Du Quotes

But luxury has never appealed to me, I like simple things, books, being alone, or with somebody who understands.

The more one judges, the less one loves.

Children learn more from what you are than what you teach.

Women want love to be a novel. Men, a short story.

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.

Always try to keep a patch of sky above your life.

La plus belle des ruses du diable est de vous persuader qu'il n'existe pas." ("The devil's finest trick is to persuade you that he does not exist.")

If only there could be an invention that bottled up a memory, like scent. And it never faded, and it never got stale. And then, when one wanted it, the bottle could be uncorked, and it would be like living the moment all over again.

Happiness is not a possession to be prized, it is a quality of thought, a state of mind.

Believe in life! Always human beings will progress to greater, broader, and fuller life.

There is no greater sorrow Than to recall a happy time When miserable.

The worker must work for the glory of his handiwork, not simply for pay; the thinker must think for truth, not for fame.

Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind.

I am glad it cannot happen twice, the fever of first love. For it is a fever, and a burden, too, whatever the poets may say.

Reinette: One may tolerate a world of demons for the sake of an angel.

I suppose sooner or later in the life of everyone comes a moment of trial. We all of us have our particular devil who rides us and torments us, and we must give battle in the end.

Quand tu veux construire un bateau, ne commence pas par rassembler du bois, couper des planches et distribuer du travail, mais reveille au sein des hommes le desir de la mer grande et large. If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

I wish I was a woman of about thirty-six dressed in black satin with a string of pearls.

We are a race of artists. What are we doing about it?

It is always sad to leave a place to which one knows one will never return. Such are the melancolies du voyage: perhaps they are one of the most rewarding things about traveling.

I wondered how many people there were in the world who suffered, and continued to suffer, because they could not break out from their own web of shyness and reserve, and in their blindness and folly built up a great distorted wall in front of them that hid the truth.

Men are simpler than you imagine my sweet child. But what goes on in the twisted, tortuous minds of women would baffle anyone.

I believe there is a theory that men and women emerge finer and stronger after suffering, and that to advance in this or any world we must endure ordeal by fire.

As she had done when she introduced the US president in Berlin, she addressed him publicly with the informal du for the first time since the NSA controversy in 2013.

Even a minute of dying is better than an eternity of nothingness.

When someone has been mean to you, why would you want to be good to them?' 'You wouldn't want to. That's what makes it hard. You do it anyway. Being good is hard. Much harder than being bad.

My heart is lost; the beasts have eaten it.

Vane grabbed me. “DuLac, let’s chat.” Chat. British-speak for “Stand still while I yell at you.

I don't like it, but my hands are tied. I just want you to know this: if I ever get the chance to betray you, I will. If the opportunity arises to pay you back, I'll take it. You'll never be able to trust me.

Ever hear of the phrase, Banging you're head on a brick wall?" Ah, but you forget, Darren, vampires can break brick walls with their heads.

I wondered why it was that places are so much lovelier when one is alone.

Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien. (The perfect is the enemy of the good.)

Se Souvenir du passe, et qu'il ya un avenir: Remember the past, and that there is a future.

The point is, life has to be endured, and lived. But how to live it is the problem.

Either you go to America with Mrs. Van Hopper or you come home to Manderley with me." "Do you mean you want a secretary or something?" "No, I'm asking you to marry me, you little fool.

A dreamer, I walked enchanted, and nothing held me back.

We're not meant for happiness, you and I.

Either America will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States.

Now are the woods all black, But still the sky is blue.

The road to Manderley lay ahead. There was no moon. The sky above our heads was inky black. But the sky on the horizon was not dark at all. It was shot with crimson, like a splash of blood. And the ashes blew towards us with the salt wind from the sea.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing." - Harkat Mulds (Hunters of the Dusk)

We love each other like matches in the dark. We don't talk, we catch fire instead

I sit, with all my theories, metaphors, and equations, Shakespeare and Milton, Barthes, Du Fu, and Homer, masters of death who can’t, at last, teach me how to touch my dead.

The Poet is a kinsman in the clouds Who scoffs at archers, loves a stormy day; But on the ground, among the hooting crowds, He cannot walk, his wings are in the way.

Atra esterni' ono thelduin Mor' rana li'fa unin hjarta onr Un du evari'nya ono varda (May good fortune rule over you peace live in your heart may the stars watch over you)

Every moment was a precious thing, having in it the essence of finality.

...The pain didn't bother me. In fact, I welcome it: It meant I was alive.

We can never go back again, that much is certain. The past is still close to us. The things we have tried to forget and put behind us would stir again, and that sense of fear, of furtive unrest, struggling at length to blind unreasoning panic - now mercifully stilled, thank God - might in some manner unforeseen become a living companion as it had before.

Herein lies the tragedy of the age: not that men are poor, — all men know something of poverty; not that men are wicked, — who is good? not that men are ignorant, — what is Truth? Nay, but that men know so little of men.

Writers should be read, but neither seen nor heard.

In his younger days a man dreams of possessing the heart of the woman whom he loves; later, the feeling that he possesses the heart of a woman may be enough to make him fall in love with her.

A world of "if"s, but it would make no difference. If I could go back in time... but I couldn't. The past was behind me. The best thing now would be to stop looking over my shoulder. It was time to forget the past and look to the present and future.

Sirrah, my companion chooses to engage you in knightly combat!" Halt said. The horseman stiffened, sitting upright in his saddle. Halt noticed that he nearly lost his balance at this unexpected piece of news. Nightly cermbat?" he replied, "Yewer cermpenion ers no knight!" Halt nodded hugely, making sure the man could see the gesture. Oh yes he is!" he called back. "He is Sir Horace of the Order of the Feuille du Chene." He paused and muttered to himself, "Or should that have been Crepe du Chene? Never mind." What did you tell him?" Horace asked, slinging his buckler around from where it hung at his back and setting it on his left arm. I said you were Sir Horace of the Order of the Oakleaf." Halt said to him, then added uncertainly, "At least, I think that's what I told him. I may have said you were of the Order of the Oak Pancake.

One cannot change, that is to say become a different person, while continuing to acquiesce to the feelings of the person one has ceased to be.

The thirst for something other than what we have…to bring something new, even if it is worse, some emotion, some sorrow; when our sensibility, which happiness has silenced like an idle harp, wants to resonate under some hand, even a rough one, and even if it might be broken by it.

...the routine of life goes on, whatever happens, we do the same things, go through the little performance of eating, sleeping, washing. No crisis can break through the crust of habit.

There is but one coward on earth, and that is the coward that dare not know.

I have no talent for making new friends, but oh such genius for fidelity to old ones.

It wouldn't make for sanity would it, living with the devil.

It is too easy to say 'what if' and paint a picture of a perfect world.

Will you look into my eyes and tell me that you love me now?

But the true voyagers are only those who leave Just to be leaving; hearts light, like balloons, They never turn aside from their fatality And without knowing why they always say: "Let's go!

Quand je vous ai dit que vous aviez une prédisposition surnaturelle aux catastrophes, ce n'était pas une invitation à me donner raison.

Because I want to; because I must; because now and forever more this is where I belong to be.

Boredom is a pleasing antidote for fear

Good women always think it is their fault when someone else is being offensive. Bad women never take the blame for anything.

Sometimes it’s a sort of indulgence to think the worst of ourselves. We say, ‘Now I have reached the bottom of the pit, now I can fall no further,’ and it is almost a pleasure to wallow in the darkness. The trouble is, it’s not true. There is no end to the evil in ourselves, just as there is no end to the good. It’s a matter of choice. We struggle to climb, or we struggle to fall. The thing is to discover which way we’re going.

Through the Unknown, we'll find the New

love is dangerous for your tiny heart even in your dreams so please dream softly

The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.

And yet to wine, to opium even, I prefer the elixir of your lips on which love flaunts itself; and in the wasteland of desire your eyes afford the wells to slake my thirst.

The hands of Fate keep time on a heart-shaped watch." - Harkat Mulds(The Trials of Death)

What are you doing?" "Looking for my fangs." "We don't grow fangs you idiot!

The main thing to do is pay attention. Pay close attention to everything, notice what no one else notices. Then you'll know what no one else knows, and that's always useful.

I had build up false pictures in my mind and sat before them. I had never had the courage to demand the truth.

I love to watch the fine mist of the night come on, The windows and the stars illumined, one by one, The rivers of dark smoke pour upward lazily, And the moon rise and turn them silver. I shall see The springs, the summers, and the autumns slowly pass; And when old Winter puts his blank face to the glass, I shall close all my shutters, pull the curtains tight, And build me stately palaces by candlelight.

My story will be over soon. But it’s not something to be sad about. Remembering those who went ahead. Remembering those who will follow after. And someday, we will meet all those people again, out beyond the horizon

Indecision is the source of chaos." - Paris Skyle(Allies of the Night)

If you let people break your spirit and detour you from your path, then you have not been true to yourself or those you're here to touch, those who believe in you.

The world still wants to ask that a woman primarily be pretty and if she is not, the mob pouts and asks querulously, 'What else are women for?

Come and see us if you feel like it,' she said. 'I always expect people to ask themselves. Life is too short to send out invitations.

The places we have known do not belong solely to the world of space in which we situate them for our greater convenience. They were only a thin slice among contiguous impressions which formed our life at that time; the memory of a certain image is but regret for a certain moment; and houses, roads, avenues are as fleeting, alas, as the years.

Time will mellow it, make it a moment for laughter. But now it was not funny, now I did not laugh. It was not the future, it was the present. It was too vivid and too real.

The moment of crisis had come, and I must face it. My old fears, my diffidence, my shyness, my hopeless sense of inferiority, must be conquered now and thrust aside. If I failed now I should fail forever.

But in life we don't usually get to choose the time of our defining moments. We just have to stand and face them when they come, no matter what sort of a state we're in.

One ever feels his twoness, -- an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.

I am glad it cannot happen twice, the fever of first love. For it is a fever, and a burden, too, whatever the poets may say. They are not brave, the days when we are twenty-one. They are full of little cowardices, little fears without foundation, and one is so easily bruised, so swiftly wounded, one falls to the first barbed word. To-day, wrapped in the complacent armour of approaching middle age, the infinitesimal pricks of day by day brush one but lightly and are soon forgotten, but then--how a careless word would linger, becoming a fiery stigma, and how a look, a glance over a shoulder, branded themselves as things eternal. A denial heralded the thrice crowing of a cock, and an insincerity was like the kiss of Judas. The adult mind can lie with untroubled conscience and a gay composure, but in those days even a small deception scoured the tongue, lashing one against the stake itself.

This house sheltered us, we spoke, we loved within those walls. That was yesterday. To-day we pass on, we see it no more, and we are different, changed in some infinitesimal way. We can never be quite the same again.

The thing about real life is, when you do something stupid, it normally costs you. In books the heroes can make as many mistakes as they like. It doesn't matter what they do, because everything works out in the end. They'll beat the bad guys and put things right and everything ends up cool. In real life, vacuum cleaners kill spiders. If you cross a busy road without looking, you get whacked by a car. If you fall from a tree, you break some bones. Real life's nasty. It's cruel. It doesn't care about heroes and happy endings and the way things should be. In real life, bad things happen. People die. Fights are lost. Evil often wins. I just wanted to make that clear before I begun.

This woman is Pocahontas. She is Athena and Hera. Lying in this messy, unmade bed, eyes closed, this is Juliet Capulet. Blanche DuBois. Scarlett O'Hara. With ministrations of lipstick and eyeliner I give birth to Ophelia. To Marie Antoinette. Over the next trip of the larger hand around the face of the bedside clock, I give form to Lucrezia Borgia. Taking shape at my fingertips, my touches of foundation and blush, here is Jocasta. Lying here, Lady Windermere. Opening her eyes, Cleopatra. Given flesh, a smile, swinging her sculpted legs off one side of the bed, this is Helen of Troy. Yawning and stretching, here is every beautiful woman across history.

My 'morals' were sound, even a bit puritanic, but when a hidebound old deacon inveighed against dancing I rebelled. By the time of graduation I was still a 'believer' in orthodox religion, but had strong questions which were encouraged at Harvard. In Germany I became a freethinker and when I came to teach at an orthodox Methodist Negro school I was soon regarded with suspicion, especially when I refused to lead the students in public prayer. When I became head of a department at Atlanta, the engagement was held up because again I balked at leading in prayer. I refused to teach Sunday school. When Archdeacon Henry Phillips, my last rector, died, I flatly refused again to join any church or sign any church creed. From my 30th year on I have increasingly regarded the church as an institution which defended such evils as slavery, color caste, exploitation of labor and war. I think the greatest gift of the Soviet Union to modern civilization was the dethronement of the clergy and the refusal to let religion be taught in the public schools.

How delightful are the pleasures of the imagination! In those delectable moments, the whole world is ours; not a single creature resists us, we devastate the world, we repopulate it with new objects which, in turn, we immolate. The means to every crime is ours, and we employ them all, we multiply the horror a hundredfold.

Even in the most insignificant details of our daily life, none of us can be said to constitute a material whole, which is identical for everyone, and need only be turned up like a page in an account-book or the record of a will; our social personality is created by the thoughts of other people.

I wanted to go on sitting there, not talking, not listening to the others, keeping the moment precious for all time, because we were peaceful all of us, we were content and drowsy even as the bee who droned above our heads. In a little while it would be different, there would come tomorrow, and the next day and another year. And we would be changed perhaps, never sitting quite like this again. Some of us would go away, or suffer, or die, the future stretched away in front of us, unknown, unseen, not perhaps what we wanted, not what we planned. This moment was safe though, this could not be touched. Here we sat together, Maxim and I, hand-in-hand, and the past and the future mattered not at all. This was secure, this funny little fragment of time he would never remember, never think about again…For them it was just after lunch, quarter-past-three on a haphazard afternoon, like any hour, like any day. They did not want to hold it close, imprisoned and secure, as I did. They were not afraid.

