Donna's Quotes & Sayings

It would be nice if you have a hit. But I don't think it's necessary to continue with my career at this point. — Donna Summer

It's hard to keep the energy going sometimes, that's why I like to go with a group of people who are meditating. I love meditating in groups, it's fantastic. — Donna Karan

Because, here's the truth: life is catastrophe. The basic fact of existence - of walking around trying to feed ourselves and find friends and whatever else we do - is catastrophe. — Donna Tartt

Gabriel opened his eyes and took a deep breath. Only a minor twinge of pain bothered him. Aimery's magic had healed him. Someone had laid him back down and covered him. Most likely Hugh. — Donna Grant

Twelve years after Robin's death, no one knew any more about how he had ended up hanged from a tree in his own yard than they had on the day it happened. — Donna Tartt

Then I saw her - Lars's guest - the one they called Faith. I wouldn't have missed her. She still had patches of her human karma clinging to her new form. It was as if the brightest sunlight I'd ever seen was filtering through the leaves of a tree while she sat under it on a spring day. I'd never seen anything like it. — Donna Augustine

Most of the benches bore the names of benefactors - in memory of Mrs. Ruth Klein or whatever - but my mother's bench, the Rendezvous Point, alone of all the benches in that part of the park had been given by its anonymous donor a more mysterious and welcoming message: EVERYTHING OF POSSIBILITY. It had been Her Bench since before I was born; in her early days in the city, she had sat there with her library book on her afternoons off, going without lunch when she needed the price of a museum pass at MoMA or a movie ticket at the Paris Theatre. — Donna Tartt

Hely's feelings didn't run very deep; he lived in sunny shallows where it was always warm and bright. — Donna Tartt

Scarlett O'Hara didn't think she was manipulating. That's just the way she got what she wanted. — Donna Mills

Politics is a rough and tumble business. It's not for the faint-hearted. I've got bruises and cuts from being in the political arena. But by and large, I understand how to navigate the process. — Donna Brazile

And the flavor of Pippa's kiss
bittersweet and strange
stayed with me all the way back uptown, swaying and sleepy as I sailed home on the bus, melting with sorrow and loveliness, a starry ache that lifted me up above the windswept city like a kite: my head in the rainclouds, my heart in the sky. — Donna Tartt

Guys always think tears are a sign of weakness. They're a sign of FRUSTRATION. She's only crying so she won't cut your throat in your sleep. So make nice and be grateful. — Donna Barr

Since it was too difficult to get into the Screen Actor's Guild in New York, I moved to Miami in 1982 and started a successful career as a television commercial actress, obtaining my SAG card there. — Donna Rice

- if a painting really works down in your heart and changes the way you see, and think, and feel, you don't think, 'oh, I love this picture because it's universal.' 'I love this painting because it speaks to all mankind.' That's not the reason anyone loves a piece of art. It's a secret whisper from an alleyway. Psst, you. Hey kid. Yes you. — Donna Tartt

I love building spaces: architecture, furniture, all of it, probably more than fashion. The development procedure is more tactile. It's about space and form and it's something you can share with other people. — Donna Karan

Kyran was a Dark Fae, but that's not what she saw when she loo9ked at him. She saw a man who was devoted to his friends and his cause. She saw a man who was haunted by his past.
She saw a man who made her think of the future. — Donna Grant

George Sanders's had been the best, an Old Hollywood classic, my father had known it by heart and liked to quote from it. Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored. — Donna Tartt

Where does American money come from? Steel. Railways. You know how it is over there. It doesn't matter if you murder or rob to get it. The trick is in keeping it for a hundred years, and then you're aristocrats.' 'Is that so different from here?' Brunetti asked. 'Of course,' Padovani explained, smiling. 'Here we have to keep it five hundred years before we're aristocrats. And there's another difference. In Italy, you have to be well-dressed. In America, it's difficult to tell which are the millionaires and which are the servants. — Donna Leon

That's the first law of magic, Specs. Misdirection. Never forget it. — Donna Tartt

The question is: do you want suffering or do you want peace? It's that simple. — Donna Goddard

Quinn's life rested on the fate of seven Warriors who were coming to free him. — Donna Grant

Suddenly, Warrick lifted his head. Darcy struggled to open her eyes and think through the fog of desire. She gazed into his cobalt eyes, her stomach clenching at the longing she saw reflected there.
"There's a Dark at the back," he whispered.
Darcy was so frustrated that she wanted to scream. Why couldn't they have a few minutes of privacy? If it wasn't Rhi popping in, it was the Dark after her. "Tell him to go away. We're busy."
A sexy grin pulled at Warrick's lips. "Gladly. — Donna Grant

I'm a planner. I like to know what's coming, that way I can figure out a way to deal with it."
He shot her a wink. "I wasna planned, and you handled that situation well."
It was a fact, but then again, who could ever prepare for a man like Dmitri? — Donna Grant

The world's male chivalry has perished out, but women are knights-errant to the last; and, if Cervantes had been greater still, he had made his Don a Donna. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

It's hard to part the curtains when the dark holds such familiarity. — Donna Lynn Hope

A person will struggle - she'll fight. She'll do just about anything to avoid making a decision she knows she has to make. We have got to be the most perverse creatures on the planet. Something in the human enjoys misery. It keeps us locked away, some in a mansion, some in a hovel. But then, one day - a day you don't plan, an hour you don't expect - the door opens. You have what you need, or you receive your answer. It's so obvious, and so right, and you even have the wherewithal to carry out what you need to carry out. A big angel with flaming eyes and burnished hair might as well have walked through the wall . . . — Donna Salli

It's funny, but thinking back on it now, I realize that this particular point in time, as I stood there blinking in the deserted hall, was the one point at which I might have chosen to do something very much different from what I actually did. But of course I didn't see this crucial moment for what it actually was; I suppose we never do. Instead, I only yawned, and shook myself from the momentary daze that had come upon me, and went on my way down the stairs. — Donna Tartt

You have to come of age when it's your time. If you try to rush it or put it off, it only gets you into trouble. — Donna Clayton

A love of the ages.
That's what he had called it. Rhi had been too wrapped up in the desire and him to fully comprehend everything. It wasn't until he turned his back on her that it hit her. — Donna Grant

We're all dreaming, Arctor said. If the last to know he's an addict is the addict, then maybe the last to know when a man means what he says is the man himself, he reflected. He wondered how much of the garbage that Donna had overheard he had seriously meant. He wondered how much of the insanity of the day
his insanity
had been real, or just induced as a contact lunacy, by the situation. Donna, always, was a pivot point of reality for him; for her this was the basic, natural question. He wished he could answer. — Philip K. Dick

She has never understood, nor been able to relate to a herd mentality. She doesn't get along with followers and avoids the bandwagon. She marches to her own tune and does it alone. She's despised by the weak-minded and respected by the strong. She ruffles the feathers of the flock because she champion's the defenseless and pick's on the mob. Does she wish she could not give a damn and live an ordinary life surrounded by nodding and needy ordinary people? At times ... but she'd be bored out of her mind when she's never bored alone, and because of that she's patient because a couple of times in a lifetime she's lucky enough to come across a memorable, magnetic and remarkable person - one worth knowing, even if just for the brevity of a conversation. — Donna Lynn Hope

And, in this staunch little portrait, it's hard not to see the human in the finch. Dignified, vulnerable. One prisoner looking at another. But who knows what Fabritius intended? There's not enough of his work left to even make a guess. The bird looks out at us. It's not idealized or humanized. It's very much a bird. Watchful, resigned. There's no moral or story. There's no resolution. There's only a double abyss: between painter and imprisoned bird; between the record he left of the bird and our experience of it, centuries later. — Donna Tartt

The only time I eat alone is if I'm really tired or upset about something or on the phone to one of my friends, when it's easier to be alone. But you can't be too wrapped up in yourself ... it starts making you look a little bit prima donna. — Dakota Blue Richards

