Gillian > Gillian's Quotes

“There is an argument that some things are beyond language, another that words are our only option.”
― Katherine Brabon, Body Friend

“When you know someone in such limited circumstances, the person you are with them is amplified. You become more faithful to that part of yourself.”
― Katherine Brabon, Body Friend

“To her surprise, the surly, old, weather-beaten face actually changed its expression: a slow smile spread over it, and the gardener looked quite different. It made her think that it was curious how much nicer a person looked when he smiled. She had not thought of it before.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

“And it was like that with Colin when he first saw and heard and felt the springtime inside the four high walls of a hidden garden. That afternoon the whole world seemed to devote itself to being perfect and radiantly beautiful and kind to one boy.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

“He had not meant to be a bad father, but he had not felt like a father at all.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

“If we actually knew the real power of the mind, she said, we would be petrified of what we allowed in.”
― Katherine Brabon, Body Friend

“You know, one of the hardest things to admit is that we weren’t loved when we needed it most. It’s a terrible feeling, the pain of not being loved.”
― Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient

“Remember, love that doesn't include honesty doesn't deserve to be called love.”
― Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient

“When I’m around other people, even if it’s only the bored waitress in here, I feel connected to the world somehow, like a human being. Otherwise I’m in danger of ceasing to exist. Like I might disappear.”
― Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient

“She was a sweet, pretty thing and he'd have walked the world over to get her a blade o' grass she wanted.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

“One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever. One knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender solemn dawn-time and goes out and stands out and throws one's head far back and looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly changing and flushing and marvelous unknown things happening until the East almost makes one cry out and one's heart stands still at the strange unchanging majesty of the rising of the sun--which has been happening every morning for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. One knows it then for a moment or so. And one knows it sometimes when one stands by oneself in a wood at sunset and the mysterious deep gold stillness slanting through and under the branches seems to be saying slowly again and again something one cannot quite hear, however much one tries. Then sometimes the immense quiet of the dark blue at night with the millions of stars waiting and watching makes one sure; and sometimes a sound of far-off music makes it true; and sometimes a look in someone's eyes.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, Secret Garden

“Of course there must be lots of Magic in the world," he said wisely one day, "but people don't know what it is like or how to make it. Perhaps the beginning is just to say nice things are going to happen until you make them happen. I am going to try and experiment.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

“In each century since the beginning of the world wonderful things have been discovered. In the last century more amazing things were found out than in any other century before. In this new century hundreds of things still more astounding will be brought to light. At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they see it can be done- then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago. One of these things people began to find out in the last century was that thoughts- just mere thoughts- are as powerful as electric batteries- as good for one as sunlight is, or as bad for one as poison. To let a sad thought or a bad one get into your mind is as dangerous as letting a scarlet fever germ get into your body. If you let it stay there after it has got in you may never get over it as long as you live."

The Secret Garden
Frances Hodgson Burnett
1911”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

“Much more surprising things can happen to anyone who, when a disagreeable or discouraged thought comes into his mind, just has the sense to remember in time and push it out by putting in an agreeable, determinedly courageous one. Two things cannot be in one place.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

“My life has been long, and believing that life loves the liver of it, I have dared to try many things, sometimes trembling, but daring, still.”
― Maya Angelou

“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.
Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud. Do not complain.
Make every effort to change things you o not like. If you cannot make a change, change the way you have been thinking. You might find a new solution.
Never whine. Whining lets a brute know that a victim is in the neighbourhood.
Be certain that you do not die without having done something wonderful for humanity.”
― Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter

“I believe that one can never leave home. I believe that one carries the shadows, the dreams, the fears and the dragons of home under one's skin, at the extreme corners of one's eyes and possibly in the gristle of the earlobe.”
― Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter

“I am convinced that most people do not grow up. We find parking spaces and honor our credit cards. We marry and dare to have children and call that growing up. I think what we do is mostly grow old. We carry accumulation of years in our bodies and on our faces, but generally our real selves, the children inside, are still innocent and shy as magnolias.

We may act sophisticated and worldly but I believe we feel safest when we go inside ourselves and find home, a place where we belong and maybe the only place we really do.”
― Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter

“The ship of my life may or may not be sailing on calm and amiable seas. The challenging days of my existence may or may not be bright and promising. Stormy or sunny days, glorious or lonely nights, I maintain an attitude of gratitude. If I insist on being pessimistic, there is always tomorrow. Today I am blessed.”
― Maya Angelou

“All great artists draw from the same resource: the human heart, which tells us all that we are more alike than we are unalike.”
― Maya Angelou, Letter To My Daughter

“The thought of only being a creature of the present and past was troubling. I longed for a future too, with hope in it. The desire to be free, awakened my determination to act, to think, and to speak.”
― Frederick Douglass

“I came to understand that I can never forget where I came from. My soul should always look back and wonder at the mountains I had climbed and the rivers I had forged and the challenges which still await down the road. I am strengthened by that knowledge.”
― Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter

“I am never proud to participate in violence, yet, I know that each of us must care enough for ourselves, that we can be ready and able to come to our own defense when and wherever needed.”
― Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter