Akiko Robaina > Akiko's Quotes

“This stated, “Dear Mr. Prime Minister, I am delighted by the decision of your government to provide an infantry battalion for service in South Vietnam at the request of the Government of South Vietnam” The simple fact about this was that no such request was ever received by the Australian Government.”
― Michael G. Kramer, A Gracious Enemy

“Tobacco and coffee,” Kristy said. “Man. They smell so
good before. Un-lit. Un-brewed. You know?”
― J.K. Franko, Eye for Eye

“My Lady, one of the rumours in the inns gives the wizard a name. Adun, a disinherited Aramin child from an ancient myth, supposedly arisen after hundreds of years from his grave in the Doran Mountains. It stuck me as a strange coincidence that the child’s name was so like the name of the Captain of the Swan.”
Robert Reid – The Son”
― Robert Reid, The Son

“Ancient Chinese believe that when you dream, your soul leaves your body and travels to dream world. In dream world, there is no time. No past, no present, no future. When you remember dreams, it is very important to interpret those dreams because dreams you remember are very important to your future.”
― Steven Decker, Projector for Sale

“The sunset bled into the edges of the village. Smoke curled out of the cottage chimney like a crooked finger.”
― Sara Pascoe, Being a Witch, and Other Things I Didn't Ask For

“I reached and grabbed ahold of the garden rake that was leaned up against the tree, when suddenly I felt my heart begin to race and I began to feel dizzy as my visual field became black. That is the last thing I recall before awakening to find myself lying on the ground in the front yard, with the handle of the rake resting on my chest.”
― DEAN MAFAKO, M.D., Burned Out

“Unconditional Love conquers all!”
― Aimee Cabo Nikolov, Love is the Answer God is the Cure

“Charlie said your friend’s disappeared,” chirped Wendy.
“No, he hasn’t.” Adam denied it. “He’s in the house. Now, look, what’s all this you’ve been telling them?”
“Nothing, I haven’t told them anything.” Charlie looked drunk.
“He said you’ve turned your friend into a crayfish,” insisted Wendy.
“He’s always making little jokes like that, and you fell for it. How am I supposed to do that, for heaven’s sake?” Adam was angry.
“With your little book you found. What’s that under your arm?”
― Max Nowaz, Get Rich or Get Lucky

“It seems there is always a road with bends and forks to choose, and taking one path means you can never take another one. There's no starting over nor undoing the steps I've taken. It isn't like I'd want to not have my little ones and Jack and that ranch, it is part of life to have to support yourself. It's just that I want everything, my insides are not just hungry, but greedy. I want to find out all the things in the world and still have a family and a ranch. Maybe part of passing that test was a marker for where I've been, but it feels more like a pointer for something I'll never reach. (November 29, 1887 entry, pg 309)”
― Nancy E. Turner, These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901, Arizona Territories

“The American really loves nothing but his automobile: not his wife his child nor his country nor even his bank-account first (in fact he doesn't really love that bank-account nearly as much as foreigners like to think because he will spend almost any or all of it for almost anything provided it is valueless enough) but his motor-car. Because the automobile has become our national sex symbol. We cannot really enjoy anything unless we can go up an alley for it. Yet our whole background and raising and training forbids the sub rosa and surreptitious. So we have to divorce our wife today in order to remove from our mistress the odium of mistress in order to divorce our wife tomorrow in order to remove from our mistress and so on. As a result of which the American woman has become cold and and undersexed; she has projected her libido on to the automobile not only because its glitter and gadgets and mobility pander to her vanity and incapacity (because of the dress decreed upon her by the national retailers association) to walk but because it will not maul her and tousle her, get her all sweaty and disarranged. So in order to capture and master anything at all of her anymore the American man has got to make that car his own. Which is why let him live in a rented rathole though he must he will not only own one but renew it each year in pristine virginity, lending it to no one, letting no other hand ever know the last secret forever chaste forever wanton intimacy of its pedals and levers, having nowhere to go in it himself and even if he did he would not go where scratch or blemish might deface it, spending all Sunday morning washing and polishing and waxing it because in doing that he is caressing the body of the woman who has long since now denied him her bed.”
― William Faulkner, Intruder in the Dust

“Through its inborn faculty of hearing, poetry seeks the melody of nature amid the noise of the dictionary, then, picking it out like picking out a tune, it gives itself up to improvisation on that theme.”
― Boris Pasternak

“Я не доверяю людям, которые остерегаются пить. Если человек боится напиться, значит, он не доверяет себе («Мальтийский сокол»)”
― Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon

“But imagine there’s this thing that always sits there in the room with you. And everyone knows it’s there and no one will ever say a single goddamn word about it until it becomes like an extra person living in your house that you have to make room for. And if you bring it up, they pretend they don’t know what you’re talking about.”
― Patrick Ness, More Than This