Océane Reads > Océane's Quotes

“Nothing is ever lost. Nothing is ever gained.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation

“Light is the left hand of darkness
and darkness the right hand of light.
Two are one, life and death, lying
together like lovers in kemmer,
like hands joined together,
like the end and the way.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness

“Full circle. A new terror born in death, a new superstition entering the unassailable fortress of forever. I am legend.”
― Richard Matheson, I Am Legend

“Going outside is highly overrated.”
― Ernest Cline, Ready Player One

“The question moles should really ask when evil befalls them is not, "Why me?", nor even, "What is the purpose of the Stone in this?" But rather, "What talons of truth and faith has the stone given me by which, now that i am in darkness, I may proceed back to the light?”
― William Horwood, Duncton Rising

“I still think I have things to do, and moles to influence, but true greatness of spirit lies simply in knowing when to do nothing.”
― William Horwood, Duncton Rising

“From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them, and that is eternity.”
― Edvard Munch

“Right thought precedes right action, as right action must be followed by right thought. It is an endless gyre of improvement by which moles ascend ever higher towards an understanding of themselves.”
― William Horwood, Duncton Rising

“How does one hate a country, or love one? Tibe talks about it; I lack the trick of it. I know people, I know towns, farms, hills and rivers and rocks, I know how the sun at sunset in autumn falls on the side of a certain plowland in the hills; but what is the sense of giving a boundary to all that, of giving it a name and ceasing to love where the name ceases to apply? What is love of one's country; is it hate of one's uncountry? Then it's not a good thing. Is it simply self-love? That's a good thing, but one mustn't make a virtue of it, or a profession... Insofar as I love life, I love the hills of the Domain of Estre, but that sort of love does not have a boundary-line of hate. And beyond that, I am ignorant, I hope.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness

“The only advice I can give you is what you're telling yourself. Only, maybe you're too scared to listen.”
― Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere

“The brain is a monstrous, beautiful mess.”
― Susannah Cahalan, Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness

“Inside the snow globe on my father's desk, there was a penguin wearing a red-and-white-striped scarf. When I was little my father would pull me into his lap and reach for the snow globe. He would turn it over, letting all the snow collect on the top, then quickly invert it. The two of us watched the snow fall gently around the penguin. The penguin was alone in there, I thought, and I worried for him. When I told my father this, he said, "Don't worry, Susie; he has a nice life. He's trapped in a perfect world.”
― Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones

“Heaven is comfort, but it's still not living.”
― Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones

“I would die for you. But I won't live for you.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“But it was hard to keep his hands still. He could almost feel them twitching emphatically with his strong desire to reach out and stroke the dog's head. He had such a terrible yearning to love something again, and the dog was such a beautiful ugly dog.”
― Richard Matheson, I Am Legend and Other Stories

“Robert Neville looked out over the new people of the earth. He knew he did not belong to them; he knew that, like the vampires, he was anathema and black terror to be destroyed. And, abruptly, the concept came, amusing to him even in his pain. ... Full circle. A new terror born in death, a new superstition entering the unassailable fortress of forever. I am legend.”
― Richard Matheson, I Am Legend and Other Stories

“The strength of the vampire is that no one will believe in him.”
― Richard Matheson, I Am Legend

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

“If you can see a thing whole," he said, "it seems that it's always beautiful. Planets, lives. . . . But close up, a world's all dirt and rocks. And day to day, life's a hard job, you get tired, you loose the pattern. You need distance, interval. The way to see how beautiful earth is, is to see it from the moon. The way to see how beautiful life is, is from the vantage point of death."
"That's all right for Urras. Let it stay off there and be the moon-I don't want it! But I am not going to stand up on a gravestone and look down on life and say, 'O lovely!' I want to see it whole right in the middle of it, here, now. I don't give a hoot for eternity."
"It's nothing to do with eternity," said Shevek, grinning, a thin shaggy man of silver and shadow. "All you have to do to see life as a whole is to see it as mortal. I'll die, you'll die; how could we love each other otherwise? The sun's going to burn out, what else keeps it shining?"
"Ah! your talk, your damned philosophy!"
"Talk? It's not talk. It's not reason. It's hand's touch. I touch the wholeness, I hold it. Which is moonlight, which is Takver? How shall I fear death? When I hold it, when I hold in my hands the light-"
"Don't be propertarian," Takver muttered.
"Dear heart, don't cry."
"I'm not crying. You are. Those are your tears."
"I'm cold. The moonlight's cold."
"Lie down."
A great shiver went through his body as she took him in her arms.
"I'm afraid, Takver," he whispered.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia

“What he did have faith in was that when the need came there would be moles in Duncton who would have the courage to stance forth, put their trust in the Stone and face their enemies, not with talons of hatred and violence, but but with the powers of love, and faith, and peace.”
― William Horwood, Duncton Rising

“Oh dear, we moles become so lost and so confused when we waver from the disciplines and the mystery of the Silence of the Stone. Why does the stone give us such liberty to lose ourselves? Well, I know why . . . I know. It is because in the finding of our way back again to the Silence we lost when we were born is the discovery of true liberty of spirit, which is the positive act of choice, and of commitment.”
― William Horwood, Duncton Rising

“The little boy Hannibal died in 1945 out there in the snow trying to save his sister. His heart died with Mischa. What is he now? There's not a word for it yet. For lack of a better word, we'll call him a monster.”
― Inspector Popil

“There's a point, around the age of twenty, when you have to choose whether to be like everybody else the rest of your life, or to make a virtue of your peculiarities.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia

“And day to day, life's a hard job, you get tired, you lose the pattern. You need distance, interval. The way to see how beautiful the earth is, is to see it as the moon. The way to see how beautiful life is, is from the vantage point of death.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia

“To be whole is to be part; true voyage is return.”
― Ursula K. LeGuin, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia