Not Alone Quotes (page 25)
Power rules the world, not opinion, but it is opinion that exploits power. It is power that makes opinion. To be easygoing can be a fine thing according to our opinion. Why? Because anyone who wants to dance the tightrope will be alone, and I can get together a stronger body of people to say there is nothing fine about it.
Blaise Pascal
Superman stands alone. Superman did not become Superman, Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he is Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red S is the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears, the glasses the business suit, that's the costume. That's the costume Superman wears to blend in with us. Clark Kent is how Superman views us. And what are the characteristics of Clark...
Quentin Tarantino
She was nervous about the future; it made her indelicate. She was one of the most unimportantly wicked women of her time --because she could not let her time alone, and yet could never be a part of it. She wanted to be the reason for everything and so was the cause of nothing. She had the fluency of tongue and action meted out by divine providence to those who cannot think for themselves. She was the master of the over-sweet phrase, the over-tight embrace.
Djuna Barnes
Regret hung from the hem of everyone's lives, a rip cord reminder that what you want is not always what you get. Look at himself, outliving Aimee. Or Az, trying to find his daughter, only to have her wind up dead. Look at Shelby, with a child who was dying by degrees. Ethan, born into a body nobody deserves. At some point or another, everyone was failed by this world. Disappointment was the one thin humans had in common. Taken this way, Ross didn't feel quite so alone. Trapped in your...
Jodi Picoult
Their drift away from others produced a selfish privacy and they had lost the refuge and the consolation of a clan. Baptists, Presbyterians, tribe, army, family, some encircling outside thing was needed. Pride, she thought. Pride alone made them think that they needed only themselves, could shape life that way, like Adam and Eve, like gods from nowhere beholden to nothing except their own creations. She should have warned them, but her devotion cautioned against impertinence. As long as Sir...
Toni Morrison
Writing novels is much the same. You gather up bones and make your gate, but no matter how wonderful the gate might be, that alone doesn't make it a living breathing novel. A story is not something of this world. A real story requires a kind of magical baptism to link the world on this side with the world on the other side.
Haruki Murakami
If you read this, read it for that reason that Lestat is talking again, that he is frightened, that he is searching desperately for the lesson and for the song and for the raison d'etre, that he wants to understand his own story and he wants you to understand it, and that it is the very best story he has right now to tell. If that's not enough, read something else. If it is, read on. In chains, to my friend and my scribe, I dictated these words. Come with me. Just listen to me. Don't leave me...
Anne Rice
Never look back, that's what she's told herself. Don't think about swans or being alone in the dark. Don't think of storms, or lightning and thunder, or the true love you won't ever have. Life is brushing your teeth and making breakfast for your children and not thinking about things, and as it turns out, Sally is first-rate at all of this. She gets things done and done on time.
Alice Hoffman
there was something aboutthat city, thoughit didn't let me feel guiltythat I had no feeling for thethings so many othersneeded. it let me alone. sitting up in my bedthe lights out, hearing the outsidesounds, lifting my cheapbottle of wine, letting the warmth ofthe grapeentermeas I heard the ratsmoving about theroom, I preferred themtohumans. being lost, being crazy maybeis not so badif you can bethat wayundisturbed. New Orleans gave methat. nobody ever calledmy name.
Charles Bukowski
...the sea's only gifts are harsh blows and, occasionally, the chance to feel strong. Now, I don't know much about the sea, but I do know that that's the way it is here. And I also know how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong but to feel strong, to measure yourself at least once, to find yourself at least once in the most ancient of human conditions, facing blind, deaf stone alone, with nothing to help you but your own hands and your own head...
Primo Levi
But the disciple had the advantage over the Pharisee in that his doing of the law is in fact perfect. How is such a thing possible? Because between the disciples and the law stands one who has perfectly fulfilled it, on with whom they live in communion...Jesus not only possesses this righteousness, but is himself the personal embodiment of it. He is the righteousness of the disciples...This is where the righteousness of the disciple exceeds that of the Pharisees; it is grounded solely upon...
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The coast's a jungle of Moors, Turks, Jews, renegades from all over Europe, sitting in palaces built from the sale of Christian slaves. There are twenty thousand men, women and children in the bagnios of Algiers alone. I am not going to make it twenty thousand and one because your mother didn't allow you to keep rabbits, or whatever is at the root of your unshakable fixation."I had weasels instead," said Philippa shortly."Good God," said Lymond, looking at her. "That explains a lot.
Dorothy Dunnett