Maggie Stiefvater Quotes

There's a lot of reasons you can think of to say why you act, but I can only say that it just felt good. At the same time, it felt really painful. It's still troubling and stressful to me.

He knew that conscience was chiefly fear of society or fear of oneself.

I nod, because I do understand. I'm just not sure how to go about divorcing myself from the evil I've already accepted.

God forgive me if I do wrong in following with ardor the strongest instincts of my nature.

I've always preferred writing about grey characters and human characters. Whether they are giants or elves or dwarves, or whatever they are, they're still human, and the human heart is still in conflict with the self.

I think I'm great. I mean, I might as well come out and say it. Like most people, I have an ego and I'm in show business, so you have to have kind of a healthy, conflagrated ego to a degree. On the other hand, I'm consumed, like a lot of people, with self-doubt and loathing and guilt.

The greatest conflicts are not between two people but between one person and himself.

The tension between 'yes' and 'no', between 'I can' and 'I cannot', makes us feel that, in so many instances, human life is an interminable debate with one's self.

I knew many Marines had done brave deeds that no one saw and for which they got no medals at all. I was having a very hard time carrying those medals and didn't have the insight or maturity to know what to do with my combination of guilt and pride.

To me, any character that is conflicted inside as well as outside of themselves is always a better role to play.

Every man is his own hell.

I had always been feeling uncomfortable in my mind about giving advice to others and not acting upon it myself.

Whenever we feel shame, it's a mark of some deep investment or deep internal struggle.

It's hard to regret making the choice that you think is right.

Sometimes I think that I cheated my own family and my closest friends by giving to audiences so much of the love I might have kept for them. But that’s the way I was made; I truly don't think I could help it

Why does man regret, even though he may endeavour to banish any such regret, that he has followed the one natural impulse, rather than the other; and why does he further feel that he ought to regret his conduct? Man in this respect differs profoundly from the lower animals.

The hardest thing usually to leave behind, as was the case now, can loosely be called the conscience.

You always think, "Oh, I'm sure I could have done that better." But generally speaking, I am very proud of this.

He had been driven hither by the impulse of that Remorse which dogged him everywhere, and whose own sister and closely linked companion was that Cowardice which invariably drew him back, with her tremulous gripe, just when the other impulse had hurried him to the verge of a disclosure.

This was one of the greatest test of his faith he had ever experienced. The thought of deceiving the kind and faithful wife of his youth... was more than he felt able to bear.... his sorrow and misery were increased by the thought of my mother hearing it from some other source, which would no doubt separate them, and he shrank from the thought of such a thing, or of causing her any unhappiness.

Memory says, 'I did that.' Pride replies, 'I could not have done that.' Eventually, memory yields.

My conscience aches but it's going to lose the fight.

You have to think you're the greatest thing since sliced bread, but you have to know that you're not.

I was not proud of what I had learned but I never doubted that it was worth knowing.

I enjoyed the innocence of unhappiness and of helplessness; could I blame myself for a sin which attracted me, which flooded me with pleasure precisely to the extent it brought me to despair?