Maggie Stiefvater Quotes

There is nothing that puts a man more in your debt than that he owes you nothing.

I don't feel I owe anyone anything.

I am convinced by a sad experience that it is natural to avoid those to whom we have been too much obliged, and that uncommon generosity causes neglect rather than gratitude.

We do not quite forgive a giver. The hand that feeds us is in some danger of being bitten. We can receive anything from love, forthat is a way of receiving it from ourselves; but not from any one who assumes to bestow. We sometimes hate the meat which we eat, because there seems something of degrading dependence in living it.

I was always reticent about taking offerings from my father, and I think it was maybe because I felt the caveat was that I had to give something back, and I didn't like that position. But I've never felt incumbent on anyone to kind of keep them lifted or to support them, necessarily. I do that by wish or by option.

To remind a man of the good turns you have done him is very much like a reproach.

Too great haste to repay an obligation is a kind of ingratitude.

Great indebtedness does not make men grateful, but vengeful; and if a little charity is not forgotten, it turns into a gnawing worm.

The proverb warns that 'You should not bite the hand that feeds you.' But maybe you should, if it prevents you from feeding yourself.

I could not accept such a large sum from anyone outside my own family.

I don't like having people do little things for me.

I don't owe nobody nothing.

I have no favors to pay back.

To accept a favor is to sell one's freedom. -Beneficium accipere libertatem est vendere

A refined nature is vexed by knowing that some one owes it thanks, a coarse nature by knowing that it owes thanks to some one.

Men are not only prone to forget benefits; they even hate those who have obliged them, and cease to hate those who have injured them. The necessity of revenging an injury, or of recompensing a benefit seems a slavery to which they are unwilling to submit.

It is well known to all great men, that by conferring an obligation they do not always procure a friend, but are certain of creating many enemies.

If your family or your people are looking over your shoulder, change your seat or push them away.

Don't tell me what to do, don't tell me what to say. And please, when I go out with you, don't put me on display.

Thus love is the most easy and agreeable, and gratitude the most humiliating, affection of the mind. We never reflect on the man we love without exulting in our choice, while he who has bound us to him by benefits alone rises to our ideas as a person to whom we have in some measure forfeited our freedom.

Benefits received are a delight to us as long as we think we can requite them; when that possibility is far exceeded, they are repaid with hatred instead of gratitude.

You renounce your friendship even in the hour of our need ' he said. 'Yet you were glad indeed to receive our aid when you came at last to these shores fainthearted loiterers and well-nigh emptyhanded. In huts on the beaches would you be dwelling still had not the Noldor carved out your haven and toiled upon your walls.

My feelings for Raphael are mine, and mine alone. I loved him, and that is all anyone needs to know. The rest is no business of any man's.

Taking on responsibilities that properly belong to someone else means behaving irresponsibly toward yourself. You need to know where you end and someone else begins. You need to understand boundaries. You need to know what is and is not up to you, what is and is not in your control, what is and is not your responsibility.