The Secret Life Of Bees Quotes
"The queen, for her part, is the unifying force of the community; if she is removed from the hive, the workers very quickly sense her absence. After a few hours, or even less, they show unmistakable signs of queenlessness."
"The way those bees flew, not even looking for a flower, just flying for the feel of the wind, split my heart down its seam."
"People who think dying is the worst thing don’t know a thing about life."
"You can tell which girls lack mothers by the look of their hair."
"Despite everything that happened that summer, I remain tender toward the bees."
"I decided I would take four or five centuries to tell her about the special misery of living with T. Ray."
"He didn’t believe in slumber parties or sock hops, which wasn’t a big concern as I never got invited to them anyway."
"I was always having to choose between decent hair and a good night’s sleep."
"My favorite thing was the fine display of car tags nailed up from different states. I would like to have read every single one, if I’d had the time."
"There is nothing but mystery in the world, how it hides behind the fabric of our poor, browbeat days, shining brightly, and we don’t even know it."
"Sometimes you want to fall on your knees and thank God in heaven for all the poor news reporting that goes on in the world."
"The streets of heaven are gold and sunny, but I’ll stick with my plot and a pot of honey."
"Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can’t remember who we are or why we’re here."
"Bullshit. You gotta imagine what’s never been."
"Because as long as people have been on this earth, the moon has been a mystery to us."
"Everything just comes into her—all the suffering out there—and she feels as if it’s happening to her. She can’t tell the difference."
"The body knows things a long time before the mind catches up to them."
"The world will give you that once in a while, a brief timeout; the boxing bell rings and you go to your corner, where somebody dabs mercy on your beat-up life."
"The whole problem with people is they know what matters, but they don't choose it."
"You can't be a true beekeeper without getting stung."
"The hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters."
"The whole fabric of honey bee society depends on communication—on an innate ability to send and receive messages, to encode and decode information."
"Most people don’t have any idea about all the complicated life going on inside a hive."
"Bees have a secret life we don’t know anything about."
"Sometimes things don't matter that much, Lily. Like the color of a house. How big is that in the overall scheme of life? But lifting a person's heart—now, that matters."
"It takes so much energy to keep things at bay."
"It’s my time to die, and it’s your time to live. Don’t mess it up."
"Something strong and lasting had to do this for May, and you are the chosen ones. God bless your rock hearts."
"It was how Sugar-Girl said what she did, like I was truly one of them."
"She was like a sponge, absorbing what I couldn’t hold anymore."
"You are the most dear, most lovable girl I know."
"What is bound will be unbound. What is cast down will be lifted up."
"But you’re not unlovable. Even if you did accidentally kill her, you are still the most dear, most lovable girl I know."
"It doesn’t take a wizard to see Zach loves you."
"People can start out one way, and by the time life gets through with them they end up completely different."
"You have to find a mother inside yourself. We all do."
"Our Lady is not some magical being out there somewhere, like a fairy godmother. She’s something inside of you."
"I guess you need to grieve a little while. So go ahead and do it."
"If God said in plain language, ‘I’m giving you a choice, forgive or die,’ a lot of people would go ahead and order their coffin."
"A person shouldn’t look too far down her nose at absurdities."
"I feel her in unexpected moments, her Assumption into heaven happening in places inside me."
"This is the autumn of wonders, yet every day, every single day, I go back to that burned afternoon in August when T. Ray left."
"I have more mothers than any eight girls off the street. They are the moons shining over me."