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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 9dc04d5 | is it not to the mercies of the eyes of others that we commit ourselves on our journey through the world? | judgement | Angela Carter | |
| 99c2491 | I've changed a lot since 1969, and so has the world; I'm more benign, the world is far bleaker, and the people in would now be edging nervously up to the middle age they thought could never happen, they thought the world would end first. | Angela Carter | ||
| 61e0a30 | Those were her best days, although there was always something feckless about her, something so slack and almost fearful in her too frequent smile, so that when you saw Mignon being happy, you always thought: "It can't last." She had the febrile gaiety of a being without a past, without a present, yet she existed thus, without memory or history, only because her past was too bleak to think of and her future too terrible to contemplate; she w.. | memory the-present | Angela Carter | |
| 4375ff0 | I know it must seem a curious analogy, a man with a flower, but sometimes he seemed to me like a lily. Yes. A lily. Possessed of that strange, ominous calm of sentient vegetable, like one of those cobra-headed, funereal lilies whose white sheaths are curled out of flesh as thick and tensely yielding to the touch as vellum. When I said that I would marry him, not one muscle in his face stirred, but he let out a long, extinguished sigh. I tho.. | Angela Carter | ||
| a3a04ef | I was a young girl, a virgin, and therefore men denied me rationality just as they denied it to all those who were not exactly like themselves, in all their unreason. | virginity | Angela Carter | |
| eb3033b | What big eyes you have. Eyes of an incomparable luminosity, the numinous phosphorescence of the eyes of lycanthropes. The gelid green of your eyes fixes my reflective face; It is a preservative, like a green liquid amber; it catches me. I am afraid I will be trapped in it for ever like the poor little ants and flies that stuck their feet in resin before the sea covered the Baltic. He winds me into the circle of his eye on a reel of birdsong.. | obsession | Angela Carter | |
| 6642c31 | Women do not normally fuck in the active sense. They are fucked in the passive tense and hence automatically fucked-up, done over, undone. | Angela Carter | ||
| e9445ea | Although so young, he is also rational. He has chosen the most rational mode of transport in the world for his trip round the Carpathians. To ride a bicycle is in itself some protection against superstitious fears, since the bicycle is the product of pure reason applied to motion. Geometry at the service of man! Give me two spheres and a straight line and I will show you how far I can take them. Voltaire himself might have invented the bicy.. | angela carter | ||
| 1223054 | She plays chess from the passions and I play it from logic and she usually wins. Once, I took her queen and she hit me." Though, he recalled, not sufficiently brutally to require that he tie her wrists together with his belt, force her to kneel and beat her until she toppled over sideways. She raised a strangely joyous face to him; the pallor of her skin and the almost miraculous lustre of her eyes startled and even awed him." | logic passions | Angela Carter | |
| c09e575 | Oh, there's no toll," noticed Henry. "It costs twelve bucks coming into Manhattan, but I guess it's free going back to New Jersey." "That should tell you something," said Villy crestfallen." | Aurelio Voltaire | ||
| 1eb2c79 | The dragon sickness is a euphemism for the bourgeois materialism which is rife in our consumerist culture. Smaug's fury at the loss of a single insignificant and practically useless trinket serves as a metaphor for modern man and his mania for possessing trash that he doesn't need. | Joseph Pearce | ||
| e449906 | There is no logical, rational, pre-structured criterion "out there" with a divine plan. There is no truth "out there" which our weak minds or souls eventually run across. There is this casual, haphazard, amoral process that leaps the logical gaps and brings about newness. And the procedures only demand is that given talents be invested, risked, doubled, the possibilities explored." | yes | Joseph Chilton Pearce | |
| df08739 | For Chesterton and Tolkien, the goodness, truth, and beauty of fairy stories are to be found in the way they judge the way things are from the perspective of the way things ought to be. The should judges the is. This is the way things ought to be. We do not condone selfishness merely because it is normal, nor should we. A healthy perspective always judges selfishness--most especially our own selfishness--from the perspective of selflessness.. | Joseph Pearce | ||
