She Knows Who She Is Quotes & Sayings

[T]he more critical lesson I learned that day is still one too many kids never figure out: don't be shy about making a teacher of any willing party who knows what he or she is doing. — Sonia Sotomayor

A woman who knows what she wants, Adelle always told me, is likely to receive it. — Alice Hoffman

In view of her present ease, Anais Nin knows that the description of what she was like as a child will be difficult to accept and so will occasion laughter [...] Nin also knows, however, how much we need to believe that such a triumph over handicaps is possible and how much our admiration for an accomplished person can be discouraging rather than encouraging to our own aspirations if we are not reminded of the struggles that preceded that success. Finally, she also knows that the tendency to cling to the idea that the person who exhibits remarkable qualities was invariably born with exceptional talents and advantages may be an inverted way of rationalizing one's own passivity and mediocrity. — Evelyn Hinz

The septons preach about the seven hells. What do they know? Only a man who's been burned knows what hell is truly like"
... She was sad for him, she realized. Somehow, the fear had gone away.
The silence went on and on, so long that she began to grow afraid once more, but she was afraid for him now, not for herself. She found his massive shoulder with her hand. "He was no true knight," she whispered to him. — George R R Martin

13 The foolish woman is noisy; she is simple and open to all forms of evil, she [willfully and recklessly] knows nothing whatever [of eternal value]. 14 For she sits at the door of her house or on a seat in the conspicuous places of the town, 15 Calling to those who pass by, who go uprightly on their way: 16 Whoever is simple (wavering and easily led astray), let him turn in here! And as for him who lacks understanding, she says to him, — Anonymous

See what a person is doing every day, day after day, and you'll know who that person is and what he or she is becoming. — John C. Maxwell

I'm looking for a writer who doesn't know where the sentence is leading her; a writer who starts with her obsessions and whose heart is bursting with love, a writer sly enough to give the slip to her secret police, the ones who know her so well, the ones with the power to accuse and condemn in the blink of an eye. It's all right that she doesn't know what she's thinking until she writes it, as if the words already exist somewhere and draw her to them. She may not know how she got there, but she knows when she's arrived. — Sy Safransky

There's a lady who's sure
All that glitters is gold.
And she's buying a stairway to heaven.
And when she gets there she knows
If the stores are closed.
With a word she can get what she came for.
There's a sign on the wall
But she wants to be sure.
Cause you know sometimes words have
Two meanings.
In a tree by the brook there's a songbird
Who sings sometimes.
All of our thoughts are misgiven.
There's a feeling I get when I look
To the West.
And my spirit is crying for leaving.
In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke
Through the trees.
And the voices of those who stand looking. — Led Zeppelin

The Old Testament records the sage words of an old woman in addressing two younger ones: 'The Lord grant', said Naomi, 'that ye may find rest, each of you, in the house of her husband!' Who ever heard of a woman finding rest in the house of her husband?
And yet, and yet ! The restless hearts are not
the hearts of wives and of mothers, as many a lonely woman knows. There is no more crushing load than the load of a loveless life. It is a burden that is often beautifully and graciously borne, but its weight is a very real one. The mother may have a bent form, a furrowed brow, and worn, thin hands ; but her heart found its rest for all that. Naomi was an old woman; she knew the world very well, and her words are worth weighing. Heavy luggage is Christ's strange cure for weary hearts. — F.W. Boreham

Readers will stand up and cheer for Karen Fox's Prince of Charming! Finally, a heroine who's a real woman. Finally, a hero who knows what a rare find she is! Finally, a book for us all to adore! Thank you Karen Fox for creating the most lovable hero romance has seen in a long, long time! — Maggie Shayne

Grave this on your memory, lad: A world is supported by four things ... " she held up four big-knuckled fingers. " ... the learning of the wise, the justice of the great, the prayers of the righteous and the valor of the brave. But all of these things are as nothing ... " She closed her fingers into a fist. " ... without a ruler who knows the art of ruling. Make that the science of your tradition! — Frank Herbert

Most of all, Violet will know the smile: a slow and confident widening of a too-abundant mouth. This woman is something more than beautiful, something alchemical, an unstable mixture of rare elements bound together by nerve and charm. Am I interrupting something dreadfully important? she asks, with the ironic warmth of a woman who knows in her bones that she is always the most important object in the room. — Beatriz Williams

His parenting never involved indulgence, just benign neglect. And having let me do as I wish for two decades, it seems a mean trick to impose discipline by marrying me off to some relic from another age."
"Perhaps."
"Who knows if the old baron is even up to the task of managing me! You say I'll give him fatal spasms." "Only if the drink doesn't kill him first," Clun quipped.
"He's a ... a tippler?" She asked.
"More than tipples, if memory serves. A bottomless cask. Mouth like a funnel on one end and a wee spigot at the other," he concluded with a wink. — Miranda Davis

But it's daylight," she said at last. "Vampires can't go out in the sun, everyone knows that!"
Bones chuckled. "Right And we shrink back from crosses, can't travel over water, and always get staked in the end by the righteous slayer. Really, who'd be afraid of a creature like that? All you'd need is a Bible, a tanning bed, and some holy water to send us shivering to our dooms. — Jeaniene Frost

Everybody knows that a good mother gives her children a feeling of trust and stability. She is their earth. She is the one they can count on for the things that matter most of all. She is their food and their bed and the extra blanket when it grows cold in the night; she is their warmth and their health and their shelter; she is the one they want to be near when they cry. She is the only person in the whole world in a whole lifetime who can be these things to her children. There is no substitute for her. — Katharine Butler Hathaway

She is so lovely she could kill you without you even noticing it. A monster girl who knows when to kiss and when to kill. — Cameron Jace

Wrestling through her introspection has coloured her views of life, people and relationships. And working it out, with all the excitement, pain and fear that went with it, has given her a strong sense of herself. She knows who she is because of it. Not only that: it has given her a strong bond to those who are also, in different ways and for different reasons, disconnected from society. ironically, she is connected to the Aaron's and Kyra's of this world by the fact that they are each of them disconnected. — Sarah Rayner

He's spent his formative years surrounded by men incapable of restraint when it comes to flirting outrageously with their wives. Each one of them ... is a cocky, arrogant, overconfident bugger." She grinned. "But you won't find men who are more loyal or loving to their wives." Her expression turned serious. "We've all been through a lot. As has Cole. Like us, he knows what's important. And he's been deeply influenced by the men in his life. — Samantha Young

There's in my mind a ...
turbulent moon-ridden girl
or old woman, or both,
dressed in opals and rags, feathers
and torn taffeta,
who knows strange songs
but she is not kind. — Denise Levertov

What's going on outside, Ravic?" "Nothing new, Kate. The world goes on eagerly preparing for suicide and at the same time deluding itself about what it's doing." "Will there be war?" "Everyone knows that there will be war. What one does not yet know is when. Everyone expects a miracle." Ravic smiled. "Never before have I seen so many politicians who believe in miracles as at present in France and England. And never so few as in Germany." She remained lying silent for a while. "To think that it should be possible - " she said then. "Yes - it seems so impossible that it will happen some day. Just because one considers it so impossible and doesn't protect oneself against it. — Erich Maria Remarque

Matthias," she murmured in Fjerdan, giving his arm what she hoped was a friendly, siblinglike nudge, "must you glower at everything?"
"I'm not glowering."
"We're Fjerdans in the Ravkan sector. We already stand out. Let's not give everyone another reason to think you're about to lay siege to the market. We need to get this task done without drawing unwanted attention. Think of yourself as a spy."
His frown deepened. "Such work is beneath an honest soldier."
"Then pretend to be an actor." He made a disgusted sound.
"Have you ever even been to the theater?"
"There are plays every season in Djerholm."
"Let me guess, sober affairs that last several hours and tell epic tales of the heroes of yore."
"They're actually very entertaining. But I've never seen an actor who knows how to properly hold his sword. — Leigh Bardugo

Knowledge gives you attitude and carriage which IS everything! A woman who knows and feels she is sexy projects sexy and classy. If you are uncertain it can show. Make a list of those things you feel uncertain about and go to work on getting the knowledge to cross them off your list — JoAnna Nicholson

The moment a woman comes home to herself, the moment she knows that she has become a person of influence, an artist of her life, a sculptor of her universe, a person with rights and responsibilities who is respected and recognized, the resurrection of the world begins. — Joan D. Chittister

Note that life after death, which still seems to you the essential thing, was itself a late revelation. God trained the Hebrews for centuries to believe in Him without promising them an after-life, and blessings on Him, he trained me in the same way for about a year. It is like the disguised prince in the fairy tale who wins the heroine's love before she knows he is anything more than a woodcutter. What would be a bribe if it came first had better come last. — Sheldon Vanauken

November is usually such a disagreeable month ... as if the year had suddenly found out that she was growing old and could do nothing but weep and fret over it. This year is growing old gracefully ... just like a stately old lady who knows she can be charming even with gray hair and wrinkles. We've had lovely days and delicious twilights. — L.M. Montgomery

All women should feel as Sex Subjects if they want and choose so without fear of repressions, condemnations and put down and without the need to pay them for that.

Being freely a sexy and seductive woman is allowed only for few privileged professions: actresses, dancers, models, singers, prostitutes. They all do it for work. You can pay for them being sexy.

