Ja Keffer > Ja's Quotes

“The guard looked down at the scarlet bloodstains blooming on his chest. He appeared to think of something that he needed to say, but as his lips began to form the words, his knees gave up the strain of supporting his ruined bulk. He collapsed to the floor, his throat issuing a final sound like a bubbling casserole.”
― R.D. Ronald, The Zombie Room

“     ‘The onboard computer just wants to say a few words before we leave.’
     The speakers in the cabin crackled into life. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to welcome you on-board the presidential shuttle for tonight’s illicit flight, Alfa Bravo Charlie. I would just like to say it’s a pleasure to meet you all and thank you so much for coming here tonight to steal me. To be honest I don’t get out much these days so this is something of a special occasion.’
     ‘It will be for us too if we get caught,’ Semilla said sardonically.”
― A.R. Merrydew, Our Blue Orange

“I’m fucking asking you!” The man stood his ground.
From the corner of his eye Adam could see the other man getting up from his chair. It was time to go. Adam head-butted the first man who was blocking his way, and then kneed him in the groin for good measure. As the man doubled up, Adam pushed past him.”
― Max Nowaz, Get Rich or Get Lucky

“She stabbed the earth with her big fork as if she could make Cookie Mac’s blood sprout from it.”
― Susan Rowland, The Alchemy Fire Murder

“There's no such thing as dead languages, only dormant minds.”
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind

“Every loneliness is a pinnacle”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“Stephen felt himself overtaken by a climactic surge of feeling. It frightened him because he thought it would have some physical issue, in spasm or bleeding or death. Then he saw that what he felt was not an assault but a passionate affinity. It was for the rough field running down to the trees and for the path going back into the village where he could see the tower of the church: these and the forgiving distance of the sky were not separate, but part of one creation, and he too, still by any sane judgement a young man, by the repeated tiny pulsing of his blood, was one with them. He looked up and saw the sky as it would be trailed with stars under darkness, the crawling nebulae and smudged lights of infinite distance: these were not different worlds, it seemed now clear to him, but bound through the mind of creation to the shredded white clouds, the unbreathed air of May, to the soil that lay beneath the damp grass at his feet. He held tightly on to the gate and laid his head on his arms, in some residual fear that the force of binding love he felt would sweep him from the earth. He wanted to stretch out his arms and enfold in them the fields, the sky, the elms with their sounding birds; he wanted to hold them with the unending forgiveness of a father to his prodigal, errant but beloved son. Isabelle and the cruel dead of the war; his lost mother, his friend Weir: nothing was immoral or beyond redemption, all could be brought together, understood in the long perspective of forgiveness. As he clung to the wood, he wanted also to be forgiven for all he had done; he longed for the unity of the world's creation to melt his sins and anger, because his soul was joined to it. His body shook with the passion of the love that had found him, from which he had been exiled in the blood and the flesh of long killing.”
― Sebastian Faulks, Birdsong

“Calvin: «Mom says death is as natural as birth, and it's all part of the life cycle.
She says we don't really understand it, but there are many things we don't understand, and we just have to do the best we can with the knowledge we have.
I guess that makes sense.
...But don't you go anywhere.»
Hobbes: «Don't worry.»”
― Bill Watterson, Something Under the Bed is Drooling

“Life is a lot more fragile than we think. So you should treat others in a way that leaves no regrets. Fairly, and if possible, sincerely.”
― Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance Dance

“Isola doesn't approve of small talk and believes in breaking the ice by stomping on it.”
― Mary Ann Shaffer, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

“We are stood on the spot where a vast army of legionnaires were sent through a time portal with this very device,’ Jack said holding out his arm and displaying the XXL strapped safely to his wrist.”
― A.R. Merrydew, The Girl with the Porcelain Lips

“In the rose garden, the flowers are maneuvering toward the winter sunshine and the alluring sound of the koi pond’s waterfall makes you think it has a crush on you. You offer no resistance—you are done (at least temporarily) with the “regular” world.”
― Tom Hillman, Digging for God

“Mycelium?” Joey asked. “What is that?”
 
