💬 Quotes

"A guardian's life is one of sacrifice. You learn that early on. You learn that you are a shield, and a shield is meant to take the blows."

"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies; the man who never reads lives only one."

"Every story is a dialogue between the author's intent and the reader's perspective."

"The power of language lies not just in the words chosen, but in the silence between them."

"To understand a character is to bridge the gap between ourselves and the 'other,' fostering empathy through the written word."

"It is a way of saying that she has lived, that she has tasted the air and touched the things of this world."

"I suppose that’s the way it is with all of us. We live our lives, do whatever we do, and then we sleep—it’s as simple and as terrifying as that."

"The flowers were bought by Clarissa herself, for she had decided to buy them herself, though it was hardly a day of any importance."

"Everything is a struggle, a process, a series of small negotiations with the world."

"Maybe it's just that there's only one day, and you spend your whole life trying to get it right."

"She would marry a man, she would have children, she would lead a life that was perfect and still and entirely hollow."

"It is a way of saying: this is the effort of the day, this is the contribution to the world, and this is how it ends."

"I believe I may have made a mistake. I thought I was becoming someone, but perhaps I was just becoming someone else."

"Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself. For Lucy had her work cut out for her."

"A poet who can't write, a mother who can't mother, a woman who can't leave her life."

"That is the terror of it, isn't it? That we live our lives, we do these things, and we are just people who are waiting to die."

"If it is a gift, it is a terrible one. To be able to see the world as it is, and to be unable to do anything but watch it slip away."

"I wanted only to try to live in accord with the promptings which came from my true self. Why was that so very difficult?"

"The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world."

"It is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognize each other, to learn to see the other and honor him for what he is: each the other's opposite and complement."