If a sexy woman is openly adored by a man, the woman remains as a woman, she is not turning into a table, a cup or a bill of money. She is still the Subject who knows her power. — Mai Loog

Clarissa will be bereaved, deeply lonely, but she will not die. She will be too much in love with life, with London. Virginia imagines someone else, yes, someone strong of body but frail-minded; someone with a touch of genius, of poetry, ground under by the wheels of the world, by war and government, by doctors; a someone who is, technically speaking insane, because that person sees meaning everywhere, knows that trees are sentient beings and sparrows sing in Greek. Yes, someone like that. Clarissa, sane Clarissa -exultant, ordinary Clarissa - will go on, loving London, loving her life of ordinary pleasures, and someone else, a deranged poet, a visonary, will be the one to die. — Michael Cunningham

Opal is dead, and I don't see how a healer can change that! It's not something to joke about."
Joke?" Then Owen hit his forehead and cried, "That's right, you haven't heard!"
Heard what?" asked Adrien, who felt an insane glimmer of hope return to his heart.
Death is on strike! She hasn't done that for two centuries, and it's very annoying. Your friend is alive."
Very annoying?" repeated Amber. "I don't see what's so annoying about a miracle! What is Death on strike for?"
Everyone knows that Death lives in Fairytale-in an inaccessible area, obviously. And just a few hours ago, she decided to stop working. So, for now, no one can die. — Flavia Bujor

The gotta, as in: "I think I'll stay up another fifteen-twenty minutes, honey, I gotta see how this chapter comes out." Even though the guy who says it spent the day at work thinking about getting laid and knows the odds are good his wife is going to be asleep when he finally gets up to the bedroom. The gotta, as in: "I know I should be starting supper now - he'll be mad if it's TV dinners again - but I gotta see how this ends." I gotta know will she live. I gotta know will he catch the shitheel who killed his father. I gotta know if she finds out her best friend's screwing her husband. The gotta. Nasty as a hand-job in a sleazy bar, fine as a fuck from the world's most talented call-girl. Oh boy it was bad and oh boy it was good and oh boy in the end it didn't matter how rude it was or how crude it was because in the end it was just like the Jacksons said on that record - don't stop til you get enough. — Stephen King

I say, 'Yeah, Taylor Swift.' I think she is a smart, beautiful girl. I think she's making all the right moves. She's got a good head on her shoulders. She's surrounded with wonderful people. Her songs are great. She keeps herself anchored. She knows who she is, and she's living and standing by that. — Dolly Parton

Because who knows? Who knows anything? Who knows who's pulling the strings? Or what is? Or how? Who knows if destiny is just how you tell yourself the story of your life? Another son might not have heard his mother's last words as a prophecy but as drug-induced gibberish, forgotten soon after. Another girl might not have told herself a love story about a drawing her brother made. Who knows if Grandma really thought the first daffodils of spring were lucky or if she just wanted to go on walks with me through the woods? Who knows if she even believed in her bible at all or if she just preferred a world where hope and creativity and faith trump reason? who knows if there are ghosts (sorry, Grandma) or just the living, breathing memories of your loved ones, inside you, speaking to you, trying to get your attention by any means necessary? Who knows where the hell Ralph is? (Sorry, Oscar.) No one knows.
SO we grapple with the mysteries, each in our own way. — Jandy Nelson

You see, a woman who knows herself and her worth knows that her time is valuable and her heart is precious. She doesn't give either to a man who can't respect the gifts he's being offered. — Kristen Ashley

Among wolves, when the bitch leavers her pups to go hunting, the young ones try to follow her out of the den and down the path. She snarls at them, lunges at them, and scares the bejeezus out of them till they run slipping and sliding back to the den. Their mother knows that they do not yet know how to weight and assess other creatures. They do not know who is a predator and who is not. — Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Know what it's like to feel like something's eating away at your mind?" I'd been about to tell him I needed to leave, but his words left me cold. I remembered Jill saying something similar when she was telling me about him and spirit. "No," I said honestly. "I don't know what it's like ... but to me, well, it's pretty much one of the most terrifying things I can imagine. My mind, it ... it's who I am. I think I'd rather suffer any other injury in the world than have my mind tampered with." I couldn't leave Adrian right now. I just couldn't. I texted to Brayden: Going to be a little longer than I thought. "It is terrifying," said Adrian. "And weird, for lack of a better word. And part of you knows ... well, part of you knows something's not right. That your thinking's not right. But what do you — Richelle Mead

If you care so much about it," she asks him, "then why did you run?"
He takes a moment before answering, shifting his weight and grimacing again. "Their work is good," he says. "It just isn't mine."
This baffles her. His motives - his hazy integrity. It was easy to dismiss Lev as "part of the problem" when she did not know him, but now it's not so easy. He's a paradox. This is a boy who almost blew himself to bits in an attempt to kill others, and yet he offered himself to the parts pirate in order to save Miracolina's life. How could someone go from having no respect for one's own existence to being willing to give himself as a sacrifice for someone he barely knows? It flies in the face of the truths that have defined Miracolina's life. The bad are bad, the good are good, and being caught in between is just an illusion. There is no gray. — Neal Shusterman

A woman must wait for her ovaries to die before she can get her rightful personality back. Post-menstrual is the same as pre-menstrual; I am once again what I was before the age of twelve: a female human being who knows that a month has thirty day, not twenty-five, and who can spend every one of them free of the shackles of that defect of body and mind known as femininity. — Florence King

