Alaina McQuillan > Alaina's Quotes

“Dana taught me that the ability to grieve deeply also meant that a person had the capacity to love deeply, laugh deeply, live deeply -- and that this was a capacity to be cherished.”
― Melanie Benjamin, The Aviator's Wife

“Who was this woman before me, her face imprinted with the expectations of others? I was Mom. I was Wife. I was Tragedy. I was Pilot. They all were me, and I, them. That was a fate we could not escape, we women; we would always be called upon by others in a way men simply never were. But weren't we always, first and foremost -- woman? Wasn't there strength in that, victory, clarity -- in all the stages of a woman's life?”
― Melanie Benjamin, The Aviator's Wife

“I squat there and think about how you get trained early on as a woman to perceive how others are perceiving you, at the great expense of what you yourself are feeling about them. Sometimes you mix the two up in a terrible tangle that’s hard to unravel.”
― Lily King, Writers & Lovers

“It’s a particular kind of pleasure, of intimacy, loving a book with someone.”
― Lily King, Writers & Lovers

“If we didn't have fear, imagine the creativity in the world. Fear holds us back every step of the way.”
― Lily King, Writers & Lovers

“Much of life is timing and circumstance, I see that now.”
― Tayari Jones, An American Marriage

“Everything I do is a love letter addressed to you.”
― Tayari Jones, An American Marriage

“Some people could look at a mud puddle and see an ocean with ships.”
― Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

“Janie looked down on him and felt a self-crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place.”
― Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

“Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see.”
― Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

“I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

“...for love casts out fear, and gratitude can conquer pride.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

“Women, they have minds, and they have souls, as well as just hearts. And they’ve got ambition, and they’ve got talent, as well as just beauty. I’m so sick of people saying that love is all a woman is fit for.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

“She closes her eyes. He probably won’t come back, she thinks. Or he will, differently. What they have now they can never have back again. But for her the pain of loneliness will be nothing to the pain that she used to feel, of being unworthy. He brought her goodness like a gift and now it belongs to her. Meanwhile his life opens out before him in all directions at once. They’ve done a lot of good for each other. Really, she thinks, really. People can really change one another.
You should go, she says. I’ll always be here. You know that.”
― Sally Rooney, Normal People

“Marianne, he said, I'm not a religious person but I do sometimes think God made you for me.”
― Sally Rooney, Normal People

“Be worthy love, and love will come.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

“Be comforted, dear soul! There is always light behind the clouds.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

“I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.”
― Fitzgerald F. Scott, The Great Gatsby

“And I like large parties. They’re so intimate. At small parties there isn’t any privacy.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“I wasn't actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“He looked at her the way all women want to be looked at by a man.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“The exhilarating ripple of her voice was a wild tonic in the rain.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her glowing face; her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I listened - then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret, like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“Don’t you want to be alive before you die?”
― Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See

“All your life you wait, and then it finally comes, and are you ready?”
― Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar