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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 69364af | As they neared the spot from which the noise had come, Moria saw a hand lying on the pathway. It appeared to be attached to a body, which was a relief. Again, these days, one could not guarantee such a thing. | Kelley Armstrong | ||
| d046f17 | As my hair fell free, Cortez entwined his fingers in it and kissed me even harder. Then he slipped one hand from my hair and snapped his fingers over our heads. The lights went out. | shifters witches | Kelley Armstrong | |
| a02297e | Cars like that shouldn't be left in storage. It causes mechanical issues. With brakes and tires and engines and such." My smile returned. "You have no idea what you're talking about, do you?" "Not a word." | gabriel humor mechanical-issues olivia | Kelley Armstrong | |
| 7fc3fe4 | He wet a paper towel, and took my chin, lifting and wiping my face. He picked up my hand and started cleaning it. I leaned down, trying to see his face. He kept scrubbing. I had a few cuts and scrapes, and I was only flecked with blood, but I kept my mouth shut and let him clean. As he did, I tried to check out how badly he was hurt. His scraped cheeks were pitted with gravel. His nose was bloodied. Broken? One eye was already darkeni.. | chloe derek fussing | Kelley Armstrong | |
| c0ddad2 | I can't stop wanting to help, and by 'help,' I really mean guide, and by 'guide,' I really mean protect. That has nothing to do with you and whether you can take care of yourself. It's about me and what I want, which is to make life easier for you, because I know it isn't easy and it's only getting harder, and I'm scrambling madly to smooth those rough edges before you get hurt. | Kelley Armstrong | ||
| 821e79d | I'm presuming, though, that breaking and entering isn't your intent, unless you bring a lawyer in tow, should you be caught." He pursed his lips. "That could be convenient." | getting-caught lawyer-joke | Kelley Armstrong | |
| cd84a24 | Schizo. It didn't matter how many times Dr. Gill compared it to a disease or physical disability, it wasn't the same thing. It just wasn't. I had schizophrenia. If I saw two guys on the sidewalk, one in a wheelchair and one talking talking to himself, which would I rush to open a door for, and which would I cross the road to avoid? | mental-disorder mental-illness mental-illness-discrimination mental-illness-stigma schizophrenia | Kelley Armstrong | |
| ff121c4 | I have one more task to carry out before I go, Moria." She turned to Gavril. "You may leave us." "I may . . . but I will not." "Ignore him," Moria said. "I do. As much as possible." "I do not blame you. He seems very ill-tempered. Traitors ought to be more charming or they'll never woo anyone to their side." She turned to Gavril. "Is your father more charming?" | Kelley Armstrong | ||
| a792cb5 | Cwn Annwn," I said. "I think I'm finally pronouncing that right. Welsh. So many letters. So few vowels." | Kelley Armstrong | ||
| bdec760 | I knew Derek didn't lack empathy--he couldn't forget what he'd done to that kid who attacked Simon. But it was like what he held some weird list of checks and balances, and if you got on the wrong side, like Tori had, he had no problem 'kicking you on the curb,' to face whatever fate waited. I said. I stood and brushed off my jeans. When Simon rose, I thought he was going to stop me. Instead, he followed me to the door. Tori caught up, a.. | conditions derek simon stand-up-for tori | Kelley Armstrong | |
| 640c8f8 | I said. I pushed my left one up, showing four bruises, dark as ink spots. Simon paled. He rubbed his mouth, still staring at my arm. Simon's eyes widened, then he lowered his lids to hide his surprise. Derek's voice preceded him around the corner. I shrank back. I couldn't help it. As I did, a look passed through Derek's eyes. Remorse? Guilt? He blinked it away. | derek didn-t-mean-to guilt hurt mistake simon trouble | Kelley Armstrong | |
| 307cd58 | Stray cats are like two-timing men. He got tired of you and took off. He doesn't find anyone new? He'll come slinking back. By then, if you're smart, you'll have decided you're better without him. | inconstancy infidelity men | Kelley Armstrong | |
| 693c25e | Okay, so on anniversaries, I need to give her something. An incentive." Simon almost walked into a tree. "What?" "An incentive. Like in third grade, when Mrs. Nestor gave me a cookie every day that I didn't read during class and promised me a candy bar if I didn't read all week." "You never got that candy bar." "Because it wasn't worth listening to her yammer about stuff I already knew. But this anniversary gift thing, is like that, right? .. | Kelley Armstrong | ||
| ec5c792 | Walshes had been taking advantage of gullibility and stupidity ever since they conned their fellow cavemen out of their spears. Highwaymen, pirates, swindlers, and card sharks . . . their family history was both colorful and dark. | Kelley Armstrong | ||
| 32032df | The bar was stuffy and melancholy. It was full of the sadness inherent in all deracinated things. | Paul Bowles | ||
| 5fc605d | After all, the English are really too much. One can't live in that constipated fashion forever. | Paul Bowles | ||
| a77ae8b | the old with the young, the decrepit with the lusty--all equal before sleep, death's brother. | Joseph Conrad | ||
| f583e60 | How terrible to be forgotten by the god that made you, even if you're just a room. How could you love something that could do that anytime? | Peter S. Beagle | ||
| 3483367 | It's like dinosaurs. We can put them back together perfectly, bone for bone, but we don't know what they smelled like, what kind of sounds they made, or how big they really looked standing in the grass under all those fossil fern trees. Even the sunlight must have been different, and the wind. What can bones tell you about a kind of wind that doesn't blow anymore? | Peter S. Beagle | ||
| 5b65060 | You may plant your acres again and raise up your fallen orchard and vineyards, but they will never flourish as they used to, never--until you learn to take joy in them, for no reason. | Peter S. Beagle | ||
| 8f4b98f | The unicorn] sighed and plodded on, both amused and disappointed. It serves you right, she told herself. You know better than to expect a butterfly to know your name. All they know are songs and poetry, and anything else they hear. They mean well, but they can't keep things straight. And why should they, they die so soon. | poetry songs unicorns | Peter S. Beagle | |
| d8b508f | She loved him too. That's why she let him go. | Peter S. Beagle | ||
| 925abc1 | The unicorn was weary of human beings. Watching her companions as they slept, seeing the shadows of their dreams scurry over their faces, she would feel herself bending under the heaviness of knowing their names. Then she would run until morning to ease the ache: swifter than rain, swift as loss, racing to catch up with the time when she had known nothing at all but the sweetness of being herself. | Peter S. Beagle | ||
| 726a689 | We give them different names, those nights lit only by fire and the moon, depending on the country and the calendar, but we know what they are. They call up the world that was before the Lord came down among us; the world where good and evil were not so certain, so fixed as they are today, where the known and the unheard-of could mingle as they chose...where truth had its doubts, do you see? (By Moonlight) | Peter S. Beagle | ||
| b4e6fd8 | She heard hearts bounce, tears brewing, and breath going backward, but nobody said a word. By the sorrow and loss and sweetness in their faces she knew that they recognized her, and she accepted their hunger as her homage. She thought of the hunter's great-grandmother, and wondered what it must be like to grow old, and to cry. | Peter S. Beagle | ||
| 37bb439 | The unicorn was gray and still. "There is magic on me," she said. "Why did you not tell me?" "I thought you knew," the magician answered gently. "After all, didn't you wonder how it could be that they recognized you?" Then he smiled, which made him look a little older. "No, of course not. You never would wonder about that." "There has never been a spell on me before," the unicorn said. She shivered long and deep. "There has never been a wor.. | Peter S. Beagle | ||
| f1bac98 | Your topsoil's a disaster area -- it's starved for nitrogen, it's been fertilized for years by the criminally insane, and whatever thief put in your irrigation system ought to be flogged through the fleet. | farm humor land | Peter S. Beagle | |
| f0d6a10 | You must never run from anything immortal. It attracts their attention. [...] Never run. [...] Walk slowly, and pretend to be thinking of something else. Sing a song, say a poem, do your tricks, but walk slowly and she may not follow. | fantasy immortals | Peter S. Beagle | |
| 8008a94 | It cannot be an ill fortune to have loved a unicorn, | Peter S. Beagle | ||