Water explained, “It is a huge organism made up of very, very small fibres or filaments of fungus. The fungus grows underground, and it connects all the roots of the trees together. Its flower is a mushroom. Do you like to eat mushrooms?”
― Ellen J. Lewinberg, Joey and His Friend Water

“I walked past Malison, up Lower Main to Main and across the road. I didn’t need to look to know he was behind me. I entered Royal Wood, went a short way along a path and waited. It was cool and dim beneath the trees. When Malison entered the Wood, I continued eastward. 
I wanted to place his body in hallowed ground. He was born a Mearan. The least I could do was send him to Loric. The distance between us closed until he was on my heels. He chose to come, I told myself, as if that lessened the crime I planned. He chose what I have to offer.
We were almost to the cemetery before he asked where we were going. I answered with another question. “Do you like living in the High Lord’s kitchens?”
He, of course, replied, “No.”
“Well, we’re going to a better place.”
When we reached the edge of the Wood, I pushed aside a branch to see the Temple of Loric and Calec’s cottage. No smoke was coming from the chimney, and I assumed the old man was yet abed. His pony was grazing in the field of graves. The sun hid behind a bank of clouds.
Malison moved beside me. “It’s a graveyard.”
“Are you afraid of ghosts?” I asked.
“My father’s a ghost,” he whispered.
I asked if he wanted to learn how to throw a knife. He said, “Yes,” as I knew he would.  He untucked his shirt, withdrew the knife he had stolen and gave it to me. It was a thick-bladed, single-edged knife, better suited for dicing celery than slitting a young throat. But it would serve my purpose. That I also knew. I’d spent all night projecting how the morning would unfold and, except for indulging in the tea, it had happened as I had imagined. 
Damut kissed her son farewell. Malison followed me of his own free will. Without fear, he placed the instrument of his death into my hand. We were at the appointed place, at the appointed time. The stolen knife was warm from the heat of his body. I had only to use it. Yet I hesitated, and again prayed for Sythene to show me a different path.
“Aren’t you going to show me?” Malison prompted, as if to echo my prayer.”
― K. Ritz, Sheever's Journal, Diary of a Poison Master

“This isn’t a one-and-done thing for me. So, if you think you’re going to use me to scratch an itch, then you’d better think again.”
― Lotchie Burton, Gabriel's Fire

“The trees, in both Earth and Heaven, exist in the same form.”
― Rebecca Harlem, The Pink Cadillac

“This acute, “a selfdissolving contradiction,” Marx had very precisely seen and foreseen that “it establishes a monopoly in certain spheres and thereby requires state interference.” This contradiction “reproduces a new financial aristocracy” (how much Marx was right!), no matter it will call itself Communist Party of Soviet Union or DuPont Financial Circle. It reproduces “a new variety of parasites . . . , a whole system of swindling and cheating by means of corporation promotion, stock issuance, and stock speculation.”
― Todor Bombov, Socialism Is Dead! Long Live Socialism!: The Marx Code-Socialism with a Human Face

“In the world according to her father, Jenny Garp knew, we must have energy. Her famous grandmother, Jenny Fields, once thought of us as Externals, Vital Organs, Absentees, and Goners. But in the world according to Garp, we are all terminal cases.”
― John Irving, The World According to Garp

“Let me have a look.’ Woland stretched out his hand palm uppermost. ‘Unfortunately I cannot show it to you,’ replied the master, ‘because I burned it in my stove.’ ‘I’m sorry but I don’t believe you,’ said Woland. ‘You can’t have done. Manuscripts don’t burn.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“You're not a Quaker, Jeremy. I happen to know you put beer on your cornflakes.”
― Kyle Keyes, Matching Configurations

“In a sense, the better you adapt to school the less your chances are of later adapting to the actual world. So I figure, the worse you adapt to school, the better you will be able to handle reality when you finally manage to get loose at last from school, if that ever happens. But I guess I have what in the military they call a 'poor attitude,' which means 'shape up or ship out.' I always elected to ship out.”
― Philip K. Dick

“all paradox and enticing mystery, street-tough one moment, then lifted by a lyrical and poetic sensitivity”
― Arthur Miller

“She leaned toward him and said in a quiet voice, "Are you Christian?"
Mitchell hesitated to answer. The worst thing about religion was religious people.”
― Jeffrey Eugenides, The Marriage Plot