J.A. Ironside > Quotes

“You know why I really hated you? With all that you had you were just so oblivious to it all. You didn't use your beauty. You didn't ever try to get what you wanted. You didn't deserve what you had. I did because I would have used it. And you just...loved me. Loved me no matter what I did. You have no idea how I despised you for that. I wanted you gone."

'The Yielding”
― J.A. Ironside, A Chimerical World: Tales of the Unseelie Court

“Every time I had things straight in my head about
him, I saw him smile or crook an eyebrow, and all my sensible reasons on why I couldn’t have feelings for him seemed redundant.”
― J.A. Ironside, I Belong to the Earth

“She was everywhere. She was screaming in her tortured body. She was watching from cameras in every room. She was the false weather system and the storage devices. She was the gate keeper, throwing six shirts over her swan-brothers necks...opening six doors for her brothers to step through as young men, though their bodies were long gone, used up by the organ banks of the upper castes.

A Lamentation of Swans”
― J.A. Ironside, A Seeming Glass: a Collection of Reflected Tales

“Tangled onto the shuttle, we were being woven back and forth to create the same tapestry of despair and heartbreak and loss. It was so much
bigger than I could see before, and all I had done was stand at the centre of the web and feed it my anger and frustration and jealousy.”
― J.A. Ironside, I Belong to the Earth

“Oh r-really? Do t-tell?” I quirked an eyebrow back at him.

“Well, usually it’s best to take your shoes and socks off before you step in the stream, better balance on an uneven surface. Also, you avoid that unpleasant squelchy feeling when you wear the shoes againlater.” He paused, smirking. “Also, if
I was going to paddle barefoot “I was going to paddle barefoot upstream in Yorkshire, I’d wait until at least May before I tried it. But you go ahead, love. You’re clearly a Spartan lass.”
― J.A. Ironside, I Belong to the Earth

“Maybe because I knew Haze and Kate so well by then the passage leapt out at me, clear and sharp as diamond.

“My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath…He’s always,
always in my mind: not as a pleasure any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being.”

A love that was terrifying in its depth, but all the more enticing because of that. I thought I understood. Love could be just as destructive as hate if it became poisoned or twisted.”
― J.A. Ironside, I Belong to the Earth

“Dad looked more sheepish than I had ever seen him look in his life. It made him appear younger.

“A scent. Your mother’s shampoo.”
― J.A. Ironside, I Belong to the Earth

“Oh r-really? Do t-tell?” I quirked an eyebrow back at him.

“Well, usually it’s best to take your shoes and socks off before you step in the stream, better balance on an uneven surface. Also, you avoid that unpleasant squelchy feeling when you wear the shoes again later.” He paused, smirking. “Also, if
I was going to paddle barefoot upstream in Yorkshire, I’d wait until at least May before I tried it. But you go ahead, love. You’re clearly a Spartan lass.”
― J.A. Ironside, I Belong to the Earth

“This is m-me.” I indicated the lonely track.

“Really? What’s up there?” He peered over my shoulder in genuine curiosity. “Is there a house up there? You’re not a sylph or something that really does live wild, are you?”
― J.A. Ironside, I Belong to the Earth

“Hey now, wait a second. When will I see you again? You can’t leave a poor lad dangling like that!”

His look of bewilderment made me bite my lip to keep from laughing.

“Why would you w-want to?” The words were out before I could stop them. A rare occurrence for me. And now I seemed pathetically needy. Very attractive.

“Because I love a pair of pretty green eyes.” He grinned.”
― J.A. Ironside

“How did you get so scratched up then, Emlynn?” He looked at me uncertainly again.

I felt wildly like laughing. Too many swooping highs and plummeting lows. What a weird few
days. Weird being a massive understatement.

“Cr-Crawling through gorse bushes.” I took a perverse delight in answering his questions in a way that told him nothing at all. I’d never paid much attention to boys before. Maybe Grace was onto something after all.

“Crawling through gorse,” he repeated. “Part of your action-girl antics, no doubt?”

“N-no doubt.” I smirked again.”
― J.A. Ironside, I Belong to the Earth

“No one knows who made the swans, did you know that?" Massimo said this looking out over the water.
Niamh felt er heart rate pick up.
"Beautiful, aren't they? I wonder who did make them and why. They must have seen real swans to capture them so well don't you think?" He paused to look at Niamh as he always did. As though he still expected her to answer. Niamh raked on.
"I suppose there aren't any swans left at all now," Massimo mused.
No, all gone now. Gone like the lake. Gone like the farm. Gone like my brothers. Grief tore at Niamh.

'A Lamentation of Swans”
― J.A. Ironside, A Seeming Glass: a Collection of Reflected Tales

“Do the gods reckon up the good we do by accident, when they calculate the value of our days? My motives were selfish. Nearly always are. How much of the good I have done in my life has been done in just such a way? I fancy the gods must take this into their accounting. They have a liking for cunning.

'Traveller”
― J.A. Ironside, A Seeming Glass: a Collection of Reflected Tales

“My love, a person is better judged by how they treat their inferiors than their betters. That is the true measure of a man, or a woman. Think you that you are so far above Lata?"

"If I am to be your wife then I shall be far above her and she had better do as she is told if she wants to stay employed here!"

"I've ruined you. My poor little mango seller." Nadir let go of my wrist and stepped away, his face hardening. "You shall not be my wife if you cannot treat people with the respect they not only deserve, but earn every day by working so hard for it!"

'Mangoes”
― J.A. Ironside, Reading is Magic

“Oh r-really? Do t-tell?” I quirked an eyebrow back at him.



“Well, usually it’s best to take your shoes and socks off before you step in the stream, better balance on an uneven surface. Also, you avoid that unpleasant squelchy feeling when you wear the shoes again later.” He paused, smirking. “Also, if
I was going to paddle barefoot upstream in Yorkshire, I’d wait until at least May before I tried it. But you go ahead, love. You’re clearly a Spartan lass.”
― J.A. Ironside, I Belong to the Earth