No, he's asleep. Where's my mother? Is — Donna Tartt

The first fat raindrop landed on the back of Galen's hand. He tilted back his head and saw the clouds he had noticed the previous eve had grown thicker, heavier with rain. They blocked the sun as the wind began to pick up. "Shite," Logan cursed as he stood. "Just what we need. — Donna Grant

Because, between 'reality' on the one hand, and the point where the mind strikes reality, there's a middle zone, a rainbow edge where beauty comes into being, where two very different surfaces mingle and blur to provide what life does not: and this is the space where all art exists, and all magic. — Donna Tartt

Different cultures and all that, but it's true what they say about the Japanese being undemonstrative. — Donna Tartt

My bodysuit is how I start everyday. I wear a bodysuit everyday of my life. It's how I start my yoga practice. It's underneath it all. For me, what goes under the clothes is as important as what goes on top of the clothes. It's a layering aspect, so it's inside. — Donna Karan

And I'm hoping there's some larger truth about suffering here, or at least my understanding of it - although I've come to realize that the only truths that matter to me are the ones I don't, and can't, understand.
What's mysterious, ambiguous, inexplicable. What doesn't fit into a story, what doesn't have a story. Glint of brightness on a barely-there chain. Patch of sunlight on a yellow wall. The loneliness that separates every living creature from every other living creature. Sorrow inseparable from joy. — Donna Tartt

It may be a superhuman effort to lose oneself so completely, but that's nothing compared to the effort of getting oneself back again — Donna Tartt

You can't have a university without having free speech, even though at times it makes us terribly uncomfortable. If students are not going to hear controversial ideas on college campuses, they're not going to hear them in America. I believe it's part of their education. — Donna Shalala

I'm ready to work and if it happens, it happens. If it doesn't, it's fine. — Donna Summer

Yeah, well, I'm pissed off that I give a shit too but I do. When I fuck you, I want you to know it's me, I want you to need me there with the very core of your being, clinging to me as if you'd die without it. I want it to be raw and real. Hell, even when Cupid was involved, at least I knew it was about us and not because I happened to be there when you were having a bad week. — Donna Augustine

Rhi looked out the windshield to the dark blue waters of the North Sea. "I can spot a liar easily, Ulrik."
"I've told you the truth."
"You've told me part of it."
"That's all there is."
She turned her head to him, and was surprised when he suddenly leaned over and kissed her. When he pulled back, she asked, "What was that for?"
"I've always wanted to know if your kiss would taste as spirited as your words, or as sweet as your walk."
"And?" she asked, unable to keep her curiosity at bay.
He licked his lips. "It's a wee bit of both."
"That's all you'll ever know," she said and teleported out. — Donna Grant

He's a funny one," said Ida. "Here's how he sound." She pursed her lips and, expertly, imitated the red-winged blackbird's call: not the liquid piping of the wood thrush, which dipped down into the dry tchh tchh tchh of the cricket's birr and up again in delerious, sobbing trills; not the clear, three-note whistle of the chickadee or even the blue jay's rough cry, which was like a rusty gate creaking. This was an abrupt, whirring, unfamiliar cry, a scream of warning -congeree!- which choked itself off on a subdued, fluting note. — Donna Tartt

What's wrong with you?" This was worse than a fight. Maybe he was all messed up from the magic. I didn't like when he smiled; he had dimples to die for. I really needed to stay grounded, but it's odd how dents in someone's face could add so much appeal. "Nothing." Still smiling, God damn his dimpled face. — Donna Augustine

That little guy, said Boris in the car on the way to Antwerp. You know the painter saw him-he wasn't painting that bird from his mind, you know? That's a real little guy, chained up on the wall, there. If I saw him mixed up with dozen other birds all the same kind, I could pick him out, no problem.
And he's right. So could I. And if I could go back in time I'd clip the chain in a heartbeat and never care a minute that the picture was never painted. — Donna Tartt