Dwight Langley, the painter, is the pure exponent of the evil the play is attacking; he is, in effect, the spokesman for Platonism, who explicitly preaches that beauty is unreachable in this world and perfection unattainable. Since he insists that ideals are impossible on earth, he cannot, logically enough, believe in the reality of any ideal, even when it actually confronts him. Thus, although he knows every facet of Kay Gonda's face, he (alone among the characters) does not recognize her when she appears in his life. This philosophically induced blindness, which motivates his betrayal of her, is a particularly brilliant concretization of the play's theme, and makes a dramatic Act I curtain. — Ayn Rand

No one knows of these people," she says. "No one but a handful of Golds with access. The human spirit tries to break free, again and again, not in hate like the Dark Revolt. But for love. They don't mimic each other. They aren't inspired by others who come before them. Each is willing to take the leap, thinking they are the first. That's bravery. And that means it's a part of who we are as people." Bravery. — Pierce Brown

In small communities, she believed, people are more accountable to one another. Serious misbehavior is harder to get away with, harder even to begin when everyone who sees you knows who you are, where you live, who your family is, and whether you have any business doing what you're doing. — Octavia E. Butler

What I don't understand is where women suddenly get power. Because they do. The kids, who almost always turn out to be a pile of shit, are, we all know, Mommy's fault. Well, how did she manage that, this powerless creature? Where was all her power during the years she was doing five loads of laundry a week and worrying about mixing the whites with the colors? How was she able to offset Daddy's positive influence? How come she never knows she has this power until afterward, when it gets called responsibility? — Marilyn French

No one knows who I am ... that I am she ... that she is me. — L. H. Cosway

Who cares?' she said impatiently, 'it's always one bloody war after another, and one knows the news is all lies anyway. — George Orwell

Before her diagnosis, sometimes she felt like an outcast. Someone from a different world that spoke a different language. Now she knows she is an aspie. She fits in! With others just like her! It's okay to be an aspie. It's just who she is. — Tina J. Richardson

Education is a process that goes on 'til death. The moment you see someone who knows she has found the one true way, and can call all the others false, then you know you're in the company of an ignoramus. — Maya Angelou

You know what your problem is?" I ask him.
"Yes. I have a daughter who insists she knows everything."
"That's not your problem, Aba. That's your blessing. — Simone Elkeles

In her book The Writing Life (1989), Annie Dillard tells the story of a fellow writer who was asked by a student, "Do you think I could be a writer?" "'Well,' the writer said, 'do you like sentences?'" The student is surprised by the question, but Dillard knows exactly what was meant. He was being told, she explains, that "if he likes sentences he could begin," and she remembers a similar conversation with a painter friend. "I asked him how he came to be a painter. He said, 'I like the smell of paint.'" The point, made implicitly (Dillard does not belabour it), is that you don't begin with a grand conception, either of the great American novel or masterpiece that will hang in the Louvre. You begin with a feel for the nitty-gritty material of the medium, paint in one case, sentences in the other. — Stanley Fish

My sister, the one who knows everything and pulls out facts out of a bottomless hat, told me people aren't afraid of snakes or water upon birth. It is only once we hear the snake and water stories, she says, once we are exposed to fear, that we deny our primal instincts and make room for the dread to take root and mature. — Tania Aebi

Talik said, 'His contract with Lord Berenger ends soon. Ancel will seek a new contract, a high bidder. He wants money, status. He is foolish. Lord Berenger may offer less money, but he is kind, and never puts pets in the ring. Ancel has made many enemies. In the ring, someone will scratch his green eyes out, an "accident."'
Damen was drawn in against his will. 'That's why he's chasing royal attention? He wants the Prince to
' He tried out the unfamiliar vocabulary. '
offer for his contract?'
'The Prince?' said Talik, scornfully. 'Everyone knows the Prince does not keep pets.'
'None at all?' said Damen.
She said, 'You.' She looked him up and down. 'Perhaps the Prince has a taste for men, not these painted Veretian boys who squeal if you pinch them.' Her tone suggested that she approved of this on general principle. — C.S. Pacat

You are so young, Lyra, too young to understand this, but I shall tell you anyway and you'll understand it later: men pass in front of our eyes like butterflies, creatures of a brief season. We love them; they are brave, proud, beautiful, clever; and they die almost at once. They die so soon that our hearts are continually racked with pain. We bear their children, who are witches if they are female, human if not; and then in the blink of an eye they are gone, felled, slain, lost. Our sons, too. When a little boy is growing, he thinks he is immortal. His mother knows he isn't. Each time becomes more painful, until finally your heart is broken. Perhaps that is when Yambe-Akka comes for you. She is older than the tundra. Perhaps, for her, witches' lives are as brief as men's are to us. — Philip Pullman

