Dana Ilie > Dana's Quotes

“You should date a girl who reads.
Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.”
― Rosemarie Urquico

“I will find you," he whispered in my ear. "I promise. If I must endure two hundred years of purgatory, two hundred years without you - then that is my punishment, which I have earned for my crimes. For I have lied, and killed, and stolen; betrayed and broken trust. But there is the one thing that shall lie in the balance. When I shall stand before God, I shall have one thing to say, to weigh against the rest."

His voice dropped, nearly to a whisper, and his arms tightened around me.

Lord, ye gave me a rare woman, and God! I loved her well.”
― Diana Gabaldon, Dragonfly in Amber

“The first person you should be careful not to fool is yourself. Because you are the easiest person to fool".”
― Richard Feynman

“Okay, so, Beth, follow me. 'I, Beth, a totally awesome chick ...'"

Beth barked out a giggle. "I, Beth ..."

"Where's the 'awesome chick' part? What? Come on, I have a license from the Internet. I know what I'm doing."

Wrath nodded at his leehan. "He's right. You are, in fact, awesome. I think we need to hear it."

"Can I get an amen!" Lassiter shouted.

"Ammmmmmmmmen!" echoed throughout the mansion.

"Fine, fine, fine," she said. "I, Beth, a totally awesome chick ..."

"'... take this meathead, Wrath ...'"

"... take this meathead, Wrath ..."

"'... as my husband to have and to hold from this day forward...”
― J.R. Ward, The King

“You’re mine, mo duinne,” he said softly, pressing himself into my depths. “Mine alone, now and forever. Mine, whether ye will it or no.” I pulled against his grip, and sucked in my breath with a faint “ah” as he pressed even deeper. “Aye, I mean to use ye hard, my Sassenach,” he whispered. “I want to own you, to possess you, body and soul.” I struggled slightly and he pressed me down, hammering me, a solid, inexorable pounding that reached my womb with each stroke. “I mean to make ye call me ‘Master,’ Sassenach.” His soft voice was a threat of revenge for the agonies of the last minutes. “I mean to make you mine.”
― Diana Gabaldon, Outlander

“Life is like a prism. What you see depends on how you turn the glass.”
― Jonathan Kellerman

“We had a good run, and now it’s over; what’s wrong with that?”
― Garth Stein, The Art of Racing in the Rain

“That which is around me does not affect my mood; my mood affects that which is around me.”
― Garth Stein, The Art of Racing in the Rain

“It is most likely that I will die next to a pile of books I was meaning to read.”
― Lemony Snicket

“When people shine a little light on their monster, we find out how similar most of our monsters are.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

“Change what you can if it needs
changing, but learn to live with what you can’t change.”
― Robert Jordan, New Spring

“Love is God’s first word, the first thought that sailed through his mind. When he said: Let there by light! there was love. And he was well-pleased with what he had made, nor did he wish any of it unmade. And love was the world’s origin and the world’s ruler; but all its ways are filled with flowers and blood, flowers and blood.”
― Knut Hamsun, Victoria

“If we treated others with the consideration that one would give to those who only had a few days to live, then we would be kinder, at least.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Friends, Lovers, Chocolate

“Doing history means building bridges between the past and the present, observing both banks of the river, taking an active part on both sides.”
― Bernhard Schlink, The Reader

“...A man can only stumble for so long before he either falls or stands up straight.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Well of Ascension

“It's easy to believe in something when you win all the time...The losses are what define a man's faith.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Well of Ascension

“Every locked door has a key. Every problem has a solution.”
― Marie Lu, Warcross

“When you love someone, you just know.”
― Heidi McLaughlin, Forever My Girl

“Her tear-streaked face is beautiful. I want to wipe away her tears. I want to take the last ten years and erase them. I want to start over.”
― Heidi McLaughlin, Forever My Girl

“When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness.”
― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

“One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs,
Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls.”
― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

“That's the kind of person you can get away with killing: someone everybody else wants dead.”
― Karen M. McManus, One of Us Is Lying

“Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear

“Call a jack a jack. Call a spade a spade. But always call a whore a lady. Their lives are hard enough, and it never hurts to be polite.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“Reader's Bill of Rights

1. The right to not read

2. The right to skip pages

3. The right to not finish

4. The right to reread

5. The right to read anything

6. The right to escapism

7. The right to read anywhere

8. The right to browse

9. The right to read out loud

10. The right to not defend your tastes”
― Daniel Pennac

“Copilăria [este] cadoul pe care ni-l dă viaţa pentru ce vom avea de îndurat.”
― Horaţiu Mălăele, Rătăciri

“I can't give you the white picket fence, and if I did, you'd set it on fire.”
― Ilona Andrews, Magic Bleeds

“أن تكون للحياة نهارات أخرى، شموس أخرى وأقمار حتى ولو عند حافة العالم، لكن كيف نبلغ تلك الحافة التي تنتهي عندها اللاطمأنينة؟ جرَّب مواطنونا حافَّات وآفاقاً أُخرى لم ينجحوا في بلوغها بعد، تُرى متي يأتي النهار الذي نبلغ فيه حافة جديدة آمنة تُصبح وطناً بديلاً لنا؟ وطنٌ يرضاه لنا الرب بعد أن انتزع منا وطننا كسيَّاف عملاق بتر عضواً حيوياً لِثائر نَدِم على ثورته فليته يُعيد العضو الذي بتره ونُكمم أفواهنا نهائياً فلا نهتف بإسقاط النظام أو حتى انتقاده”
― عبد السلام إبراهيم, جماعة الرب

“Forgive me, I’m being a bit crude and rude about this, but I can’t make the reality prettier than it is: sad, grim, and funny all at once.”
― Hendrik Groen, The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, 83¼ Years Old