Back then, it was more or less we couldn't change a line in our script. We weren't allowed to change lines. Today, actors change everything and won't do parts. It's very different today. Back then, the producers were in charge. Today actors are more in charge. — Donna Douglas

There was a time when we would pick up Women's Wear Daily and couldn't wait to see what it read. And now, you get it five minutes later on your iPad or your phone! The same has to apply to fashion. — Donna Karan

That life - whatever else it is - is short. That fate is cruel but maybe not random. That Nature (meaning Death) always wins but that doesn't mean we have to bow and grovel to it. That maybe even if we're not always so glad to be here, it's our task to immerse ourselves anyway: wade straight through it, right through the cesspool, while keeping eyes and hearts open. And in the midst of our dying, as we rise from the organic and sink back ignominiously into the organic, it is a glory and a privilege to love what Death doesn't touch. — Donna Tartt

As a grown woman, I saw the first black president reach down a hand and touch the face of a child like I once was, lifting his eyes toward a better future. But I have never, ever, in all my years seen a leader so committed to delivering that better future to America's children as Hillary Clinton. — Donna Brazile

There's nothing like having a sympathetic reader who asks the right questions, who understands what you're trying to achieve and only wants to make it better. — Donna Tartt

At one time or another, we all stand at the crossroads and at the fork in the road.We can go back where it's comfortable, predictable and easy. Or we can go forward. If you go back, my friend, you will miss the ride of your life! — Donna Schultz

And the world kept moving, not toward any goal, just going, because that's what life does. And its bound to be better with a companion who knows how to be tender, a companion you may grow to cherish. — Donna Jo Napoli

It's not about outward appearances but inward significance. A grandeur in the world, but not of the world, a grandeur that the world doesn't understand. That first glimpse of pure otherness, in whose presence you bloom out and out and out.
A self one does not want. A heart one cannot help. — Donna Tartt

I design from instinct. It's the only way I know how to live. What feels good. What feels right. What is needed. Give me a problem and I will approach it creatively, from my gut. — Donna Karan

You're not interesting in the least," she spat. "I don't need to be," I smiled. "That's what you need ... And you're welcome to it. — Donna Lynn Hope

I am an alcoholic. I'm the first to admit that. I can't drink at all. One drink is too many and a thousand's not enough. — Donna Tartt

Youth. I don't seek it through another because I have it within; it's a state of mind, a spirit that is free, and a mind that is playful. The shell of my being is altered by the effects of time, but nothing will tarnish a soul that will never forget what its like to experience creation with endless wonder and appreciation. Each time I see the first snowfall of the season I feel it's the first time I've seen it at all. — Donna Lynn Hope

Well, I've already got ten thousand set aside. That's a good start. If you think about it when we get home, give me your Social and next time I drop by the bank, I'll open an account in your name, okay? — Donna Tartt

I am making an argument for the cyborg as a fiction mapping our social and bodily reality and as an imaginative resource suggesting some very fruitful couplings. Michael Foucault's biopolitics is a flaccid premonition of cyborg politics, a very open field. — Donna J. Haraway

When we feel connected to the vastness of life and are confident of life's abundance, we are naturally generous and able to practice the third yama, non-stealing (asteya). — Donna Farhi

There is no better or worse, inferior or superior. It's figuring out where you're meant to be and then getting there. This is true in every aspect of your life. If you fight to stay somewhere you don't belong, it will never be good and never get better. — Donna Augustine

I have no memory for what happens in what books. I don't know when I might remember a scene, but beats me what book it's in because there are 14 of them now. — Donna Leon

It's our task to immerse ourselves ... while keeping eyes and hearts open ... — Donna Tartt

There are those that wonder which is worse: Not being able to reach out or not having anyone to reach for. There are some that ponder which is the greater ache: Not being able to tell or not having anyone that cares enough to ask. Perhaps it's not one person that is to blame, but both. — Donna Lynn Hope

As long as she is near or within his power to reach, he will be drawn to her, leaving less of him for others and that's why she had to leave. She knew, despite her own great desire, that there are consequences and responsibilities that are more important and life-altering than personal feelings. — Donna Lynn Hope

