled,as if you had never wasted or misapplieda single moment in all your life.You can turn over a new leaf every hourif you choose.
Arnold Bennett