Quotes

The Cider House rules
by John Irving

"The thing that is most hardest to accept about the passage of time is that the people who once mattered the most wind up in parentheses."

"It´s natural to want someone you love to do what you want, or what you think would be good for them, but you have to let everything happen to them. You can't interfere with people you love any more than you're supposed to interfere with people you don't even know. And that's hard, ..., because you often feel like interfering -you want to be the one who makes the plans."

"Among adults – and among orphans – Wilbur Larch noted that delirious happiness was rare."


Memoirs of a Geisha
by Arthur Golden

"Grief is a most peculiar thing; we’re so helpless in the face of it. It’s like a window that will simply open of its own accord. The room grows cold, and we can do nothing but shiver. But it opens a little less each time, and a little less; and one day we wonder what has become of it."

"This is why dreams can be such dangerous things: they smolder on like a fire does, and sometimes they consume us completely."

"I dont think any of us can speak frankly about pain until we are no longer enduring it."

"Hopes are like hair ornaments. Girls want to wear too many of them. When they become old women they look silly wearing even one."


The Remains of the Day
by Kazuo Ishiguro

"The evening's the best part of the day. You've done your day's work. Now you can put your feet up and enjoy it."

"I can't even say I made my own mistakes. Really - one has to ask oneself - what dignity is there in that?"

"What is the point of worrying oneself too much about what one could or could not have done to control the course one's life took? Surely it is enough that the likes of you and I at least try to make our small contribution count for something true and worthy. And if some of us are prepared to sacrifice much in life in order to pursue such aspirations, surely that in itself, whatever the outcome, cause for pride and contentment."

The Pigeon
by Patrick Suskind

"...he came to the conclusion that you cannot depend on people, and that you can live in peace only if you keep them at arm's length."


Perfume: the story of a murder
by Patrick Suskind

"Odors have a power of persuasion stronger than that of words, appearances, emotions, or will. The persuasive power of an odor cannot be fended off, it enters into us like breath into our lungs, it fills us up, imbues us totally. There is no remedy for it."