| 63af673 | on that last Monday of the empire's history, the mood changed. There was no rest for the weary, of course, and work continued, but for the first time in weeks, the inhabitants of the city began to make their way to the Hagia Sophia. There, for the first and last time in Byzantine history, the divisions that had split the church for centuries were forgotten, Greek priests stood shoulder to shoulder with Latin ones, and a truly ecumenical ser.. | Lars Brownworth | ||
| dd10487 | The obvious definition of a monarchy seems to be that of a state, in which a single person, by whatsoever name he may be distinguished, is entrusted with the execution of the laws, the management of the revenue, and the command of the army. But, unless public liberty is protected by intrepid and vigilant guardians, the authority of so formidable a magistrate will soon degenerate into despotism. The influence of the clergy, in an age of supe.. | church church-and-state definition liberty monarchy right-to-bear-arms | Edward Gibbon | |
| 4dbdf93 | the race of men born to the exercise of arms, was sought for in the country rather than in cities; and it was very reasonably presumed, that the hardy occupations of smiths, carpenters, and huntsmen, would supply more vigour and resolution, than the sedentary trades which are employed in the service of luxury. | Edward Gibbon | ||
| 64daf7c | Such refinements, under the odious name of luxury, have been severely arraigned by the moralists of every age; and it might perhaps be more conducive to the virtue, as well as happiness, of mankind, if all possessed the necessaries, and none the superfluities, of life. But in the present imperfect condition of society, luxury, though it may proceed from vice or folly, seems to be the only means that can correct the unequal distribution of p.. | Edward Gibbon | ||
| 5e58952 | Hope, the best comfort of our imperfect condition, | Edward Gibbon | ||
| 844be52 | Five times was Athanasius expelled from his throne; twenty years he passed as an exile or a fugitive; and almost every province of the Roman empire was successively witness to his merit, and his sufferings in the cause of the Homoousion, which he considered as the sole pleasure and business, as the duty, and as the glory, of his life. Amidst the storms of persecution, the archbishop of Alexandria was patient of labour, jealous of fame, care.. | Edward Gibbon | ||
| 0ceb799 | The tender respect of Augustus for a free constitution which he had destroyed, can only be explained by an attentive consideration of the character of that subtle tyrant. A cool head, an unfeeling heart, and a cowardly disposition, prompted him, at the age of nineteen, to assume the mask of hypocrisy, which he never afterwards laid aside. With the same hand, and probably with the same temper, he signed the proscription of Cicero, and the pa.. | Edward Gibbon | ||
| 64b5f44 | The names of Seneca, of the elder and the younger Pliny, of Tacitus, of Plutarch, of Galen, of the slave Epictetus, and of the emperor Marcus Antoninus, adorn the age in which they flourished, and exalt the dignity of human nature. They filled with glory their respective stations, either in active or contemplative life; their excellent understandings were improved by study; philosophy had purified their minds from the prejudices of the popu.. | Edward Gibbon | ||
| 5f88711 | It was scarcely possible that the eyes of contemporaries should discover in the public felicity the latent causes of decay and corruption. This long peace, and the uniform government of the Romans, introduced a slow and secret poison into the vitals of the empire. The minds of men were gradually reduced to the same level, the fire of genius was extinguished, and even the military spirit evaporated. | Edward Gibbon | ||
| 4972fad | When the stars threw down their spears, And water'd heaven with their tears: | William Blake | ||
| 01a5e8a | The pilgrimage of Italy, which I now accomplished, had long been the object of my curious devotion. The passage of Mount Cenis, the regular streets of Turin, the Gothic cathedral of Milan, the scenery of the Boromean Islands, the marble palaces of Genoa, the beauties of Florence, the wonders of Rome, the curiosities of Naples, the galleries of Bologna, the singular aspect of Venice, the amphitheatre of Verona, and the Palladian architecture.. | Edward Gibbon | ||
| 41554cf | A historian] will more seriously deplore the loss of the Byzantine libraries, which were destroyed or scattered in the general confusion: one hundred and twenty thousand manuscripts are said to have disappeared; ten volumes might be purchased for a single ducat; and the same ignominious price, too high perhaps for a shelf of theology, included the whole works of Aristotle and Homer, the noblest productions of the sciences and literature of .. | Edward Gibbon | ||
