Natalya Hanenberger > Natalya's Quotes

“Rags hate clutter the way healthy people hate cancer: it was offensive, invasive, and should be eliminated quickly and surgically.”
― Amy L. Bernstein, The Potrero Complex

“ If they come—whoever they are—will sorely wish they hadn’t!”
― Tom Baldwin, Macom Farm

“Paul Remmich is going to do something special before moving to Cuba. He will have to sign a legal agreement protecting him to work for Iraq as an independent diplomat.”
― Karl Braungart, Counter Identity

“Get up you lazy bastard. The Governor wants a word with you,” said a guard. 
He opened his eyes and smiled. There was another guard standing near the cell door in 
anticipation of any trouble. The prisoner smiled at him, too. 
Now what can the Governor want from me? He wondered. His dishevelled form seemed 
incapable of coherent thought. “It’s nice of him to remember me,” he said aloud, trying to 
concentrate.
“Surprising he’s got any time for a worthless shit like you,” said the first guard. 
“I once used to be a very important person,” the prisoner said feebly.”
― Max Nowaz, The Arbitrator

“In her usual manner, Merkel spoke in German. It is worth pointing out, however, that before the translator had an opportunity to convert her statements to English, Obama gave the chancellor and the press a big smile, saying, ‘I think what she said was good. I’m teasing.’ The laughter in the room drowned out the sounds of the cameras clicking and flashing, with Merkel’s giggle and smile among the loudest.”
― Claudia Clark, Dear Barack: The Extraordinary Partnership of Barack Obama and Angela Merkel

“We give our mistakes too much power. Instead, see a mistake for what it is. It is not the real you… You are more valuable than the opinion others have of you.”
― Gregory Dickow, Soul Cure: How to Heal Your Pain and Discover Your Purpose

“Don't bullshit me, Olan. I know when a girl's getting screwed.”
― Kyle Keyes, Quantum Roots

“Despite the business and auto-rickshaws and bantering Bengalis just beyond his brown front door, Sanjit cultivates a distinct learning environment and energy, one created and galvanized above the tile floors, within the thin walls, below the imperative ceiling fans, and embraced by books.”
― Colin Phelan, The Local School

“Only you can charter the course of your destiny.”
― C. Toni Graham, Crossroads and the Himalayan Crystals

“one could drown in irrelevance.”
― Ian McEwan, Atonement

“It's a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful.”
― Roald Dahl, Matilda

“Why waste time learning when ignorance is instantaneous.
---Hobbes”
― Bill Waterson

“Avoid stock expressions (like the plague, as William Safire used to say) and repetitions. Don't say that as a boy your grandmother used to read to you, unless at that stage of her life she really was a boy, in which case you have probably thrown away a better intro. If something is worth hearing or listening to, it's very probably worth reading. So, this above all: Find your own voice.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Mortality

“One cannot be humble and aware of oneself at the same time.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, A Circle of Quiet

“It made me start to wonder if there were other people so lonely so close. I thought about “Eleanor Rigby.” It’s true, where do they all come from? And where do they all belong?”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

“even the Pyramids and other “great works” were as ephemeral as a castle of sand on the beach at Brighton.”
― Dan Simmons, The Fifth Heart

“And she didn't judge nobody. She loved everyone equal- accountants, queers, musicians, she welcomed us all, said we were all idiots just the same.”
― Ruta Sepetys, Out of the Easy

“Al actuar y ser como eres ahora, estás determinando la forma de ser y actuar de los demás.”
― James Redfield, The Twelfth Insight: The Hour of Decision

“I just wish it hadn’t happened four days before Thanksgiving. It’s going to spoil the holiday to have everyone so gloomy.”
― Elizabeth George Speare, The Witch of Blackbird Pond

“It isn't by getting out of the world that we become enlightened, but by getting into the world…by getting so tuned in that we can ride the waves of our existence and never get tossed because we become the waves.”
― Ken Kesey, Kesey's Garage Sale

“The worshipful biographical vignettes of Columbus provided by most of our textbooks serve to indoctrinate students into a mindless endorsement of colonialism that is strikingly inappropriate to today's postcolonial era.”
― James Loewen

“While an elderly man in his mid-eighties looks curiously at a porno site, his grandson asks him from afar, “‘What are you reading, grandpa?’” “‘It’s history, my boy.’” “The grandson comes nearer and exclaims, “‘But this is a porno site, grandpa, naked chicks, sex . . . a lot of sex!’” “‘Well, it’s sex for you, my son, but for me it’s history,’ the old man says with a sigh.” All of people in the cabin burst into laughter. “A stale joke, but a cool one,” added William More, the man who just told the joke. The navigator skillfully guided the flying disc among the dense orange-yellow blanket of clouds in the upper atmosphere that they had just entered. Some of the clouds were touched with a brownish hue at the edges. The rest of the pilots gazed curiously and intently outwards while taking their seats. The flying saucer descended slowly, the navigator’s actions exhibiting confidence. He glanced over at the readings on the monitors below the transparent console: Atmosphere: Dense, 370 miles thick, 98.4% nitrogen, 1.4% methane Temperature on the surface: ‒179°C / ‒290°F Density: 1.88 g/cm³ Gravity: 86% of Earth’s Diameter of the cosmic body: 3200 miles / 5150 km.”
― Todor Bombov, Homo Cosmicus 2: Titan: A Science Fiction Novel

“Lindsey loved her job almost as much as she loved her husband.”
― Cricket Rohman, Wanted: An Honest Man

“   In 1658, Francis Andrew Ransome stole the Alchemy Scroll from St. Julian’s college, my present employer. Ransome was a member of a transatlantic group called The Invisible College. They were alchemists, meaning they worked with matter and spirit together.”
― Susan Rowland, The Alchemy Fire Murder

“Running out the anchor line, the pirates babbled to one another, and in the tangle of their barbaric language, Aspasia listened for one word—Athens. It lit up the darkness in her mind, like the single glint her eyes fixed on above the distant gray-green hills.”
― Yvonne Korshak, Pericles and Aspasia: A Story of Ancient Greece

“There were things I wanted to tell him. But I knew they would hurt him. So I buried them, and let them hurt me.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

“If a person is too poor to keep a servant, though ever so elegant, he must sweep his own rooms:”
― William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair

“Like those in the valley behind us, most people stand in sight of the spiritual mountains all their lives and never enter them, being content to listen to others who have been there and thus avoid the hardships.”
― Robert M. Pirsig

“Procul, o procul este, profani, totoque absistite luco.”
― Vergil, Aeneis.

“Leo cada carta escrupulosamente. Algunas no carecen de gravedad. Me hablan del sentido de la vida, de la supremacía del alma, del misterio de toda existencia, y por un curioso fenómeno de inversión de las apariencias, son aquellos con quienes había establecido las relaciones más triviales los que más abordan estas cuestiones esenciales. Su ligereza enmascaraba un alma profunda. ¿Acaso estaba ciego y sordo, o bien se requiere la luz de una desgracia para que un hombre se revele tal como es?”
― Jean-Dominique Bauby, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: A Memoir of Life in Death