| fc503a8 | Any woman can weep without tears," she answered over her shoulder, "and most can heal with their hands. It depends on the wound. She is a woman, Your Highness, and that's riddle enough." | Peter S. Beagle | ||
| 0750aa4 | Because depressed parents appear put-upon, beleaguered or overwhelmed by the ordinary demands of parenting, their children don't always learn that they are worthwhile and so are at risk to become depressed themselves in adulthood. | Jonice Webb | ||
| 36e09c7 | You could find out most things, if you knew the right questions to ask. Even if you didn't, you could still find out a lot. | Iain M. Banks | ||
| 454f364 | Because I do enjoy winning, because I do have something nobody can copy, something nobody else can have; I'm me; I'm one of the best. | Iain M. Banks | ||
| 90bcaf5 | You're saying nothing lasts forever, he heard the fellow whine. (Well, pretty trite, he thought.) No, he heard her say. I'm saying with very few exceptions nothing lasts forever, and amongst those exceptions, no work or thought of man is numbered. She went on talking after this, but he homed in on that. That was better, he thought. I liked that. | meet-cute shias-engin transience | Iain M. Banks | |
| e7a17d0 | What is any achievement, however great it was, once time itself is dead? | Iain M. Banks | ||
| be9b76d | An electronic computer is also made up of matter, but organised differently; what is there so magical about the workings of the huge, slow cells of the animal brain that they can claim themselves to be conscious, but would deny a quicker, more finely-grained device of equivalent power - or even a machine hobbled so that it worked with precisely the same ponderousness - a similar distinction? | Iain M. Banks | ||
| ccdb371 | Now, quite apart from the fact that, from the point of view of the Earther, socialism suffers the devastating liability of only exhibiting internal contradictions when you are trying to use it as an adjunct to your own stupidity (unlike capitalism, which again, from the point of view of the Earther, happily has them built in from the start), it is the case that because Free Enterprise got there first and set up the house rules, it will alwa.. | earthers economics free-enterprise socialism | Iain M. Banks | |
| 2daa31a | Ferbin's father had had the same robustly pragmatic view of religion as he'd had of everything else. In his opinion, only the very poor and downtrodden really needed religion, to make their laborious lives more bearable. People craved self-importance; they longed to be told they mattered as individuals, not just as part of a mass of people or some historical process. They needed the reassurance that while their life might be hard, bitter an.. | government religion revolution | Iain M. Banks | |
| fd976b9 | Insult, like many such feelings, is experienced in the soul of the person addressed; it is not something that can be granted or withheld by the person doing the addressing. | Iain M. Banks | ||
| 879df2b | Strange that people are happy to adopt epithets they would fight to the death to throw off had they been imposed. | slurs | Iain M. Banks | |
| 86fe78a | It was not so difficult to understand the warped view the Azadians had of what they called "human nature" - the phrase they used whenever they had to justify something inhuman and unnatural" | Iain M. Banks | ||
| a3b75c2 | Unbelievable. I'm in a fucking Outside Context situation, the ship thought, and suddenly felt as stupid and dumb-struck as any muddy savage confronted with explosives or electricity. | Iain M. Banks | ||
| 6b67654 | He saw a chair, and a ship that was not a ship; he saw a man with two shadows, and he saw that which cannot be seen -- a concept; the adaptive, self-seeking urge to survive, to bend everything that can be reached to that end, and to remove and to add and to smash and to create so that one particular collection of cells can go on, can move onward and decide, and keeping moving and keeping deciding, knowing that -- if nothing else -- at least.. | Iain M. Banks | ||
| 88c05da | However, there is another reaction to the never-ending plethora of unoriginal idiocies that life throws up with such erratic reliability, besides horror and despair." "What's that?" "A kind of glee. Once one survives the trough that comes with the understanding that people are going to go on being stupid and cruel to each other no matter what, probably for ever - if one survives; many people choose suicide at this point instead - then one s.. | Iain M. Banks |