Because: if our secrets define us, as opposed to the face we show the world: then the painting was the secret that raised me above the surface of life and enabled me to know who I am. And it's there: in my notebooks, every page, even though it's not. — Donna Tartt

Children love secret club houses. They love secrecy even when there's no need for secrecy. — Donna Tartt

The assignment was a two-page essay, in Greek, on any epigram of Callimachus that we chose. I'd done only a page and I started to hurry through the rest in impatient and slightly dishonest fashion, writing out the English and translating word by word. It was something Julian asked us not to do. The value of Greek prose composition, he said, was not that it gave one any particular facility in the language that could not be gained as easily by other methods but that if done properly, off the top of one's head, it taught one to think in Greek. One's thought patterns become different, he said, when forced into the confines of a rigid and unfamiliar tongue. Certain common ideas become inexpressible; other, previously undreamt-of ones spring to life, finding miraculous new articulation. — Donna Tartt

Why are they denying it?" Larena laid her head on Fallon's shoulder. "He's denying it. She's just trying to hold herself together in the face of what he's done. — Donna Grant

Love is rare, Rhys. You found it without even trying. I had that kind of love. It's a gift, a type of magic all its own. — Donna Grant

New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani fired his wife, Donna Hanover, as official hostess of the mayor's mansion last weekend. He's got his own idea of what a hostess should be. He wants a little cupcake. — Argus Hamilton

And what does a person with such a romantic temperament seek in the study of the classics? He asked this as if, having had the good fortune to catch such a rare bird as myself, he was anxious to extract my opinion while I was still captive in his office.
'If by romantic you mean solitary and introspective,' I said, 'I think romantics are frequently the best classicists.'
He laughed. 'The great romantics are often failed classicists. But that's beside the point, isn't it? — Donna Tartt

I never know what's going to happen in a novel. I don't have a plan or an outline. — Donna Leon

It's difficult for writers in the theatre. It's difficult for writers in the theatre. — Donna McKechnie

Even Proust - there's a famous passage where Odette opens the door with a cold, she's sulky, her hair is loose and undone, her skin is patchy, and Swann, who has never cared about her until that moment, falls in love with her because she looks like a Botticelli girl from a slightly damaged fresco. Which Proust himself only knew from a reproduction. He never saw the original, in the Sistine Chapel. But even so - the whole novel is in some ways about that moment. And the damage is part of the attraction, the painting's blotchy cheeks. Even through a copy Proust was able to re-dream that image, re-shape reality with it, pull something all his own from it into the world. Because - the line of beauty is the line of beauty. It doesn't matter if it's been through the Xerox machine a hundred times. — Donna Tartt

She promised you'd get to shore in one piece.' Cheap said, 'and I won't make a liar out of her. But if you know what's good for you, you'll forget about that girl. Ask anyone on the coast. Or the Lord God himself. They'll tell you. Lucas Cheap sailed with the Brethren. He makes good ever on his threats. — Donna Thorland

But does it make any sense at all to know that it ends badly for all of us, even the happiest of us, and that we all lose everything that matters in the end-and yet to know as well, despite all this, as cruelly as the game is stacked, that it's possible to play it with a kind of joy?
To try to make some meaning out of all this seems unbelievably quaint. Maybe I only see a pattern because I've been staring too long. But then again, to paraphrase Boris, maybe I see a pattern because it's there. — Donna Tartt

Donna learned quickly that there's no point in beating yourself up when you screw up or fail to follow through. Guilt trips and self-criticism don't motivate you to make meaningful changes; they just keep you stuck, dwelling on the past. So after each relapse, Donna came back to the basic ACT formula: A = Accept your thoughts and feelings and be present. C = Connect with your values. T = Take effective action. — Russ Harris