The truth is, I wanted to watch you for a time before pledging you my sword. To make certain that you were not ... "
" ... my father's daughter?" If she was not her father's daughter, who was she?
" ... mad," he finished. "But I see no taint in you."
"Taint?" Dany bristled.
"I am no maester to quote history at you, Your Grace. Swords have been my life, not books. But every child knows that the Targaryens have always danced too close to madness. Your father was not the first. King Jaehaerys once told me that madness and greatness are two sides of the same coin. Every time a new Targaryen is born, he said, the gods toss a coin in the air and the world holds its to see how it will land. — George R R Martin

There let her pray to the one god she worships: Death
who knows?
may just reprieve her from death. Or she may learn a last, better late than never, what a waste of breath it is to worship Death. — Sophocles

Looking out the window of a large women's monastery after Divine Liturgy, my friend saw a few nuns walking toward the woods with satchels on their backs. Inquiring who they were, she was told they were ascetics who lived in the wilderness and had come to the monastery to attend Liturgy and to receive some food. Although we are much weaker in our times and far less ascetical than the early desert fathers and mothers, let it never be said that extreme Christian asceticism is extinct. Who knows how many St. Mary of Egypts are hidden in the wilderness? — Constantina R. Palmer

I worry about Lily, sluggish as she is. Will she see Carter's truths? Will he tell her? God knows she won't hear them. She's moving too fast to hear anyone's music but her own. She's so set, but I know he could make her settled. I tried to sync their noise into music, but they both pushed back. Too obdurate to be oblong.
Silly Lily. How can she resist someone who brings gum and sounds like math? — Emily McKay

A powerful woman is someone who exudes confidence and can be tough but fair and kind. And also knows how to get what she wants. — Jennifer Lawrence

Ah, the violence: tearing, killing, ripping. Lila, between fascination and horror, spoke to me in a mixture of dialect, Italian, and very educated quotations that she had taken from who knows where and remembered by heart. The entire planet, she said, is a big Fosso Carbonario. — Elena Ferrante

Someone who knows she is beautiful, who is always told that she is beautiful, but who, deep down, does not feel very beautiful. — Hilary Thayer Hamann

There is an old lady who lives on the moon. You can see her spinning thread on her spinning wheel. Her isolation and distance from the world has made her a sage. She weaves stories. She knows every wanderer who crosses the sea grass meadows, she knows every woman who uses her blackened blue hands to grind grain in the hand mill, she is friends with the little girl who got lost in the corn fields and was never found, and she knows the story of the boy who played flute on the little hill when his lambs slept. Grandmother said that if I had been a good girl the moon lady would weave for me a magical blanket and every stitch will be made from a moment of my life, a forgotten moment, a memory. Every stitch would be special. It would be made especially for me. — Kanza Javed

Whether Maycomb knows it or not, we're paying the highest tribute we can pay a man. We trust him to do right. It's that simple.'
'Who?' Aunt Alexandra never knew she was echoing her twelve-year-old nephew.
'The handful of people in this town who that that fair play is not marked White Only; the handful of people who say a fair trial is for everybody, not just us; the handful of people with enough humility to think, when they look at a Negro, there but for the Lord's kindness am I. — Harper Lee

Hate

I hate the way my family acts.
I hate feeling like I'm wearing a mask.
I hate that no one knows.
I hate not knowing where time goes.
I hate that my fathers dead.
I hate that I'll never see him again.
I hate bouncing from home to home.
I hate not saying bye before I go.
I hate not telling anyone.
I hate a lot of the shit I've done.
I hate the fact my mom is the only one who show she cares.
I hate feeling there's no one there. — Various

It was a great help to a person who had to toil all the week to be able to look forward to some such relaxation as this on Saturday nights. The family was too poor and too hardworked to make many acquaintances; in Packingtown, as a rule, people know only their near neighbors and shopmates, and so the place is like a myriad of little country villages. But now there was a member of the family who was permitted to travel and widen her horizon; and so each week there would be new personalities to talk about, - how so-and-so was dressed, and where she worked, and what she got, and whom she was in love with; and how this man had jilted his girl, and how she had quarreled with the other girl, and what had passed between them; and how another man beat his wife, and spent all her earnings upon drink, and pawned her very clothes. Some people would have scorned this talk as gossip; but then one has to talk about what one knows. It — Upton Sinclair

A real man is one who remembers the lady's birthday, but never knows how old she is. A man who never remembers her birthday, but knows exactly how old she is, - is her husband. — Faina Ranevskaya

You, my dear ... have been wondering why she stuck with him. Although you haven't said as much, it's been on your mind. Am I right?'
She nodded.
'Yes. And I'm not going to offer a long motivational thesis - the convenient thing about stories that are true is that you need only say this is what happened and let people worry for themselves about why. Generally, nobody ever knows why things happen anyway ... particularly the ones who say they do. (Ballad of the Flexible Bullet) — Stephen King

I think also what's interesting is that Maggie [Gyllenhaal] knows how much the choices that I make reflect what's going on in my life. Admittedly, probably, as my sister, and as someone who loves me - like, she can't wait to see become a father. — Jake Gyllenhaal

