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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 79571b2 | She, too, spoke only when the queen or king addressed her first, but she looked searchingly at every supplicant, and her clear face said that she had opinions about everything she heard, and that it was her proud duty to think out those opinions, and make them responsible and coherent. | Robin McKinley | ||
| 495cf09 | The merrel also knew its wing had not healed. it said. | freedom injury suicide | Robin McKinley | |
| aef89f2 | My capacity for invention is flash hot stark, I thought. Sucker sunshade. Disembodied radar-reconnaissance. Not to mention Bitter Chocolate Death and Killer Zebras. Pity about the rest of me. | Robin McKinley | ||
| e1f4629 | And when I looked up and saw you as you were, in no gaudy robes and bearing no solemn goblet - suddenly I had hope.' 'I did not see you looking,' said Mirasol. 'I did no want you to see,' said the Master.'And I looked away quickly, because I knew the hope was false. I knew - I think I knew - that it was not really about hope, it was about looking at you. And so I looked at Horuld, and at his sword, and reminded myself that they were about t.. | Robin McKinley | ||
| 988ac8e | The lessons she'd been forced to learn were dry spare things, the facts without the sense of them, given in the simplest of language, as if words might disguise the truth or (worse) bring it to life. | Robin McKinley | ||
| f8c549c | A suffering or tortured animal always filled her with such a surge of sympathy that it lifted her clean out of herself. | animal-lovers cruelty cruelty-to-animals | L.M. Montgomery | |
| 5190bf6 | After all, it was nice to be loved than to be rich and admired and famous. | L.M. Montgomery | ||
| e30763b | She brushed the old years and habits and inhibitions away from her like dead leaves. She would be littered with them. | L.M. Montgomery | ||
| 82ce46d | Edwina always enjoyed a morning ride. Some mornings she rode the horse, and some mornings she rode the groom. | older-women | Barbara Taylor Bradford | |
| 774e51a | As with other paired bracketing devices (such as parentheses, dashes and quotation marks), there is actual mental cruelty involved , incidentally, in opening up a pair of commas and then neglecting to deliver the closing one. The reader hears the first shoe drop and then strains in agony to hear the second. In dramatic terms, it's like putting a gun on the mantelpiece in Act I and then having the heroine drown herself quietly offstage in th.. | Lynne Truss | ||
| 4ea6f14 | Assuming a sentence rises into the air with the initial capital letter and lands with a soft-ish bump at the full stop, the humble comma can keep the sentence aloft all right, UP like this, UP, sort-of bouncing, and then falling down, and then UP it goes again, assuming you have enough additional things to say, although in the end you may run out of ideas and then you have to roll along the ground with no commas at all until some sort of su.. | Lynne Truss | ||
| 90ae4fd | Yet there will always be a problem about getting rid of the hyphen: if it's not extra-marital sex (with a hyphen), it is perhaps extra marital sex, which is quite a different bunch of coconuts. Phrases abound that cry out for hyphens. Those much-invoked examples of the little used car, the superfluous hair remover, the pickled herring merchant, the slow moving traffic and the two hundred odd members of the Conservative Party would all be lo.. | Lynne Truss | ||
| 6903ea6 | Brackets come in various shapes, types and names: 1 round brackets (which we call brackets, and the Americans call parentheses) 2 square brackets [which we call square brackets, and the Americans call brackets] | Lynne Truss | ||
| 62df8c5 | Jack was already mother-naked when he heard the cry and saw the splash. He slipped from the gunwale into the clear water, made out the vague form at a surprising depth, dived, fished it up, swam to the ship, now a hundred yards away, roared for a line, passed the inanimate Herapath up the side, and followed himself. 'Mr Pullings,'he cried, very angry. 'Put an end to this infernal hallooing instantly. Always the same God-damned foolery, ever.. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| e2950e6 | Jack was led out of the dark room into the strong light, and as they guided him up the steps he could see nothing for the glare. 'Your head here sir, if you please,' said the sheriff's man in a low, nervous, conciliating voice, 'and your hands just here.' The man was slowly fumbling with the bolt, hinge and staple, and as Jack stood there with his hands in the lower half-rounds, his sight cleared: he saw that the broad street was filled.. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| 9d114f8 | Yet,'said Maturin, pursuing his own thought, 'there is a quality in dogs, I must confess, rarely to be seen elsewhere and that is affection: I do not mean the violent possessive protective love for their owner but rather that mild, steady attachment to their friends that we see quite often in the best sort of dog. And when you consider the rarity of plain disinterested affection among our own kind, once we are adult, alas - when you conside.. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| d338969 | Of course I do know it is the French who are so wicked; but there are all these people who keep coming and going - the Austrians, the Spaniards, the Russians. Pray, are the Russians good now? It would be very shocking - treason no doubt - to put the wrong people in my prayers. | shifting-enemies war | Patrick O'Brian | |
| e3898e4 | There is a systematic flocci-nauci-nihili-pilification of all other aspects of existence that angers me. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| ae8e520 | You are to consider that a certain melancholy and often a certain irascibility accompany advancing age: indeed it might be said that advancing age equals ill-temper. On reaching the middle years a man perceives that he is no longer able to do certain things, that what looks he may have had are deserting him, that he has a ponderous great belly, and that however much he may yet burn he is no longer attractive to women; and he rebels. Fortitu.. | Patrick O'Brian | ||
| e866b7b | I've never found it helpful to treat fate with a gentle hand. Everytime I've stroked, hopin' fer a favor, she's slapped me hand and laughed at me. If ye want something, take fate by the throat and shake it out o' her. | Karen Hawkins | ||
| 447f878 | Her honor will come to no harm at my hands," Jack said. "'Tis not her honor but her tender heart that I worry about," Alexander said. "She's a delicate lass," Hugh added. "Aye," said Gregor. "A Scottish rose." "Your tender, delicate rose had me ambushed, knocked unconscious, and forced to wed," Jack ground out. "Facts you all know, if you've spoken to Hamish." Dougal grinned, his teeth flashing whitely. "She has the devil's own temper, our .. | Karen Hawkins | ||
| 8c26d0c | I dinna think tis romantic when a man says he's willin' t' give his life fer the woman he loves. Give me instead a man who'd fight to keep us both alive and kickin'! There's naught rommantic about a dead man, beau or no. | Karen Hawkins | ||
| a329c2e | Oh, he rarely gets angry. But he is perpetually irritated. | Karen Hawkins | ||
| 924d5a4 | Tis a sad day when ye ha' t' pinch yerself t' see if ye're awake or in th' midst o' a night terror. 'Tis a really sad day when ye have t' pinch yerself twice." Old woman Nora to her three wee granddaughters on a cold winter's night" | romance | Karen Hawkins | |
| 2473740 | One of the benefits of travelling is that you learn what you truly value when you are home. And little things that you might take for granted are sweeter, softer, larger, and infinitely better for the experience of not having them. | Karen Hawkins | ||
| 3479ff2 | The malice of a true Christian attempting to destroy an opponent is something unique in the world. No other religion ever considered it necessary to destroy others because they did not share the same beliefs. At worst, another man's belief might inspire amusement or contempt--the Egyptians and their animal gods, for instance. Yet those who worshipped the Bull did not try to murder those who worshipped the Snake, or to convert them by force .. | christianity evils-of-hatred heresy holy-war hypocrisy priscus worship | Gore Vidal | |
| 62e1645 | I have been reading Plotinus all evening. He has the power to sooth me; and I find his sadness curiously comforting. Even when he writes: "Life here with the things of earth is a sinking, a defeat, a failure of the wing." The wing has indeed failed. One sinks. Defeat is certain. Even as I write these lines, the lamp wick sputters to an end, and the pool of light in which I sit contracts. Soon the room will be dark. One has always feared tha.. | Gore Vidal | ||
| 028e355 | I am telling you that if things can change for the worse, the opposite is also true. But only if you open yourself to the possibilities. | Ruth Reichl | ||