| 74c2224 | A state of scepticism and suspense may amuse a few inquisitive minds. But the practice of superstition is so congenial to the multitude, that if they are forcibly awakened, they still regret the loss of their pleasing vision. Their love of the marvellous and supernatural, their curiosity with regard to future events, and their strong propensity to extend their hopes and fears beyond the limits of the visible world, were the principal causes.. | religion superstition | Edward Gibbon | |
| 3340de0 | The public highways, which had been constructed for the use of the legions, opened an easy passage for the Christians missionaries from Damascus to Corinth, and from Italy to the extremity of Spain or Britain; nor did those spiritual conquerors encounter any of the obstacles which usually retard or prevent the introduction of a foreign religion into a distant country. | Edward Gibbon | ||
| 2d39b67 | According to the maxims of universal toleration, the Romans protected a superstition which they despised. | Edward Gibbon | ||
| 9592448 | The conquest of the land of Canaan was accompanied with so many wonderful and so many bloody circumstances, that the victorious Jews were left in a state of irreconcilable hostility with all their neighbours. | Edward Gibbon | ||
| 526e06e | The descendants of Abraham were flattered by the opinion, that they alone were the heirs of the covenant, and they were apprehensive of diminishing the value of their inheritance, by sharing it too easily with the strangers of the earth. | Edward Gibbon | ||
| 2c0f073 | the most sublime efforts of philosophy can extend no farther than feebly to point out the desire, the hope, or, at most, the probability, of a future state, there is nothing, except a divine revelation, that can ascertain the existence, and describe the condition of the invisible country which is destined to receive the souls of men after their separation from the body. | eternal-life faith religion | Edward Gibbon | |
| 044eea6 | during the long period which elapsed between the Egyptian and the Babylonian servitudes, the hopes as well as fears of the Jews appear to have been confined within the narrow compass of the present life. | judaism | Edward Gibbon | |
| 4df60cb | The union of their shared lives could be a masterpiece, even if the colors of one piece clashed with another, even if uneven stitches showed, even if, from time to time, they had to pick out seams, realign the pieces, and sew them back together again. It would not be perfect, but it could be beautiful, if they worked together and persevered. | marriage | Jennifer Chiaverini | |
| 180ddc9 | Zola smills, smuggles, what is that word? What is it, that word for the happy teeth?? | Sharon Creech | ||
| 80c73c1 | My father once said I was as gullible as a fish. I thought he said edible. I thought he meant I was tasty. The | Sharon Creech | ||
| fbfb99c | I wish that every baby everywhere could land in a family that wanted that baby as much as we want ours. | Sharon Creech | ||
| dc10f1c | Your name makes a statement about you. It describes not only who you are but who you might be. | Sharon Creech | ||
| d260530 | And when she goes home,' Uncle Max said, 'to the place and the people she has romanticized all these months, she'll see that it isn't all she imagined. She'll be different, but they'll all expect her to be the same. | Sharon Creech | ||
| a703340 | It seems to me that we can't explain all the truly awful things in the world like war and murder and brain tumors, and we can't fix these things, so we look at the frightening things that are closer to us and we magnify them until they burst open. Inside is something that we can manage, something that isn't as awful as it had at first seemed. It is a relief to discover that although there might be axe murderers and kidnappers in the world, .. | Sharon Creech | ||
| 381ac0c | I'm beginning to think that if you're going to have a role model you should probably pick someone who's already dead so they can't disappoint you. | young-adult-fiction | Dyan Sheldon | |
| 022e9d8 | Fuck you. I countered, demonstrating my keen skill at argument. | Julie Kenner | ||
| 82ffaa9 | It was darker in the tower than any place Devnee had ever been. The dark had textures, some velvet, some satin. The dark shifted positions. The dark continued to breathe. The breath of the tower lifted her clothing like the flaps of a tent, and sounded in her ears like falling snow. It's the wind coming through the double shutters, Devnee told herself. But how could the wind come through? There were glass windows between the inside and outs.. | glass scary shutters tower vampire windows | Caroline B. Cooney | |
| 962d546 | Who was Florinda, and why did she faint so often that she needed a special couch on which to do it? | Caroline B. Cooney | ||
| 6d86e1c | I guess you've grown up anyway, Janie. Even with all the bricks I put on your head to keep you little. | Caroline B. Cooney |