Just don't get distracted. Keep focused." "I think I could figure that out." I snapped, and knew I was on edge; perhaps overreacting due to stress. "There's a lot of things I thought you'd figure out that you haven't." I should've left it at that. I'd gotten nasty, he'd gotten nasty back. But I couldn't. "You mean like figuring out that you used my friend to screw with me? Stuff like that?" "Using her would have been sleeping with her. If I'd actually wanted her, I would have had her, and that's just stating the facts." He broke into a falsetto then "'I don't want you, no wait, I do want you' and then you hang all over Vitor. Maybe you had it coming?" "So you used my friend? You thought that was the smart thing to do? No wonder we've got holes rotting away our universe, this whole operation is being run by an idiot! — Donna Augustine

Jeff Chu's pilgrimage across America to discover his own place as a gay man in the Christian church as well as attitudes about being gay and Christian across denominations is at once timely, smart, poignant, disturbing, inspiring, and maddening. It's essential reading for anyone who cares about the rights of the LGBTQ community to be treated as equal citizens at every level, including the religious-which means it should be essential reading for everybody. — Donna Freitas

Even the smallest light shines bright in the darkness — Donna Raye

Because it is dangerous to ignore the existence of the irrational. The more cultivated a person is, the more intelligent, the more repressed, then the more he needs some method of channeling the primitive impulses he's worked so hard to subdue. — Donna Tartt

I used to play Donna Karan. I used my dad's home office, and Kim was my assistant. Then one of our friends would play a buyer, and I would take her to my mom's closet and show her the new collection. — Kourtney Kardashian

I have, throughout my private war, been a she, a you,a Donna, a me, and finally, an I ... If you sense distance,you're not mistaken; it's real. Welcome to my world. — Donna Williams

Welty's instruction; that I'd had a concussion. That I hadn't — Donna Tartt

I guess God can be whatever God wants to be. Maybe God's so great that even our little rules about material reality and our tiny little universe don't mean anything to God. You ever think of that? — Donna Leon

Seasons 5 and 6 were about the frustrations of Leslie Knope's new job. They also are about Ben and Leslie finally getting married and pregnant. They dealt with Ann and Chris leaving, Andyand April trying to figure out what they wanted, Donna finding love, and Tom entering a new business venture. I forget what happened with Jerry. — Amy Poehler

In all my years, there was only one time I felt fear. That's when I had to send my Clarets away. I never experienced it again. Until you. — Donna Grant

I would be less frightened of death (not just my own death but Welty's death, Andy's death, Death in general) if I thought a familiar person came to meet us at the door, — Donna Tartt

Positive thoughts (expectations) can change perspective, transform behaviors, and attract good fortune. — Donna M. McDine

I think it's especially important for an editor to say what he's enjoying. For a novelist to be told, midstream, what he's doing right can actually influence the unwritten parts of a novel in a positive way - praise helps a writer know what's good about what he's written, what's interesting and exciting, and what to work for in writing the conclusion. — Donna Tartt

It's easy to be a saint when all you've known is the good. — Donna Lynn Hope

I love men. I also hate men; I wouldn't want to be in a world without them but I have to say, it's not a compliment to know a man wants to sleep with you. It's only a compliment when he will go to great lengths for you. — Donna Lynn Hope

. Only - if you care for a thing enough, it takes on a life of its own, doesn't it? And isn't the whole point of things - beautiful things - that they connect you to some larger beauty? Those first images that crack your heart wide open and you spend the rest of your life chasing, or trying to recapture, in one way or another? Because, I mean - mending old things, preserving them, looking after them - on some level there's no rational grounds for it - "
"There's no 'rational grounds' for anything I care about — Donna Tartt

By happy contrast, Hobie's whole day revolved around dinner. — Donna Tartt

It's difficult to stop trying with the one you love. You always hope that this next time might work, might change everything for the better. — Donna Freitas

No, I might not know what's coming, but I know where you're going. — Donna Augustine

I doona understand them," Ryder said as he stopped beside Laith. "Doona get me wrong. I love the feel of a woman's thighs around me, but to be bound to a single woman for eternity?" Ryder shuddered. "It's no' for me. Human or Fae. — Donna Grant