World's Best Nan Quotes & Sayings

The plates of the continental shelf - the world itself - had shifted, and their first concern was putting things back in place. He could have told them it was no use, though his whole life he'd done the same. — Stewart O'Nan

When Maharajji came out you never knew what to expect. He could do the same thing a week in a row until you'd think, "Well, he'll come out at 8:00." Then he might not come out all day, or he might just go into another room and close the door and be in there for two days. You had to learn to expect the unexpected. One day he came out and all he said all day long was "Thul-Thul, Nan-Nan," repeating these words to himself like a mantra. Days went by like this and somebody finally said, "Maharajji, what are you saying?" And it turned out to be an old Behari dialect, and all it meant was "Too big, too big, too little, too little." When he was finally asked why he was saying this, he said, "Oh, all you people, you all live in Thul-Thul, Nan-Nan; you live in the world of judgement. It's always too big or too little. — Ram Dass

If we suspected that we might be headed to a happy ending we were wong. We were too young to know that the winds of change swept through about every fifteen minutes and our lives would be blown apart. We didn't know that God had made us beautiful and the world imperfect. And we didn't know that at the heart of all beauty is something sorrowful and human. Something like love. — Nan Byrne

He means people who let their faith take the place of their reason, people who believe this world is just a prelude to another, more glorious life. He means people like you. * — Stewart O'Nan

Bran knew. "She's a child. A child of the forest." He shivered, as much from wonderment as cold. They had fallen into one of Old Nan's tales.
"The First Men named us children," the little woman said. "The giants called us wok dak nag gran, the squirrel people, because we were small and quick and fond of trees, but we are no squirrels, no children. Our name in the True Tongue means those who sing the song of the earth. Before your Old Tongue was ever spoken, we had sun our songs ten thousand years."
Meera said, "You speak the Common Tongue now."
"For him. The Bran boy. I was born in the time of the dragon, and for two hundred years I walked the world of men, to watch and listen and learn. I might be walking still, but my legs were sore and my heart was weary, so I turned my feet for home."
"Two hundred years?" said Meera.
The child smiled. "Men, they are the children. — George R R Martin

This changing of focus in the eye, moving the eye itself when looking at things that do not move, deepens one's sense of outer reality. Then static things may be caught in the very act of becoming. By so simple a matter, too, as altering the position of one's head, a different kind of world may be made to appear. Lay the head down, or better still, face away from what you look at, and bend with straddled legs till you see your world upside down. How new it has become! From the close-by sprigs of heather to the most distant fold of the land, each detail stands erect in its own validity. In no other way have I seen of my own unaided sight that the earth is round. As I watch, it arches its back, and each layer of landscape bristles - though bristles is a word of too much commotion for it. Details are no longer part of a grouping in a picture of which I am the focal point, the focal point is everywhere. Nothing has reference to me, the looker. This is how the earth must see itself. — Nan Shepherd

She's back to find out where she fits and what to do next. She was doing that before but when the truth came out it sent her world crumbling so she ran. It's a fucking miracle she's back here. I want her back here, Nan. You may not want to hear this but I love her. I will stop at nothing to make sure she's safe. She is secure and no one and I do mean no one, not even my sister, makes her feel unwanted. — Abbi Glines

To Martha it seemed that she stood outside life. The world went by her, colourless shapes on a flat pale background. Nothing had solidity or warmth. She felt numb, as though she could never be passionately alive again. — Nan Shepherd

Any collection of Children's Letters to God. is pure gold because children tell it like it is; they don't butter up God; they say, deadly serious, "How come you rained on my picnic?" Or, "I wanted a baby brother and you sent a gur-r-l." Or, something like this, from a girl named Nan: "Dear God, I bet it's very hard for you to love everybody in the world. There are only four people in our family and I can never do it. — Joseph T. Nolan

You couldn't relive your life, skipping the awful parts, without losing what made it worthwhile. You had to accept it as a whole
like the world, or the person you loved. — Stewart O'Nan

Getting inside your character's head and letting the reader see the world through not just their eyes but their sensibility creates an intimacy that can't be duplicated in any other medium. — Stewart O'Nan

In September dawns I hardly breathe - I am an image in a ball of glass. The world is suspended there, and I in it. — Nan Shepherd

These still mornings in the kitchen were a kind of penance meant to exorcise that fear. When he was working, it worked. It was when he stopped that the world returned, and his problems with it, which was the reason he worked in the first place. He was a writer
all he wanted from this world were the makings of another truer to his heart. — Stewart O'Nan

She lay for a long time listening to the mysterious sounds given forth by old houses at night, the undefinable creakings, rustlings, and sighings, which would have frightened Virginia had she remained awake, but which sounded to Nan like the long murmur of the past breaking on the shores of a sleeping world. — Edith Wharton

She knew that Virginia's survey of the world was limited to people, the clothes they wore, and the carriages they drove in. Her own universe was so crammed to bursting with wonderful sights and sounds that, in spite of her sense of Virginia's superiority - her beauty, her ease, her confidence - Nan sometimes felt a shamefaced pity for her. — Edith Wharton

The Dragon's Way is unlike any other "diet" program you have been on or heard about. In fact, it isn't really a "diet program" as you have come to know it in the Western world. Yet, if you follow The Dragon's Way, you will find that weight will come off. You will also discover something remarkable. — Nan Lu

Garden books are quite unconscious that besides telling us how to turn our patch of earth into a garden, they are also expressing the way their age looks at the world, the state of their society. — Nan Fairbrother

When I'm writing, I try to have the mask of my character on as I'm walking through the world. — Stewart O'Nan

I always squirm when I read what's called 'creative nonfiction,' and the writer is lobbing gobs of emotion and language at the world, hoping some of it will stick. — Stewart O'Nan

So I heard on the news that the Tard died and your house burnt down. I bet secretly you're relieved you don't have to live with him anymore in that dump."
The whole commotion in the hallway immediately stopped, as if her words had been spoken over the intercom. It became so quiet that you could hear Mina's and Nan's sharp intakes of breath. Mina wasn't prone to violence and was about to think of something mean to say back to Savannah, but she didn't have the chance to, because Nan Taylor, perky, happy-go-lucky Nan Taylor, pulled back her fist and punched Savannah in the face.
Savannah wasn't prepared, and fell to the floor. Nan stood over her shocked face and yelled, "No way was he handicapped, or different. He was the most special, coolest and smartest kid ever. And the world is a much sadder place because he's not here. And don't you ever, EVER, insult him again!" Nan shook with anger.
The hall was full of students and teachers, and one by one they started to clap. — Chanda Hahn