Joanna > Joanna's Quotes

“Rosencrantz: We might as well be dead. Do you think death could possibly be a boat?
Guildenstern: No, no, no... Death is...not. Death isn't. You take my meaning. Death is the ultimate negative. Not-being. You can't not-be on a boat.
Rosencrantz: I've frequently not been on boats.
Guildenstern: No, no, no--what you've been is not on boats.”
― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

“Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven

“A profound love between two people involves, after all, the power and chance of doing profound hurt.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness

“London was voracious, was growing fat on its spoils and still, somehow, starved. London was both unimaginably rich and wretchedly poor. London - lovely, ugly, sprawling, cramped, belching, sniffing, virtuous, hypocritical, silver-gilded London - was near to a reckoning, for the day would come when it either devoured itself from the inside or cast outwards for new delicacies, labour, capital, and culture on which to feed.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“I am no longer scared of being a woman — it doesn’t make me any less a man. I am both. I am neither. I am only myself.”
― Jordanna Max Brodsky, The Wolf in the Whale

“Every passage is one of blood, little girl. Birth and death, you are torn apart and re-created.”
― Jordanna Max Brodsky, The Wolf in the Whale

“We're more of the love, blood, and rhetoric school. Well, we can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and we can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and we can do you all three concurrent or consecutive. But we can't give you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory. They're all blood, you see.”
― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

“I've lost all capacity for disbelief. I'm not sure that I could even rise to a little gentle scepticism.”
― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

“Stark raving sane.”
― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

“The bad end unhappily; the good, unluckily. That is what tragedy means.”
― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

“He's never known anything like it! But then, he has never known anything to write home about, so this is nothing to write home about. ”
― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

“Death is the ultimate negative.”
― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

“But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. Such a constellation was he to me.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“He showed me his scars, and in return he let me pretend that I had none.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“I thought once that gods are the opposite of death, but I see now they are more dead than anything, for they are unchanging, and can hold nothing in their hands.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“Honor is dead. But I'll see what I can do.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Words of Radiance

“Why hasn't anyone killed him yet?”
“Dumb luck,” Wit said. “In that I’m lucky you’re all so dumb.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Words of Radiance

“Do not let your assumptions about a culture block your ability to perceive the individual, or you will fail.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Words of Radiance

“The only time you seem honest is when you’re insulting someone!”
“The only honest things I can say to you are insults.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Words of Radiance

“As I fear not a child with a weapon he cannot lift, I will never fear the mind of a man who does not think.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Words of Radiance

“The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

“Life before Death.
Strength before Weakness.
Journey before Destination.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

“I think; therefore, I feel.
I feel; therefore, I need.”
― Dean Koontz, Demon Seed

“Man, I like you. I wish you could like me.”
― Dean Koontz, False Memory

“Sometimes he found it frustrating to be a sadist in an age when self-mutilation was all the rage”
― Dean Koontz, False Memory

“Her many faults were so plain that everyone felt more gracious by comparison. How could they not have seen that cruel pride in themselves?”
― Laline Paull, Pod

“I reached out my hand, England's rivers turned and flowed the other way...
I reached out my hand, my enemies's blood stopt in their veins...
I reached out my hand; thought and memory flew out of my enemies' heads like a flock of starlings;
My enemies crumpled like empty sacks.
I came to them out of mists and rain;
I came to them in dreams at midnight;
I came to them in a flock of ravens that filled a northern sky at dawn;
When they thought themselves safe I came to them in a cry that broke the silence of a winter wood...

The rain made a door for me and I went through it;
The stones made a throne for me and I sat upon it;
Three kingdoms were given to me to be mine forever;
England was given to me to be mine forever.
The nameless slave wore a silver crown;
The nameless slave was a king in a strange country...

The weapons that my enemies raised against me are venerated in Hell as holy relics;
Plans that my enemies made against me are preserved as holy texts;
Blood that I shed upon ancient battlefields is scraped from the stained earth by Hell's sacristans and placed in a vessel of silver and ivory.
I gave magic to England, a valuable inheritance
But Englishmen have despised my gift
Magic shall be written upon the sky by the rain but they shall not be able to read it;
Magic shall be written on the faces of the stony hills but their minds shall not be able to contain it;
In winter the barren trees shall be a black writing but they shall not understand it...

Two magicians shall appear in England...
The first shall fear me; the second shall long to behold me;
The first shall be governed by thieves and murderers; the second shall conspire at his own destruction;
The first shall bury his heart in a dark wood beneath the snow, yet still feel its ache;
The second shall see his dearest posession in his enemy's hand...

The first shall pass his life alone, he shall be his own gaoler;
The second shall tread lonely roads, the storm above his head, seeking a dark tower upon a high hillside...

I sit upon a black throne in the shadows but they shall not see me.
The rain shall make a door for me and I shall pass through it;
The stones shall make a throne for me and I shall sit upon it...

The nameless slave shall wear a silver crown
The nameless slave shall be a king in a strange country...”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell