Moran Quotes

I cannot understand anti-abortion arguments that centre on the sanctity of life. As a species we've fairly comprehensively demonstrated that we don't believe in the sanctity of life. The shrugging acceptance of war, famine, epidemic, pain and life-long poverty shows us that, whatever we tell ourselves, we've made only the most feeble of efforts to really treat human life as sacred.

When a woman says, ‘I have nothing to wear!’, what she really means is, ‘There’s nothing here for who I’m supposed to be today.

If you celebrate your differentness, the world will, too. It believes exactly what you tell it—through the words you use to describe yourself, the actions you take to care for yourself, and the choices you make to express yourself. Tell the world you are one-of-a-kind creation who came here to experience wonder and spread joy. Expect to be accommodated.

To the people who love you, you are beautiful already. This is not because they’re blind to your shortcomings but because they so clearly see your soul. Your shortcomings then dim by comparison. The people who care about you are willing to let you be imperfect and beautiful, too. (20)

It's difficult to see the glass ceiling because it's made of glass. Virtually invisible. What we need is for more birds to fly above it and shit all over it, so we can see it properly.

We need to reclaim the word 'feminism'. We need the word 'feminism' back real bad. When statistics come in saying that only 29% of American women would describe themselves as feminist - and only 42% of British women - I used to think, What do you think feminism IS, ladies? What part of 'liberation for women' is not for you? Is it freedom to vote? The right not to be owned by the man you marry? The campaign for equal pay? 'Vogue' by Madonna? Jeans? Did all that good shit GET ON YOUR NERVES? Or were you just DRUNK AT THE TIME OF THE SURVEY?

People will kill you. Over time. They will shave out every last morsel of fun in you with little, harmless sounding phrases that people uses every day, like: 'Be realistic!'" [What It Is (2009)]

Did your mom ever tell you, ‘If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything’? She was right–and talking nicely also applies when you’re talking to yourself, even inside your head. (339)

Because I haven't yet learned the simplest and most important thing of all: the world is difficult, and we are all breakable. So just be kind.

In this moment, there is plenty of time. In this moment, you are precisely as you should be. In this moment, there is infinite possibility. (17)

I want a Zero Tolerance policy on All The Patriarchal Bullshit.

Oh how I hate you. I hate you so much it gives me energy. I have to get up early in the morning just to hate you, because there's not enough time in the day! Please GO AWAY!

You can tell whether some misogynistic societal pressure is being exerted on women by calmly enquiring, ‘And are the men doing this, as well?’ If they aren’t, chances are you’re dealing with what we strident feminists refer to as ‘some total fucking bullshit’.

For throughout history, you can read the stories of women who - against all the odds - got being a woman right, but ended up being compromised, unhappy, hobbled or ruined, because all around them, society was still wrong. Show a girl a pioneering hero - Sylvia Plath, Dorothy Parker, Frida Kahlo, Cleopatra, Boudicca, Joan of Arc - and you also, more often than not, show a girl a woman who was eventually crushed.

What is feminism? Simply the belief that women should be as free as men, however nuts, dim, deluded, badly dressed, fat, receding, lazy and smug they might be. Are you a feminist? Hahaha. Of course you are.

I only know two things in life for certain: I know I love her and I know when her memory of our time together fades, I’ll still feel exactly the same as I do today. Time is irrelevant, as I once said to her. And I’m happy wasting every second of it on her.

You’re not really an adult at all. You’re just a tall child holding a beer, having a conversation you don’t understand.

We must recall the most important of humanity guidelines: Be polite. Being polite is possibly the greatest daily contribution everyone can make to life on Earth.

Sometimes, it is not the kings and queen who make for the most fascinating history but the shadowy souls who happen to be in the right place at the right time.

Don't do it! Stay away from your potential. You'll mess it up, it's potential, leave it. Anyway, it's like your bank balance - you always have a lot less than you think.

...we are all sorry when loss comes for us. The test of our character comes not in how many tears we shed but in how we act after those tears have dried.

A library in the middle of a community is a cross between an emergency exit, a life-raft and a festival. They are cathedrals of the mind; hospitals of the soul; theme parks of the imagination. On a cold rainy island, they are the only sheltered public spaces where you are not a consumer, but a citizen instead

Most of the time, life doesn't pass me by, it tries to run me over.

The truth is I do love you. Admitting that means opening myself up to all that pain when you leave. After you realize this wasn’t love, but gratitude.

I have something I need to get off my chest.” “What’s that?” “This.” He closed his mouth over hers.

I’ve seen this movie, you know. It always ends with them falling in love.

I think only when you are truly alone can you see you never were.

Batman doesn’t want a baby in order to feel he’s ‘done everything’. He’s just saved Gotham again! If this means that Batman must be a feminist role model above, say, Nicola Horlick, then so be it.

I can take two people, throw a world of obstacles at them, defy the odds, and still give them a happily-ever-after. Together. I am a romance author. What's your superpower?

Self-harm - the world will come at you with knives anyway. You do not need to beat them to it.

Because I was more often happy for other people, I got to spend more time being happy. And as I saw more light in everybody else, I seemed to have more myself. (250)

Life Lessons According to Camryn: One must handle stress like a dog; if you can't eat it or play with it, pee on it and walk away

Maybe pulling her emotions out and inserting in his logic would change this morbid course. But damn if he’d joke about it like she did.

We are all the same and we are all different. What great friends we will be.

What a beautiful woman. She moved with grace, she was entirely feminine, and yet, she possessed incredible inner strength. She’s a survivor.

The first sign that Karma was now in cahoots with the Devil Incarnate to ruin her existance should've been before sunrise and pre-coffee.

This is how memories are; what seems so clear and unforgettable at one moment vanishes like steam the next.

Born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he was going out with a rifle in his hand.

It stands to reason that anyone who learns to live well will die well. The skills are the same: being present in the moment, and humble, and brave, and keeping a sense of humor. (361)

I'm apologizing. For whatever I did. For whatever the guy who hurt you did. For the JFK assassination or the botched moon landing. Take your pick." ~Cain, Ghost of You

In terms of days and moments lived, you’ll never again be as young as you are right now, so spend this day, the youth of your future, in a way that deflects regret. Invest in yourself. Have some fun. Do something important. Love somebody extra. In one sense, you’re just a kid, but a kid with enough years on her to know that every day is priceless. (418)

But as the years went on, I realised that what I really want to be, all told, is a human. Just a productive, honest, courteously treated human.

And, like all the best quests, in the end, I did it all for a girl: me.

When the leaves stop falling wasn't her time to die, it was your time to live.

Life Lessons According to Camryn: One must handle stress like a dog; if you can't eat is or play with it, pee on it and walk away

But, of course, you might be asking yourself, 'Am I a feminist? I might not be. I don't know! I still don't know what it is! I'm too knackered and confused to work it out. That curtain pole really still isn't up! I don't have time to work out if I am a women's libber! There seems to be a lot to it. WHAT DOES IT MEAN?' I understand. So here is the quick way of working out if you're a feminist. Put your hand in your pants. a) Do you have a vagina? and b) Do you want to be in charge of it? If you said 'yes' to both, then congratulations! You're a feminist.

The day I died was just like any other idle Thursday.

Before she knew it, she was just another set of eyes in a dusty attic, waiting for the stairs to creak.

You'll know if he loves you by how long he's willing to fight.

I’m neither ‘pro-women’ nor ‘anti-men’. I’m just ‘Thumbs up for the six billion

Considering I'm a writer, you leave me strangely bereft of words.

[T[his isn’t just “another day, another dollar.” It’s more like “another day, another miracle.” (213)

If you want to know what's in motherhood for you, as a woman, then - in truth - it's nothing you couldn't get from, say, reading the 100 greatest books in human history; learning a foreign language well enough to argue in it; climbing hills; loving recklessly; sitting quietly, alone, in the dawn; drinking whisky with revolutionaries; learning to do close-hand magic; swimming in a river in winter; growing foxgloves, peas and roses; calling your mum; singing while you walk; being polite; and always, always helping strangers. No one has ever claimed for a moment that childless men have missed out on a vital aspect of their existence, and were the poorer, and crippled by it.

A simple life is not seeing how little we can get by with—that’s poverty—but how efficiently we can put first things first. . . . When you’re clear about your purpose and your priorities, you can painlessly discard whatever does not support these, whether it’s clutter in your cabinets or commitments on your calendar. (148)

These days, however, I am much calmer - since I realised that it’s technically impossible for a woman to argue against feminism. Without feminism, you wouldn’t be allowed to have a debate on women’s place in society. You’d be too busy giving birth on the kitchen floor - biting down on a wooden spoon, so as not to disturb the men’s card game - before going back to quick-liming the dunny. This is why those female columnists in the Daily Mail - giving daily wail against feminism - amuse me. They paid you £1,600 for that, dear, I think. And I bet it’s going in your bank account, and not your husband’s. The more women argue loudly, against feminism, the more they both prove it exists and that they enjoy its hard-won privileges.

She knew her place in this family, always had. Knew why she was conceived. And it wasn't for a photo on the mantle.

I don't want children anyway,' Caz says. 'So I'm getting nothing out of this whatsoever. I want my entire reproductive system taken out, and replaced with spare lungs, for when I start smoking. I want that option. This is pointless.

You don't ask nobody to give what they can't give, or be what they can't be. You've learnt that, you got a headstart on heartbreak.

A city full of eight million people. It was all rather lonely sometimes.

You can always tell when a woman is with the wrong man, because she has so much to say about the fact that nothing's happening.

I am getting incredibly high on a single, astounding fact: that it’s always sunny above the clouds. Always. That every day on earth—every day I have ever had—was secretly sunny, after all.

New hair and clothes don't change ugly.

I have read more about Oprah Winfrey’s ass than I have about the rise of China as an economic superpower. I fear this is no exaggeration. Perhaps China is rising as an economic superpower because its women aren’t spending all their time reading about Oprah Winfrey’s ass.

Why on earth have I, because I'm a woman, got to be nice to everyone?

I don't do drugs. If I want a rush I just stand up when I'm not expecting it.

I wonder if our names determine our destiny, or if destiny leads us to choose certain names.

A library in the middle of a community is a cross between an emergency exit, a life raft and a festival. They are cathedrals of the mind; hospitals of the soul; theme parks of the imagination.

Overeating is the addiction of choice of carers, and that's why it's come to be regarded as the lowest-ranking of all the addictions. It's a way of fucking yourself up while still remaining fully functional, because you have to. Fat people aren't indulging in the "luxury" of their addiction making them useless, chaotic, or a burden. Instead, they are slowly self-destructing in a way that doesn't inconvenience anyone. And that's why it's so often a woman's addiction of choice. All the quietly eating mums. All the KitKats in office drawers. All the unhappy moments, late at night, caught only in the fridge light.

It took a pair of ghosts to open my eyes.

I'm a quitter. I come from a long line of quitters. It's amazing I'm here at all.

some people aren’t just people, but a place—a whole world. Sometimes you find someone you could live in for the rest of your life.

At least that left hope for him. Except "Beauty and the Geek" wasn’t exactly the proper translation of the popular fairy tale.

He looks at you like you’re crème brûlée.

Maybe he was going to hell. Except, he could’ve sworn that was where he’d been the past ten years.

Calm down. Ghosts don’t ring the doorbell.

Batman doesn't have to put up with this shit--why should we?

This was sharing office space with wacko and bordering on ludicrous.

Sammy: "How do you comb your hair so the horns don't show?" Cain: "Don't mind her. A house just fell on her sister.

I look at you and my heart pounds, when for years, I don't think it beat at all. You fill the cracks and crevices, take away the emptiness. And when you're not by my side, the loss is unimaginable.

I don't know what I want but I know that I want it now.

I'd have your back off-site too, if you'd let me." ~Cain, Ghost of You

I kinda felt like the first slice of bread in the bag. Everyone touched me, but no one wanted me.

And when that time comes, let's hope your friends outnumber your enemies.

Because what you are, as a teenager, is a small, silver, empty rocket. And you use loud music as fuel, and then the information in books as maps and coordinates, to tell you where you’re going.

[Adulthood feels like] walking around in the desert with a bag over your head, being bumped into by people who rob you as they bore you.

This isn't just chemistry. It's the whole periodic table." ~Cain

The problem with battling yourself is that even if you win, you lose.

He slid the photo out and raised it. The sun washed out any distinguishable characteristics. All except her eyes. He didn’t need a picture to remember those. As turquoise as the waters near Cozumel, and just as warm.

Say yes. Open your eyes, see that it's me, and say yes.

You can't change the desert. You can only take the fastest course through it. Wishing it's an oasis won't make it so...

In the end, I go where I always go when I need information on something baffling, poisonous, or terrifying: the library.

Any action a woman engages in from a spirit of joy, and within a similarly safe and joyous environment, falls within the city-walls of feminism. A girl has a right to dance how she wants, when her favourite record comes on.

He looked longingly out the window at the towering skyline of New York City and thought about jumping. It would hurt less than following orders.

Its not easy being a man you know. I had to get dressed today… and there are other pressures.

I personally have a cunt. Sometimes it's 'flaps' or 'twat', but most of the time, it's my cunt. Cunt is a proper, old, historic, strong word. I like that my fire escape also doubles up as the most potent swearword in the English language. Yeah. That's how powerful it is, guys. If I tell you what I've got down there, old ladies and clerics might faint. I like how shocked people are when you say 'cunt'. It's like I have a nuclear bomb in my pants, or a tiger, or a gun. Compared to this the most powerful swearword men have got out of their privates is 'dick', which is frankly vanilla, and I believe you're allowed to use on, like, Blue Peter if something goes wrong. In a culture where nearly everything female is still seen as squeam-inducing, and/or weak - menstruation, menopause, just the sheer simple act of calling someone 'a girl' - I love that 'cunt' stands, on its own, as the supreme unvanquishable word. It has almost mystic resonance. It is a cunt - we all know it's a cunt - but we can't call it a cunt. We can't say the actual word. It's too powerful. Like Jews can never utter the Tetragrammaton - an must make do with 'Jehovah', instead.

For when cynicism becomes the default language, playfulness and invention become impossible. Cynicism scours through a culture like bleach, wiping out millions of small, seedling ideas. Cynicism means your automatic answer becomes “No.” Cynicism means you presume everything will end in disappointment. And this is, ultimately, why anyone becomes cynical. Because they are scared of disappointment. Because they are scared someone will take advantage of them. Because they are fearful their innocence will be used against them—that when they run around gleefully trying to cram the whole world in their mouth, someone will try to poison them.

I have a rule of thumb that allows me to judge, when times is pressing and one needs to make a snap judgment, whether or not some sexist bullshit is afoot. Obviously, it’s not 100% infallible but by and large it definitely points you in the right direction and it's asking this question; are the men doing it? Are the men worrying about this as well? Is this taking up the men’s time? Are the men told not to do this, as it's letting the side down? Are the men having to write bloody books about this exasperating retarded, time-wasting, bullshit? Is this making Jeremy Clarkson feel insecure? Almost always the answer is no. The boys are not being told they have to be a certain way, they are just getting on with stuff.

Because my biggest secret of all—the one I would rather die than tell, the one I wouldn’t even put in my diary—is that I really, truly, in my heart, want to be beautiful. I want to be beautiful so much—because it will keep me safe, and keep me lucky, and it’s too exhausting not to be.

Because the purpose of feminism isn’t to make a particular type of woman. The idea that there are inherently wrong and inherently right “types” of women is what’s screwed feminism for so long — this belief that “we” wouldn’t accept slaggy birds, dim birds, birds that bitch, birds that hire cleaners, birds that stay at home with their kids, birds that have pink Mini Metros with POWERED BY FAIRY DUST! bumper stickers, birds in burkas or birds that like to pretend, in their heads, that they’re married to Zach Braff from Scrubs and that you sometimes have sex in an ambulance while the rest of the cast watch and, latterly, clap. You know what? Feminism will have all of you. What is feminism? Simply the belief that women should be as free as men, however nuts, dim, deluded, badly dressed, fat, receding, lazy and smug they might be. Are you a feminist? Hahaha. Of course you are.

At its best fashion is a game. But for women it's a compulsory game, like net ball, and you can't get out of it by faking your period. I know I have tried. And so for a woman every outfit is a hopeful spell, cast to influence the outcome of the day. An act of trying to predict your fate, like looking at your horoscope. No wonder there are so many fashion magazines. No wonder the fashion industry is worth an estimated 900 billion dollars a year. No wonder every woman's first thought is, for nearly every event in her life, be it work, snow or birth. The semi-despairing cry of "but what will I wear?" Because when a woman says I have nothing to wear, what she really means is there is nothing here for who I am supposed to be today.