E.E. Holmes > Quotes

“My brain didn't seem to want to conform itself to the task at hand and kept wandering to stupid things like a compulsion to line up all the blue M&Ms or count how many times the word "to" appeared in the "To be or not to be" speech (fifteen, as it turns out).”
― E.E. Holmes, Spirit Legacy

“Hope isn’t a crime, Finn. It might not be practical or logical, but it isn’t a crime. And sometimes people need it to keep moving forward.”
― E.E. Holmes, Awakening of the Seer

“That was one thing I learned about grief; the world doesn’t stop even though it feels like it should.”
― E.E. Holmes, Spirit Legacy

“That liminal space of twilight seemed, to me, the right time to hold a funeral. There was something wrong about standing around a coffin at ten o’clock in the morning, and then having to just… continue with your day. Eat lunch. Run errands. Twilight felt more fitting somehow—saying goodbye as the day says goodbye, and letting the stars rise over a quiet night of reflection. If you simply wanted to tumble into bed and cry yourself to sleep, you could; and no one would expect you to make conversation or politely pick at a plate of buffet pasta.”
― E.E. Holmes, Daughters of Sea and Storm

“Living was a sad and empty thing”
― E.E. Holmes, Spirit Ascendancy

“Someone as annoying as Milo had no right to be dead.”
― E.E. Holmes, Spirit Prophecy

“I hope that you will all choose the role of the inventive and active learner, rather than that of the reluctant idler.”
― E.E. Holmes, Spirit Legacy

“What was it like, I wondered, to have a brain that worked like that—organizing and dealing appropriately with feelings instead of alternately ignoring and drowning in them?”
― E.E. Holmes, Heart of the Rebellion

“that’s how Sedgwick Cove has always treated funerals—a celebration of someone’s life rather than a marking of the end of it.”
― E.E. Holmes, Daughters of Sea and Storm

“We don’t believe in somber or sullen send-offs. Our spirits burn bright, and so do our goodbyes.”
― E.E. Holmes, Daughters of Sea and Storm

“It represents a whole year of my life filled with nothing but days like that. We all have them. It’s called being human—and it’s allowed, you know.”
― E.E. Holmes, Whispers of the Walker

“I think that it’s important to admit when we think or feel something we aren’t proud of. I think it’s important to examine it.”
― E.E. Holmes, Soul of the Sentinel

“The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
’Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The thronèd monarch better than his crown.
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptered sway.
It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute to God Himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice.” —William Shakespeare “The Merchant of Venice”
― E.E. Holmes, Whispers of the Walker

“is natural to fear, and therefore demonize, what we cannot understand;”
― E.E. Holmes, Spirit Prophecy

“There was hardly a movement I made that didn’t ache somewhere, and my head still felt strange, like someone had removed half my brain and replaced it with cotton balls.”
― E.E. Holmes, City of the Forgotten

“unkindness of ravens”
― E.E. Holmes, Spirit Ascendancy

“Words have immense power. No learned person would ever dare deny this. Words can evoke the most powerful emotional reactions or calm them into submission. They can incite the world to action or bind it together in common empathy. All of this can be accomplished by the right combination of words.”
― E.E. Holmes, Spirit Prophecy

“She was already married, and she would keep the secret talisman of the private moment in her heart all day, an anathema to the stress and bustle and meaningless motions of the day.”
― E.E. Holmes, Betrayal of the Sisterhood

“people’s transgressions so that no one will call attention to their own.”
― E.E. Holmes, Spirit Prophecy

“I will have my share of bad fortune as High Priestess, but I will not lie down and wait for it to befall me. I will embrace it. I will tame it. I will bend it to my will. Misfortune and I will look each other in the eye, and we will know each holds power in her own way.”
― E.E. Holmes, Spirit Ascendancy

“The memories we experience during a Crossing are the spirits letting go of whatever it was—pain, beauty, longing—that tethered them to their humanity, to this world.”
― E.E. Holmes, Spirit Ascendancy

“At least you know,” Jasper said. “At least you have the answer to the question.” “And never mind that it’s the worst possible answer?” Eli asked. “When you have an answer you can stare it in the face, Eli. You can deal with it. You can make your peace with it or you can rage against it. But without it…” He gave a sad shrug, and Eli understood. For someone like Jasper, the not knowing would always be worse.”
― E.E. Holmes, The Girl at the Heart of the Storm

“She told them, ‘I will have my share of bad fortune as High Priestess, but I will not lie down and wait for it to befall me. I will embrace it. I will tame it. I will bend it to my will. Misfortune and I will look each other in the eye, and we will know each holds power in her own way.”
― E.E. Holmes, Spirit Ascendancy

“Thinking too much is how we talk ourselves out of stuff.”
― E.E. Holmes, Daughters of Sea and Storm

“I had a fleeting urge to reach back in time, snatch up every one of those princess stories, and rip them to shreds. We had to rescue ourselves or not at all, and it would be a fight all the way. Those stories were nothing but lies to keep us helpless.”
― E.E. Holmes, Daughters of Sea and Storm

“dissent”
― E.E. Holmes, The World of The Gateway (The Gateway Trackers Books 4-6)

“but I will not lie down and wait for it to befall me. I will embrace it. I will tame it. I will bend it to my will. Misfortune and I will look each other in the eye, and we will know each holds power in her”
― E.E. Holmes, Spirit Ascendancy

“History has been written and interpreted almost exclusively by men. Every apostle, every great prophet and soothsayer and philosopher, from the dawn of recorded time and almost without exception, are all men. It is staggering and unjust, but there it is. Very few women have ever been accorded a place of real importance in religion. At best, we are the helpers and the nurturers. At worst, we are the temptresses and the root of sin. Is it so very hard to believe, then, that we should be excluded from the annals of spirituality for this most important role?”
― E.E. Holmes, Spirit Prophecy

“Over time, secrets had become weapons, and compliments had become barbed. Conversations had developed so many layers that it was nearly impossible to know what one was really talking about. Invitations were extended or denied with all the deliberate tactical strategy as the moves in a game of chess. And while it could sometimes be intriguing, or tantalizing, mostly it was just exhausting”
― E.E. Holmes, What the Lady's Maid Knew

“My experience with the world has taught me that it is a random chaos of intersecting paths over which we have no control. Today’s prophecy might just be tomorrow’s scrap paper. It all depends how all of those paths cross with each other. You follow?”
― E.E. Holmes, Awakening of the Seer