They are not brave, the days when we are twenty-one. They are full of little cowardices, little fears without foundation, and one is so easily bruised, so swiftly wounded, one falls to the first barbed word. To-day, wrapped in the complacent armour of approaching middle age, the infinitesimal pricks of day by day brush one but lightly and are soon forgotten, but then—how a careless word would linger, becoming a fiery stigma, and how a look, a glance over a shoulder, branded themselves as things eternal.

Entre Ce que je pense, Ce que je veux dire, Ce que je crois dire, Ce que je dis, Ce que vous avez envie d'entendre, Ce que vous croyez entendre, Ce que vous entendez, Ce que vous avez envie de comprendre, Ce que vous croyez comprendre, Ce que vous comprenez... il y a dix possibilités qu'on ait des difficultés à communiquer. Mais essayons quand même...

I wondered why it was that places are so much lovelier when one is alone. How commonplace and stupid it would be if I had a friend now, sitting beside me, someone I had known at school, who would say: “By-the-way, I saw old Hilda the other day. You remember her, the one who was so good at tennis. She’s married, with two children.” And the bluebells beside us unnoticed, and the pigeons overhead unheard. I did not want anyone with me. Not even Maxim. If Maxim had been there I should not be lying as I was now, chewing a piece of grass, my eyes shut. I should have been watching him, watching his eyes, his expression. Wondering if he liked it, if he was bored. Wondering what he was thinking. Now I could relax, none of these things mattered. Maxim was in London. How lovely it was to be alone again.

If you're frightened of damaging yourself, you increase the risk of doing just that. Consider the tightrope walker. Do you think he spares any thought for falling while he's walking the rope? No, he accepts the risk, and enjoys the thrill of braving the danger. If you spend your whole life being careful not to break anything, you'll get terribly bored, you know... I can't think of anything more fun than being impulsive.

We know one another. This is the present. There is no past and no future. Here I am washing my hands, and the cracked mirror shows me to myself, suspended as it were, in time; this is me, this moment will not pass. And then I open the door and go to the dining-room, where he is sitting waiting for me at a table, and I think how in that moment I have aged, and passed on, how I have advanced one step towards an unknown destiny. We smile, we choose our lunch, we speak of this and that, but - I say to myself-I am not she who left him five minutes ago. She has stayed behind. I am another woman, older, more mature…

DADDY You do not do, you do not do Any more, black shoe In which I have lived like a foot For thirty years, poor and white, Barely daring to breathe or Achoo. Daddy, I have had to kill you. You died before I had time― Marble-heavy, a bag full of God, Ghastly statue with one grey toe Big as a Frisco seal And a head in the freakish Atlantic When it pours bean green over blue In the waters of beautiful Nauset. I used to pray to recover you. Ach, du. In the German tongue, in the Polish town Scraped flat by the roller Of wars, wars, wars. But the name of the town is common. My Polack friend Says there are a dozen or two. So I never could tell where you Put your foot, your root, I never could talk to you. The tongue stuck in my jaw. It stuck in a barb wire snare. Ich, ich, ich, ich, I could hardly speak. I thought every German was you. And the language obscene An engine, an engine Chuffing me off like a Jew. A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen. I began to talk like a Jew. I think I may well be a Jew. The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna Are not very pure or true. With my gypsy ancestress and my weird luck And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack I may be a bit of a Jew. I have always been scared of you, With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo. And your neat mustache And your Aryan eye, bright blue. Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You― Not God but a swastika So black no sky could squeak through. Every woman adores a Fascist, The boot in the face, the brute Brute heart of a brute like you. You stand at the blackboard, daddy, In the picture I have of you, A cleft in your chin instead of your foot But no less a devil for that, no not And less the black man who Bit my pretty red heart in two. I was ten when they buried you. At twenty I tried to die And get back, back, back to you. I thought even the bones would do. But they pulled me out of the sack, And they stuck me together with glue. And then I knew what to do. I made a model of you, A man in black with a Meinkampf look And a love of the rack and the screw. And I said I do, I do. So daddy, I’m finally through. The black telephone’s off at the root, The voices just can’t worm through. If I’ve killed one man, I’ve killed two― The vampire who said he was you And drank my blood for a year, Seven years, if you want to know. Daddy, you can lie back now. There’s a stake in your fat black heart And the villagers never like you. They are dancing and stamping on you. They always knew it was you. Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through.