Maria Vale > Quotes

“I'm an exile. A disappointment. An Alpha without a Pack. A leader no one wants to follow. A flashy vessel hiding something unspeakable sacred and undeniably fragile. I am a monster; neither one thing, nor the other, belonging nowhere.”
― Maria Vale, A Wolf Apart

“Humans think that what is seen is all that is. That what is spoken is all that is said. But wolves know that life happens in the crowded spaces between what is seen and what is spoken.”
― Maria Vale, Season of the Wolf

“Still kind of a crappy wolf.”
― Maria Vale, The Last Wolf

“Molly steeled herself. She knew what he was seeing: her somewhat lopsided breasts, the stretch marks at her hips, the hair she tidied up with a razor in the shower when she thought of it and not often, the swelling at her ankles that had become semipermanent now that she spent most of her day on her feet.

He saw all of it and loved it all. And when the shadows disappeared, he wore nothing but the look of a man who knows firsthand what a miracle is.”
― Maria Vale, Molly Molloy and the Angel of Death

“This is what happened, he thought, when you disobey Admonishments. You felt spicy and shaky and cold and heavy and angry and sad. He didn't like it. He wanted to go back before, before he even felt Curiosity, the disastrous first feeling, and Shame, the second feeling, that put a leash on it.”
― Maria Vale, Molly Molloy and the Angel of Death

“Wolves who drink smell like Baileys and kibble.”
― Maria Vale, The Last Wolf

“I guess I figured that one chance at living was better than a lifetime of being alive.”
― Maria Vale, The Last Wolf

“Samaras don’t look like much—a bit of paper and a tiny seed. Inside each one, though, is the possibility of a maple tree but to become more than a possibility, they need to escape the shadows cast by bigger trees.”
With a click, she turns on the windshield wipers.
“I don’t believe you would ever willingly return to the shadows.”
― Maria Vale, Wolf in the Shadows

“Why do you do that? Rub his hand?"

"Because in the beginning when we understand nothing else, there's touch. And at the end, when we understand nothing else, there's touch.”
― Maria Vale, Molly Molloy and the Angel of Death

“Death does lurk in the dark, and I am it.”
― Maria Vale, The Last Wolf

“People who don’t know think situational awareness means being aware of everything, which is just bullshit. It’s a total focus on things that matter—cover points, ambush positions, escape routes, weapons of opportunity, the stress tolerance of men—and a complete filtering out of things that don’t.”
― Maria Vale, Season of the Wolf

“Framweard, which is Old Tongue for someone going back where they came from. Someone doomed to die.”
― Maria Vale, The Last Wolf

“Maybe I don’t know the names of any of the flowers of Vrangelya, but I know every one here. I know that soon the ground will be covered with white-and- yellow
bloodroot. Tiny explosive trout lily. Mounds
of green-framed white trillium. Rue anemone in the palest pink. All blooming in the short frame between the thawing of the ground and the leaf-out that will block the sun.
It’s what happens in spring when all of Homelands calls out:
Look at me.
Listen to me.
Love me.
Make life with me.”
― Maria Vale, Forever Wolf

“He tells me about human weddings, held inside or outside if the weather is mild. The couple wear clothes that are painfully uncomfortable and make their friends do the same. An officiant says a few words that neither party has really thought through—sickness and health, richer and poorer, better and worse—or at least don’t believe will be put to the test. Family and friends toast the couple, eat a little, drink too much, give vases, dance badly, and then run for the exits.”
― Maria Vale, The Last Wolf

“When we are in skin, we are anfeald. Single fold: one and singular. Alone. But when we are wild, we exist beyond the limitations of our poor bodies and weak senses. We are ourselves, but we are also part of the land and the Pack. We are manigfeald, manifold and complex.”
― Maria Vale, The Last Wolf

“What a crappy wolf.”
― Maria Vale, The Last Wolf

“Because in the beginning when we understand nothing else, there’s touch. And at the end, when we understand nothing else, there’s touch.”
― Maria Vale, Molly Molloy and the Angel of Death

“Why do you do that? Rub his hand?” “Because in the beginning when we understand nothing else, there’s touch. And at the end, when we understand nothing else, there’s touch.”
― Maria Vale, Molly Molloy and the Angel of Death

“It’s so easy, he thought, for the all-powerful to be generous, so easy that it is meaningless. Here, with Molly who had so little but shared her time and her self anyway, Death knew that he was closer to divinity than he had ever been.”
― Maria Vale, Molly Molloy and the Angel of Death