Olive's private view is that life depends on what she thinks of as "big bursts" and "little bursts." Big bursts are things like marriage or children, intimacies that keep you afloat, but these big bursts hold dangerous, unseen currents. Which is why you need the little bursts as well: a friendly clerk at Bradlee's, let's say, or the waitress at Dunkin' Donuts who knows how you like your coffee. Tricky business, really. — Elizabeth Strout

This is actually something no one knows, but my mom was really the one who created the entire style for 'Teen Witch.' I'm dead serious. She was super involved, and is super creative, so I wore a lot of my actual clothes in the movie. Truly, Louise was my mom's vision. She really created an iconic character. — Robyn Lively

There's a line in The Barretts of Wimpole Street - you know, the play - where Elizabeth Barrett is trying to work out the meaning of one of Robert Browning's poems, and she shows it to him, and he reads it and he tells her when he wrote that poem, only God and Robert Browning knew what it meant, and now only God knows. And that's how I feel about studying English. Who knows what the writer was thinking, and why should it matter? I'd rather just read for enjoyment. — Susanna Kearsley

It is for this girl that the young man is looking. Day after day he wakes in morning and goes searching for her. In his work, and in his life on mornings that are not miraculous and afternoons that are sundry and various, he saves the corners of his eyes for her, and watches at all times the entrances and exits of every establishment to which he comes. For he knows that eventually, in time and given some protracted period of days, weeks, and months, he will come up on her, and know her in an instant for who she is. — Jesse Ball

When I play with my cat, who knows whether she is not amusing herself with me more than I with her. — Michel De Montaigne

Courage looks you straight in the eye. She is not impressed with power trippers, and she knows first aid. Courage is not afraid to weep, and she is not afraid to pray, even when she is not sure who she is praying to. When she walks it is clear she has made the journey from loneliness to solitude. The people who told me she was stern were not lying. they just forgot to mention she was kind. — J. Ruth Gendler

A woman who knows that she doesn't have to get all decked out to look good is sexy. A woman who can make you feel smart with her conversation skills is also sexy. I believe the sense of humor is important. — Benedict Cumberbatch

She is the only one who knows
of the Coldness: a feeling that comes sometimes when I'm
lying in bed, a black, empty feeling that knocks my breath
away and leaves me gasping as though I've just been
thrown in icy water. On nights like that - although it is wrong
and illegal - I think of those strange and terrible words, I
love you, and wonder what they would taste like in my
mouth, try to recall their lilting rhythm on my mother's
tongue. — Lauren Oliver

When you're dying, the unicorn up in heaven gets a note from an angel telling her there's a person who's going to need a ride up soon. The unicorn finds out what the person likes. Favorite foods and books, colors and activities, pets and games. She gets a room ready for him, or her, near people who she knows they'll enjoy being with, maybe other friends and family who have died before.
When the unicorn is done, she jumps off of heaven's perch, flies through the blue sky, around the clouds, over any rainbows, and down to the person. She's invisible to everyone. She patiently waits. When the person dies, she gathers them up on her back, using her hooves and horn. All of a sudden, they sit up straight and smile, they laugh, because they're on top of a unicorn and alive again. They hold on tight to her golden reins and the unicorn takes them to their new home, where they're happy. — Cathy Lamb

He is lying on dirty straw. He has been beaten so many times, his body is one bloodied bruise; he is filthy, he is hideous, he is a sinner and he is utterly unloved. At any moment, at any instant, he will be put on a train in his shackles and taken through Cerberus's mouth to Hades for the rest of his wretched life. And it is at that precise moment that the light shines from the door of his dark cell #7, and in front of him Tatiana stands, tiny, determined, disbelieving, having returned for him. Having abandoned the infant boy who needs her most to go find the broken beast who needs her most. She stands mutely in front of him and doesn't see the blood, doesn't see the filth, sees only the man, and then he knows; he is not cast out. He is loved. — Paullina Simons

The British cook, for her iniquities, is a foolish woman who should be turned into a pillar of salt which she never knows how to use. — Oscar Wilde

Your best friend is the person who not only knows all the important stories and events in your life, but has lived through them with you. Your best friend isn't the person you call when you are in jail; mostly likely, she is sitting in the cell beside you. — Irene S. Levine

Because they were frightened of me." She crossed her arms as best she could. "Not because they respected me."
"I think we can both agree that fear is a type of respect."
"Perhaps." She looked slightly placated. "Everyone I meet who knows of my power fears me. Maybe I'm the most respected person in the world."
"Maybe," I agreed, and thunder rolled overhead. Ilsa glanced upwards, her features illuminated by a flicker of lightning.
We sat in silence for a few minutes longer, before I jumped down from the wagon.
"You don't fear me, though," Ilsa called as I searched for another stick. "I can tell. You think yourself more powerful."
She jumped as lightning cracked through the sky overhead. I heard several prisoners further back, exclaiming loudly.
"Maybe," I repeated, and started work on another dance as Ilsa watched. — Aprille Legacy

