Nick Lake > Quotes

“When you keep hurting someone, you do one of three things. Either you fill them up with hate, and they destroy everything around them. Or you fill them up with sadness, and they destroy themselves. Or you fill them up with justice, and they try to destroy everything that's bad and cruel in this world. Me, I was the first kind of person.”
― Nick Lake, In Darkness

“It's like she had a soul that was much too big for her; it filled her to the brim till there was no more space, so it flowed out through her eyes.”
― Nick Lake, In Darkness

“I'm here to tell you that if you get broken, it's possible to put yourself back together. I'm here to tell you that if you get lost, it's possible that a light will come, dancing, on the horizon, to lead you home.”
― Nick Lake, Hostage Three

“In darkness, I count my blessings like Manman taught me.
One: I am alive.
Two: there is no two.”
― Nick Lake, In Darkness

“He held his head, and he cried for them, and he did not melt into the sea but sat, aching, in the glowing moonlight-for in the end our bodies know only how to carry on surviving.

That is our strength, and our tragedy.”
― Nick Lake

“One could call a master a good master because he did not whip his slaves, but ultimately he was still and owner of men, and men were not made to be owned.”
― Nick Lake, In Darkness

“There are things that, when they break, they keep on functioning, just in some other, lesser way. Like an elevator: it breaks, and it's a room. An escalator: it breaks, and it's stairs

The heart is the same.

It breaks, and you might not even notice, because you still feel things, you still have emotions.

But there's a dimension missing, like for the elevator; it still works as a room, but it has lost its vertical axis of motion, and it's the same with a heart: it breaks, and yeah, you can still have feelings, you can still feel sorry for someone, or angry, or sad, but there's something that's lost, a motion, a dimension. It breaks, and it's just an organ, beating.”
― Nick Lake, There Will Be Lies

“I have learned that some people come into our lives, and then are gone. And that part of the thing, part of life, is to accept that fact, to accept that they're gone. But there's something else too: and that's realizing that a part of them will never be gone. We think of lives as stopping, suddenly. But they don't. They are like waves, like ripples, like echoes that continue to resonate from their point of origin, out into the world...And, of course...I can just remember those voices, and that keeps them with me. Remember their lives. Remember their words...But there are also, of course, people you don't have to just remember, because they're still around. And I guess that's the other thing I have learned. There are people who come into our lives, and then are gone. But there are also people who come into our lives and who we need to hang on to.”
― Nick Lake, Whisper to Me

“What is with people who don't read novels? I mean, what kind of life is that?”
― Nick Lake, There Will Be Lies

“Think of this as the most screwed-up love letter ever.”
― Nick Lake, Whisper to Me

“I know for an absolute honest-to-goodness fact that life can kick you to pieces, break you into a thousand little shards, and that you can get up again and mend yourself. I promise.”
― Nick Lake, Hostage Three

“This is the thing: people think that magic doesn't exist, but it does, all the time. We use spells every day: the spell of forgiveness, the spell of thanks.”
― Nick Lake, Hostage Three

“Every generation that goes into your genes is a generation of fighters, of survivors. And all those millions of lives are in you, in your blood.”
― Nick Lake, There Will Be Lies

“It's so hard, when you fall for someone—the temptation is to look back on the past and rewrite things so they seem more significant. There's a part of me going: Did I know? Did I know the first time we met that you would change everything? That you would change me?”
― Nick Lake, Whisper to Me

“...she took away my yesterdays. But that's OK. Because now I am a person made of tomorrows.”
― Nick Lake, There Will Be Lies

“In point of fact, he was not afraid to die, not anymore. He now understood with a faith that he had never before possessed that he would see those he had lost when he died, that everything would be made whole, that he would talk to Boukman, and his mother and father and sister, again. It was true that there was no need on earth that could not be slaked and satisfied. When you are thirsty there is water. When you are hungry there is food. It is impossible to need a thing without that thing being available for the having. A man may want a green horse that flies, but he canot need one, for there is no such thing.
At this precise moment, Toussaint felt that he needed Boukman, that he could not bear it if he never saw him again, and he knew, because this need existed, that it would be met.”
― Nick Lake, In Darkness

“Hey," you said.
"Hey."
SHAKESPEARE WOULD HAVE BEEN PROUD”
― Nick Lake, Whisper to Me

“nothing in the universe loves like the moon loves the earth.”
― Nick Lake, Satellite

“There are things that, when they break, they keep on functioning, just in some other, lesser way. Like an elevator: it breaks, and it's a room. An escalator: it breaks, and it's stairs

The heart is the same.

It breaks, and you might not even notice, because you still feel things, you still have emotions.”
― Nick Lake, There Will Be Lies

“Because things might be meant to happen.
Because an order might exits, under the chaos.
Because the universe might be playing a tune.”
― Nick Lake, Hostage Three

“i love, like the moon loves the earth”
― Nick Lake, Satellite

“I have always been good at reading, but I have never been good at reading between the lines.”
― Nick Lake, Whisper to Me

“i wonder what it's like. it's impossible to imagine. when u have only known the absence of a thing, how do u construct its feeling in ur mind?”
― Nick Lake, Satellite

“It feels weird, thinking about you, before I knew you existed. I wonder what you were doing. I think I like picturing you standing in the wings. A hero, listening for his line, his cue to enter.”
― Nick Lake, Whisper to Me

“Hi," I said, IN SCINTILLATING DIALOGUE REMINISCENT OF THE CLASSIC MOVIE CASABLANCA.”
― Nick Lake, Whisper to Me

“Reading is awesome. Just escaping into someone else's life, into another world. In books, everything is possible.”
― Nick Lake, There Will Be Lies

“Behind the mountain is another mountain; behind the fire is another fire.”
― Nick Lake, In Darkness

“I have a tingly feeling that I get when there are books all around me. The library! I know it's geeky, but I love it. Just sitting between the shelves of books, reading - it's the safest feeling.”
― Nick Lake, There Will Be Lies

“I mean, she was just cool, you know? And she didn't even mean to be. She was just a hundred-watt lightbulb in a world of forty-watt bulbs. She shone.”
― Nick Lake, Whisper to Me

“Um, well, then. I guess, bye," you said.
"Um, yeah, bye"
OUR ROMANCE, STILL SCRIPTED BY SHAKESPEAR.”
― Nick Lake, Whisper to Me