Reader > Reader's Quotes

“Dally raised the gun, and I thought: You blasted fool. They don’t know you’re only bluffing. And even as the policemen’s guns spit fire into the night I knew that was what Dally wanted. He was jerked half around by the impact of the bullets, then slowly crumpled with a look of grim triumph on his face. He was dead before he hit the ground. But I knew that was what he wanted, even as the lot echoed with the cracks of shots, even as I begged silently—Please, not him . . . not him and Johnny both—I knew he would be dead, because Dally Winston wanted to be dead and he always got what he wanted.”
― S.E. Hinton, The Outsiders

“Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“She hated that she was still so desperate for a glimpse of him, but it had been this way for years.”
― Julia Quinn, The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever

“The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim. The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.

The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography. Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.

Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty.

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

The nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.

The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass. The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium. No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved. No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything. Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art. Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art. From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor's craft is the type. All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital. When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself. We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.

All art is quite useless.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“It was a mistake," you said. But the cruel thing was, it felt like the mistake was mine, for trusting you.”
― David Levithan, The Lover's Dictionary

“Nothing had changed. I was the stupid one again. I was the girl who never understood who she was to people.”
― Carol Rifka Brunt, Tell the Wolves I'm Home

“Do people always fall in love with things they can't have?'

'Always,' Carol said, smiling, too.”
― Patricia Highsmith, The Price of Salt

“He was both everything I could ever want…
And nothing I could ever have…”
― Ranata Suzuki

“The last time I felt alive – I was looking into your eyes.
Breathing your air…. touching your skin…
… Saying goodbye….
The last time I felt alive…. I was dying.”
― Ranata Suzuki

“Though these words will never find you, I hope that you knew I was thinking of you today….. and that I was wishing you every happiness.
Love Always,
The girl you loved once.”
― Ranata Suzuki

“When you loved someone and had to let them go, there will always be that small part of yourself that whispers, "What was it that you wanted and why didn't you fight for it?”
― Shannon L. Alder

“It’s difficult for me to imagine the rest of my life without you. But I suppose I don’t have to imagine it... I just have to live it”
― Ranata Suzuki

“I raised you so high that every other man on earth is now doomed to live in your shadow.”
― Ranata Suzuki

“Because, if you could love someone, and keep loving them, without being loved back . . . then that love had to be real. It hurt too much to be anything else.”
― Sarah Cross, Kill Me Softly

“To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.”
― Federico García Lorca, Blood Wedding and Yerma

“You're the most important person I've ever met." she says. "And I should have never met you at all.”
― Casey McQuiston, One Last Stop

“Because what’s worse than knowing you want something, besides knowing you can never have it?”
― James Patterson, The Angel Experiment

“The way he looked at you. I got it then. He loved you, and it was killing him. He won't get over you, Clary, he can't.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Glass

“Maybe I was destined to forever fall in love with people I couldn’t have. Maybe there’s a whole assortment of impossible people waiting for me to find them. Waiting to make me feel the same impossibility over and over again.”
― Carol Rifka Brunt, Tell the Wolves I'm Home

“Icarus flew too close to the sun, but at least he flew.”
― Jeremy Robert Johnson, Skullcrack City

“Never regret thy fall,
O Icarus of the fearless flight
For the greatest tragedy of them all
Is never to feel the burning light.”
― Oscar Wilde