| bc96626 | Throughout human history beauty has been seen as a gift from God, but Mom had another notion; she thought that beauty could be earned through self-knowledge. It may be a revolutionary idea, but it has offered me great comfort. | self-knowledge | Ruth Reichl | |
| 986c79d | I must try this again, I thought; I must try again someday to sit still and not say a word. Maybe when I'm dead. | Nora Ephron | ||
| 9735330 | He was, in his way, as close to a Zen master as I've ever had, and all of us who fell under his influence began with his style and eventually ended up with our own. | Nora Ephron | ||
| ab92752 | We fear beginnings; we fear endings. We fear changing; we fear "staying stuck." We fear success; we fear failure. We fear living; we fear dying." | Susan Jeffers | ||
| e8505e9 | Choice,' rumbled a rich deep goloss. I viddied it belonged to the prison charlie. 'He has no real choice, has he? Self-interest, fear of physical pain, drove him to that grotesque act of self-abasement. Its insincerity was clearly to be seen. He ceases to be a wrongdoer. He ceases also to be a creature capable of moral choice. | Anthony Burgess | ||
| 3ffef69 | Madem kimileri iyi insan olmayi seciyor, madem bundan haz aliyorlar, onlara hayatta karismam, kimse de bana karismasin. Ama bana karisiyorlardi. Ustelik kotuluk bireye ozgudur, sizlere, bana ve tek tabancaligimiza ozgudur ve bizleri yaratan bizim Tanri'dir, hem de gururla ve keyifle yaratmistir. Ama birey olmayan seyler kotuluge katlanamazlar, yani devlet ve yargiclar ve okullar kotuluge izin vermezler cunku bireylere izin veremezler. Hem m.. | anthony-burgess books quotes-about-life | Anthony Burgess | |
| 52bd8f4 | The religious impulse can be very dangerous. It damages, sometimes permanently. | Anthony Burgess | ||
| ad6cb60 | There's the mackerel of the cornflake for you, you dirty reader of filth and nastiness. | mackerel reader | Anthony Burgess | |
| 2a0bc48 | Birisi sana vurursa, sen de ona vurursun, degil mi? Siz gaddar serseriler de devlete cok sert vuruyorsunuz, oyleyse devlet niye ayni sekilde karsilik vermesin. Ama yeni bakis acisi buna hayir diyor. Yeni bakis acisina gore, kotuleri iyiye donusturmeliymisiz. (syf. 82) | Anthony Burgess | ||
| c659f11 | Even trashy bestsellers show people changing. When a fictional work fails to show change, when it merely indicates that human character is set, stony, unregenerable, then you are out of the field of the novel and into that of the fable or the allegory. | Anthony Burgess | ||
| e517f7b | On my website there's a quote from the writer Anthony Burgess: "The greatest gift is the passion for reading. It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites, it gives you knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind." I've always found that inspiring because the written word, as an art form, is unlike any other: movies, TV, music, they're shared experiences, but books aren't like that. The relationship between a writer and a re.. | books inspiration inspirational novel novelist reading writing written-word | Simon Cheshire | |
| 4b8e98a | I couldn't recall any guy ever looking at me like that unless I was holding a basket of chicken wings or something. | Jennifer L. Armentrout | ||
| 571a280 | What are you going to do, Layla? | Jennifer L. Armentrout | ||
| b7023e2 | I was terrified the whole time they had you and I didn't know where you were. I was scared out of my mind that I would never see you again or get to hold you. And when I did see you? I was afraid I'd never hear you laugh again or see your beautiful smile. So, yeah, I lied. I was terrified. I'm still lying." "Daemon.." "I'm scared shitless that I'll never be able to make this up to you. That I'll never be able to give you back your life -" | Jennifer L. Armentrout | ||
| c74f923 | I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure nothing bad happens. I will do anything to make sure we have the time for everything that we want, but I'm not stupid enough to disregard the fact that something may happen that I can't control. And, dammit, I don't want to look back and see that I didn't seize the chance to make you mine, to really prove that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. That I lost that opportunity. | Jennifer L. Armentrout | ||
| 431eec0 | Sometimes you're so stuck in your own head that you're not -- Well, you're not really living." My brows rose. She glanced down at the bowel of popcorn. "Please don't take that the wrong way. It's just that I think sometimes you miss whats going on around you, because you're so worried about what other are thinking about and and your choices." I wanted to argue against that, but I couldn't." | Jennifer L. Armentrout |