Quotes by Carol Shields - Page 1 | QuoteForever

A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z

The silence is perfect, and yet a torment.
Carol Shields / Author
Perfect
Silence
Torment
Copy Quote
I'm concerned about the unknowability of other people.
Carol Shields / Author
Concerned
People
Copy Quote
Here's to another year and let's hope it's above ground.
Carol Shields / Author
Another Year
Years
Copy Quote
Write the book you want to read, the one you cannot find.
Carol Shields / Author
Book
Want
Writing
Copy Quote
It's hard work being a person, you have to do it every single day.
Carol Shields / Author
Hard
Hard Work
Persons
Copy Quote
This is why I read novels: so I can escape my own unrelenting monologue.
Carol Shields / Author
Monologues
My Own
Novel
Copy Quote
These are frightening times...when she feels herself annointed by loneliness.
Carol Shields / Author
Feeling Lonely
Feels
Loneliness
Copy Quote
There are chapters in every life which are seldom read and certainly not aloud.
Carol Shields / Author
Chapters
Self Discovery
Aloud
Certainly
Seldom
Copy Quote
He dares not concern himself with the future for fear of disturbing the present.
Carol Shields / Author
Fear
Future
Dare
Copy Quote
The recounting of a life is a cheat...even our own stories are obscenely distorted.
Carol Shields / Author
Life
Life Is
Stories
Copy Quote
The scolding voice is her own, so abrasive and quick, yet so powerless to move her.
Carol Shields / Author
Moving
Scolding
Voice
Copy Quote
In a long and healthy life, which is what most of us have, there is plenty of time.
Carol Shields / Author
Healthy
Healthy Life
Long
Copy Quote
Eventually, everything gets stuck between a pair of parentheses or buried in the bottom of a trunk.
Carol Shields / Author
Buried
Pairs
Trunks
Copy Quote
A childhood is what anyone wants to remember of it. It leaves behind no fossils, except perhaps in fiction.
Carol Shields / Author
Childhood
Fiction
Memories
Copy Quote
Anyone's childhood can be an act of disablement if rehearsed and replayed and squinted at in a certain light. . .
Carol Shields / Author
Certain
Childhood
Light
Copy Quote
Words are our life. We are human because we use language. So I think we are less human when we use less language.
Carol Shields / Author
Language
Thinking
Use
Copy Quote
So this is where the years of maturity deliver us - to this needy, selfish, unwieldy wish to be somebody else's first and primal other.
Carol Shields / Author
Maturity
Selfish
Years
Copy Quote
Our friendship is made up of these brief frenzied exchanges, but the quality of our conversation, for all its feverish outpouring, is genuine.
Carol Shields / Author
Quality
Genuine
Made
Copy Quote
We are too kind, too willing--too unwilling too--reaching out blindly with a grasping hand but not knowing how to ask for what we don't even know we want.
Carol Shields / Author
Hands
Knowing
Want
Copy Quote
Bookish people, who are often maladroit people, persist in thinking they can master any subtlety so long as it's been shaped into acceptable expository prose.
Carol Shields / Author
Long
People
Thinking
Copy Quote
nothing she did or said was quite what she meant but still her life could be called a monument shaped in a slant of available light and set to the movement of possible music
Carol Shields / Author
Light
Movement
Said
Copy Quote
A woman's life isn't worth a plateful of cabbage if she hasn't felt life stir under her heart. Taking a little one to nurse, watching him grow to manhood, that's what love is.
Carol Shields / Author
Heart
Love Is
Nurse
Copy Quote
Happiness is the lucky pane of glass you carry in your head. It takes all your cunning just to hang on to it, and once it's smashed you have to move into a different sort of life.
Carol Shields / Author
Different
Glasses
Moving
Copy Quote
Open a book this minute and start reading. Don’t move until you’ve reached page fifty. Until you’ve buried your thoughts in print. Cover yourself with words. Wash yourself away. Dissolve.
Carol Shields / Author
Book
Moving
Reading
Copy Quote
Go for long walks, indulge in hot baths, Question your assumptions, be kind to yourself, live for the moment, loosen up, scream, curse the world, count your blessings, Just let go, Just be.
Carol Shields / Author
Blessing
Letting Go
Long Walks
Copy Quote
Why should men be allowed to strut under the privilege of their life adventures, wearing them like a breast full of medals, while women went all gray and silent beneath the weight of theirs?
Carol Shields / Author
Men
Adventure
Weight
Copy Quote
I don't think I would have been a writer if I hadn't been a mother. I wanted to construct something that contained some of these feelings that I had, some of these discoveries or revelations.
Carol Shields / Author
Discovery
Mother
Revelations
Thinking
Construct
Discoveries
Copy Quote
It occurs to her that she should record this flash of insight in her journal - otherwise she is sure to forget, for she is someone who is always learning and forgetting and obliged to learn again.
Carol Shields / Author
Learning
Forget
Records
Copy Quote
The larger loneliness of our lives evolves from our unwillingness to spend ourselves, stir ourselves. We are always damping down our inner weather, permitting ourselves the comforts of postponement, of rehearsals
Carol Shields / Author
Loneliness
Rehearsal
Weather
Copy Quote
I couldn't have been a novelist without being a mother. It gives you a unique witness point of the growth of a personality. It was a kind of biological component for me that had to come first. My children gave this other window on the world.
Carol Shields / Author
Children
Mother
Unique
Copy Quote
It's the arrangement of events which makes the stories. It's throwing away, compressing, underlining. Hindsight can give structure to anything, but you have to be able to see it. Breathing, waking and sleeping: our lives are steamed and shaped into stories. Knowing that is what keeps me from going insane, and though I don't like to admit it, sometimes it's the only thing.
Carol Shields / Author
Breathing
Knowing
Sleep
Copy Quote
In one day I had altered my life; my life, therefore, was alterable. This simple axiom did not call out for exegesis; no, it entered my bloodstream directly, as powerful as heroin. I could feel it pump and surge, the way it brightened my veins to a kind of glass. I had wakened that morning to narrowness and predestination and now I was falling asleep in the storm of my own free will.
Carol Shields / Author
Morning
Fall
Powerful
Copy Quote
And yet, within her anxiety, secured there like a gemstone, she carries the cool and curious power of occasionally being able to see the world vividly. Clarity bursts upon her a spray of little stars. She understands this, and thinks of it as one of the tricks of consciousness; there is something almost luxurious about it.. The narrative maze opens and permits her to pass through. She may be crowded out of her own life - she knows this for a fact and has always know it - but she possesses, as a compensatory gift, the startling ability to draft alternative versions.
Carol Shields / Author
Anxiety
Stars
Thinking
Copy Quote

Share This Page