That's the thing," Jo says. "You think you know what you're in for. I mean, you tell yourself that, of course, it's not going to be wine and roses and all of that bullshit for the rest of your life, but then, one day, you wake up, and your fucking husband has morphed into someone whom you barely recognize. And you sit there and you stare at him while he scratches his balls through his underwear at the kitchen table, and you think, 'This is totally not what I signed up for. I mean, who knows if I even love this ball-scratching, foul-breathed man?' And then you wonder if you love him more out of habit than out of anything else." She chews the inside of her lip and considers. "And I guess from there, all bets are off. — Allison Winn Scotch

But her favorite is the Houdini fantasy. Big Red disagrees with his biographers, who say that he was driven by his longing to shuck off this mortal coil. She knows that he was all the time just searching for a box that could hold him. — Karen Russell

Imagine a very long time passing - and I find my way out, following someone who already knows how to leave Hell. And God says to me on Earth for the first time, "Xas!" in a tone of discovery, as if I'm a misplaced pair of spectacles or a stray dog. And he puts it to me that he wants me in Heaven. But Lucifer has doubled back - it was him I followed - to find me, where I am, in a forest, smitten, because the Lord has noticed me, and I'm overcome, as hopeless as your dog Josie whom you got rid of because she loved me.' Xas glared at Sobran. Then he drew a breath - all had been said on only three. He went on: 'Lucifer says to God the He can't have me. And at this I sit up and tell Lucifer that I didn't even think he knew my name, then say to God no thank you - very insolent this - and that Hell is endurable so long as the books keep appearing. — Elizabeth Knox

These women lived their lives happily. They had been taught, probably by loving parents, not to exceed the boundaries of their happiness regardless of what they were doing. But therefore they could never know real joy. Which is better? Who can say? Everyone lives the way she knows best. What I mean by 'their happiness' is living a life untouched as much as possible by the knowledge that we are really, all of us, alone. That's not a bad thing. Dressed in their aprons, their smiling faces like flowers, leaning to cook, absorbed in their little troubles and perplexities, they fall in love and marry. I think that's great. I wouldn't mind that kind of life. Me, when I'm utterly exhausted by it all, my skin breaks out, on those lonely evenings when I call my friends again and again and nobody's home, then I despise my own life - my birth, my upbringing, everything. I feel only regret for the whole thing. — Banana Yoshimoto

My celebrity crush is not gonna find out who my celebrity crush is anytime soon. I'm so nervous! I may keep that to myself because if I do meet her and she already knows about it, that could be awkward. — Hunter Hayes

Because what he showed me is that he sees the same things in her I do. He knows she's worth waiting for. And when it's time, he intends to be the one. That's why he's keeping her close. To those of us who live forever, a few years isn't long to wait. — Karen Marie Moning

Who knows, perhaps she will think better of such hateful accusations. Perhaps someone will talk some sense into her before it becomes necessary to protect the Minister from her wrongful charges. Perhaps she will even decide that butchering work is not for her, and she will go off to work on a farm, or something. — Terry Goodkind

Because She Would Ask Me Why I Loved Her

If questioning would make us wise
No eyes would ever gaze in eyes;
If all our tale were told in speech
No mouths would wander each to each.

Were spirits free from mortal mesh
And love not bound in hearts of flesh
No aching breasts would yearn to meet
And find their ecstasy complete.

For who is there that lives and knows
The secret powers by which he grows?
Were knowledge all, what were our need
To thrill and faint and sweetly bleed?

Then seek not, sweet, the "If" and "Why"
I love you now until I die.
For I must love because I live
And life in me is what you give. — Christopher John Brennan

Fourth time's the charm, she says to people who ask her what the secret of a happy marriage is, but that's not the way she feels about it. She knows now that when you don't lose yourself in the bargain, you find you have double the love you started with, and that's one recipe that can't be tampered with. — Alice Hoffman

"There is an easy standoff between the two kinds of mother which sometimes makes it hard for us to talk to each other. I suspect that the non-working mother looks at the working mother with envy and fear because she thinks that the working mum has got away with it. And the working mum looks back with fear and envy because she knows that she has not. In order to keep going in either role, you have to convince yourself that the alternative is bad. The working mother says, because I am more fulfilled as a person I can be a better mother to my children. And sometimes, she may even believe it. The mother who stays home knows that she is giving her kids an advantage, which is something to cling to when your toddler has emptied his beaker of juice over you last clean t-shirt. — Allison Pearson

Mosca had preferred it when she could hear the edge in her companion's voice. Now she felt like someone who knows that there is a scorpion somewhere in the room but can't see where it is. — Frances Hardinge

