My Year With Eleanor Quotes & Sayings

It was the first genuinely shining day of summer, a time of year which brought Eleanor always to aching memories of her early childhood, when it seemed to be summer all the time; she could not remember a winter before father's death on a cold wet day. — Shirley Jackson

I have spoken to plants myself, and if pressed for conclusions would have to say that those I threatened did better than those I - well, I wouldn't say prayed over, but pleaded with, cajoled. A rhododendron that hadn't bloomed for six years was flatly told it would be removed the following year if there were no flowers. Need I say that it has bloomed profusely ever since? — Eleanor Perenyi

All wars leave a legacy of bitterness and hatred, but internecine conflicts create the deepest scars. There is something different about such intrafamilial conflicts. People who once were part of one national family divide, define each other as the hateful enemy, and aim for the jugular. On both sides of an internecine conflict there is a feeling of betrayal, a sense that those who were brothers or sisters have been traitorous to their commitments or to the nation [1]. — Paul D. Escott

Although Mengele's subjects could be operated on without any painkillers at all, a remarkable example of Nazi zoophilia is that a leading biologist was once punished for not giving worms enough anesthesia during an experiment. — Diane Ackerman

Discouragement is like a scorpion in your shoe; it takes courage to toss it out so you can move on. — Richelle E. Goodrich

There are people who are so full of common sense that they haven't the slightest cranny left for their own sense. — Miguel De Unamuno

The events of childhood do not pass but repeat themselves like seasons of the year. — Eleanor Farjeon

You know your testimony is strong when your roots are so deep that other people's storms will never knock you over. — Shannon L. Alder

To survive, the weak must feed on the hearts of the strong. — Dee Brown

A year on, Eleanor remained haunted by what happened to her. She still had no idea where the bacteria came from. Perhaps the foot soak and pedicure she had gotten at a small hair-and-nail shop the day before that wedding. — Atul Gawande

Only fiction has the power to cross the mental barricades, to make strangers intelligible to each other, because it moves people's hearts as well as engaging their minds. — Ian Leslie

I am excessively fond of a cottage; there is always so much comfort, so much elegance about them. And I protest, if I had any money to spare, I should buy a little land and build one myself, within a short distance of London, where I might drive myself down at any time, and collect a few friends about me and be happy. I advise everybody who is going to build, to build a cottage. — Jane Austen

I think every script has meaningful messages no matter what it is, because inherently life is full of meaning and every single day we lean a lesson. — Shailene Woodley

And while you and the rest of your kind are battling together - year after year - for this special privilege of being 'bored to death,' the 'real girl' that you're asking about, the marvelous girl, the girl with the big, beautiful, unspoken thoughts in her head, the girl with the big, brave, undone deeds in her heart, the girl that stories are made of, the girl whom you call 'improbable' - is moping off alone in some dark, cold corner - or sitting forlornly partnerless against the bleak wall of the ballroom - or hiding shyly up in the dressing-room - waiting to be discovered! — Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

Leadership is practiced not so much in words as in attitude and in actions. — Harold S. Geneen

If you take Darwin's theory and extend it to its logical end, it can be used to justify a number of very horrendous things. — Kirk Cameron

At any age it does us no harm to look over our past shortcomings and plan to improve our characters and actions in the coming year. — Eleanor Roosevelt

Teaching is a great complement to writing. It's very social and gets you out of your own head. It's also very optimistic. It renews itself every year - it's a renewable resource. — Eleanor Catton

She remembered one of her boyfriends asking, offhandedly, how many books she read in a year. "A few hundred," she said.
"How do you have the time?" he asked, gobsmacked.
She narrowed her eyes and considered the array of potential answers in front of her. Because I don't spend hours flipping through cable complaining there's nothing on? Because my entire Sunday is not eaten up with pre-game, in-game, and post-game talking heads? Because I do not spend every night drinking overpriced beer and engaging in dick-swinging contests with the other financirati? Because when I am waiting in line, at the gym, on the train, eating lunch, I am not complaining about the wait/staring into space/admiring myself in reflective surfaces? I am reading!
"I don't know," she said, shrugging. — Eleanor Brown

Eleanor Vance was thirty-two years old when she came to Hill House. The only person in the world she genuinely hated, now that her mother was dead, was her sister. She disliked her brother-in-law and her five-year-old niece, and she had no friends. — Shirley Jackson

The most unhappy people in the world are those who face the days without knowing what to do with their time. But if you have more projects than you have time for, you are not going to be an unhappy person. This is as much a question of having imagination and curiosity as it is of actually making plans. — Eleanor Roosevelt

I didn't write them a happy ending because 17-year-olds don't get endings.
They get beginnings. — Rainbow Rowell