She knew her duty inside and out. The prosperity of the cash drawer brought happiness to husband and wife. Not that Madame Puta was bad looking, not at all, she could even, like so many others, have been rather pretty, but she was so careful, so distrustful that she stopped short of beauty just as she stopped short of life - her hair was a little too well dressed, her smile a little too facile and sudden, and her gestures a bit too abrupt or too furtive. You racked your brains trying to figure out what was too calculated about her and why you always felt uneasy when she came near you. This instinctive revulsion that shopkeepers inspire in anyone who goes near them who knows what's what, is one of the few consolations for being as down at heel as people who don't sell anything to anybody tend to be. — Louis-Ferdinand Celine

She had just realized there were two things that prevent us from achieving our dreams: believing them to be impossible or seeing those dreams made possible by some sudden turn of the wheel of fortune, when you least expected it. For at that moment, all our fears suddenly surface: the fear of setting off along a road heading who knows where, the fear of a life full of new challenges, the fear of losing forever everything that is familiar. — Paulo Coelho

I've never had a problem with a woman who knows what she wants and isn't afraid to ask for it."
Even as her heart stuttered, she narrowed her eyes. "Is that supposed to be a come-on?"
He lifted his hands and donned an innocent expression. "Wouldn't think of it. — Julie Ann Walker

Sarah Brown is a sweetie to work with. She's a good actress. She's gutsy and she comes in and she knows her lines. She's just terrific. Sometimes I forget how young she is, because she truly walked right in and took the territory and was able to hold her own with people who've been here for so many years. To be able to pull that off [for someone who had never been on a show], I really give the woman a lot of credit. She's done great. — Jacklyn Zeman

She is playing games with someone who knows how to play them better. — Tarryn Fisher

I am not a member of a racial minority, and I am well aware of the reality that far too many individuals of color are harassed by officers for no good reason, so it is easier for me to give the above advice than for others who have been subject to such harassment. After all, I have never been stopped by a police officer who thought I was riding a bike that looked like it might be too expensive for somebody of my race. And I cannot imagine how frustrating such prejudicial suspicion must be. But you cannot make your situation any better by refusing to cooperate with the officer, no matter how unreasonable you may think the police officer is being, or by refusing to disclose two simple things: (1) your name, and (2) whether you have some lawful reason for your curious presence or conduct at that moment at some place where the officer already knows you are, because he or she is standing right there with you. Those — James Duane

No woman who is a woman says of a human body, 'it is nothing' ... On this one point, and on this point alone, the knowledge of woman, simply as woman, is superior to that of man; she knows the history of human flesh; she knows its cost; he does not. — Olive Schreiner

It seems important to me that beginning writers ponder this - that since 1964, I have never had a book, story or poem rejected that was not later published. If you know what you are doing, eventually you will run into an editor who knows what he/she is doing. It may take years, but never give up. Writing is a lonely business not just because you have to sit alone in a room with your machinery for hours and hours every day, month after month, year after year, but because after all the blood, sweat, toil and tears you still have to find somebody who respects what you have written enough to leave it alone and print it. And, believe me, this remains true, whether the book is your first novel or your thirty-first. — Joseph Hansen

You can make your room such a delightful place that they will want to come to you...she is always on hand. Everybody who wants her knows just where to go. If people love her, she gets naturally to be the heart of the house. Once make the little ones feel that your room is the place of all the others to come to when they are tired, or happy, or grieved, or sorry about anything and that the Katy who lives there is sure to give them a loving reception and the battle is won. For you know we never do people good by lecturing. — Susan Coolidge

The way they were writing Christine as this older woman who got married, which she shouldn't have. Obviously got divorced right away. Reached the glass ceiling in the police precinct. So there is a part of her that died because she knows she couldn't go any farther. — Sharon Gless

Some of us still get all weepy when we think about the Gaia Hypothesis, the idea that earth is a big furry goddess-creature who resembles everybody's mom in that she knows what's best for us. But if you look at the historical record - Krakatoa, Mt. Vesuvius, Hurricane Charley, poison ivy, and so forth down the ages - you have to ask yourself: Whose side is she on, anyway? — Barbara Ehrenreich

Now, Ani." Whitney was doing that thing I hate, pronouncing my name "Annie" instead of "Ah-nee." "Luke says the wedding is in Nantucket. Why there?" Because of the privilege inherent in the location, Whitney. Because Nantucket transcends all classes, all areas of the country. Go to South Dakota and tell some sad smug housewife you grew up on the Main Line, and she doesn't know she's supposed to be impressed. Tell her you summer on Nantucket - be sure to verb it like that - and she knows who the fuck she's dealing with. That's why, Whitney. — Jessica Knoll

God of the battlefield, eh? Gods and devils can look much alike to us little people. You went to a ford, and a bridge, and a hill, and what did you do there except kill? What have you made? Who have you helped?" He stood there for a moment, all his bravado slithering out. She is right. And no one knows it better than me. "Nothing and no one," he whispered. "So you love war. I used to think you were a decent man. But I see now I was mistaken." She stabbed at his chest with her forefinger. "You're a hero. — Joe Abercrombie