Marion Beigert > Marion's Quotes

“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

“Aurelia, not all those women are uppity aristocratic bitches. Most of them are normal nice girls trying to survive in shark-infested waters, so if you want to make a difference, why not go in there and change the way things work?" "How?" Marcus smiled deviously. "By unseating the queen bee and changing the rules." "That sounds like a great idea, Colonel. Lead me to the beehive.”
― Therisa Peimer, Taming Flame

“But this small episode is as good an illustration as any of the hazards of uttering witticisms. By the very nature of a witticism, one is given very little time to assess its various possible repercussions before one is called to give voice to it, and one gravely risks uttering all manner of unsuitable things if one has not first acquired the necessary skill and experience.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day

“A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.”
― T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land

“nostalgia was nothing more than dissatisfaction with the present. Anything looked better than now, even harder times. It was a fantasy that people accept.”
― V.C. Andrews, Christopher's Diary: Secrets of Foxworth

“Walpurgis Night, when, according to the belief of millions of people, the devil was abroad - when the graves were opened and the dead came forth and walked. When all evil things of earth and air and water held revel. This very place the driver had specially shunned. This was the depopulated village of centuries ago. This was where the suicide lay; and this was the place where I was, alone - unmanned, shivering with cold in a shroud of snow with a wild storm gathering again upon me! It took all my philosophy, all the religion I had been taught, all my courage, not to collapse in a paroxysm of fright.

(Dracula's Guest)”
― Bram Stoker, Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Tales

“Grab some caviar from the kitchen. You wouldn't believe the muck they feed us in Bartleby's for ten thousand a term.”
― Eoin Colfer, The Arctic Incident

“She would defend herself, saying that love, no matter what else it might be, was a natural talent. She would say: You are either born knowing how, or you never know.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

“I haven’t got a clue why his bones disintegrated, but look at the bright side,” laughed Adam. “We won’t have to dispose of the body. I’ll get a pan and brush in a minute and flush him down the toilet.”
― Max Nowaz, The Three Witches and the Master

“The fantasy of living these experiences was one thing, but having the self-confidence to head out into the world and chase them, to take a great leap into the unknown and trust that the world would catch me, was another thing altogether.”
― Jeff Johns, Jet Lag Junkie: Unfiltered Tales of a Compulsive Wanderer

“Consider and then act, don't react. A worthy opponent will calculate his move to entice a response from you. Make your own play.”
― R.D. Ronald, The Elephant Tree

“It was strange to be on her own back in the cottage until Annabel reminded herself she wasn’t technically alone.”
― Anne Allen, The Ghost of Seagull Cottage: Inspired by The Ghost and Mrs Muir

“Snake Street is an area I should avoid. Yet that night I was drawn there as surely as if I had an appointment. 
The Snake House is shabby on the outside to hide the wealth within. Everyone knows of the wealth, but facades, like the park’s wall, must be maintained. A lantern hung from the porch eaves. A sign, written in Utte, read ‘Kinship of the Serpent’. I stared at that sign, at that porch, at the door with its twisted handle, and wondered what the people inside would do if I entered. Would they remember me? Greet me as Kin? Or drive me out and curse me for faking my death?  Worse, would they expect me to redon the life I’ve shed? Staring at that sign, I pissed in the street like the Mearan savage I’ve become.
As I started to leave, I saw a woman sitting in the gutter. Her lamp attracted me. A memsa’s lamp, three tiny flames to signify the Holy Trinity of Faith, Purity, and Knowledge.  The woman wasn’t a memsa. Her young face was bruised and a gash on her throat had bloodied her clothing. Had she not been calmly assessing me, I would have believed the wound to be mortal. I offered her a copper. 
She refused, “I take naught for naught,” and began to remove trinkets from a cloth bag, displaying them for sale.
Her Utte accent had been enough to earn my coin. But to assuage her pride I commented on each of her worthless treasures, fighting the urge to speak Utte. (I spoke Universal with the accent of an upper class Mearan though I wondered if she had seen me wetting the cobblestones like a shameless commoner.) After she had arranged her wares, she looked up at me. “What do you desire, O Noble Born?”
I laughed, certain now that she had seen my act in front of the Snake House and, letting my accent match the coarseness of my dress, I again offered the copper.
 “Nay, Noble One. You must choose.” She lifted a strand of red beads. “These to adorn your lady’s bosom?”
            I shook my head. I wanted her lamp. But to steal the light from this woman ... I couldn’t ask for it. She reached into her bag once more and withdrew a book, leather-bound, the pages gilded on the edges. “Be this worthy of desire, Noble Born?”
 I stood stunned a moment, then touched the crescent stamped into the leather and asked if she’d stolen the book. She denied it. I’ve had the Training; she spoke truth. Yet how could she have come by a book bearing the Royal Seal of the Haesyl Line? I opened it. The pages were blank.
“Take it,” she urged. “Record your deeds for study. Lo, the steps of your life mark the journey of your soul.”
  I told her I couldn’t afford the book, but she smiled as if poverty were a blessing and said, “The price be one copper. Tis a wee price for salvation, Noble One.”
  So I bought this journal. I hide it under my mattress. When I lie awake at night, I feel the journal beneath my back and think of the woman who sold it to me. Damn her. She plagues my soul. I promised to return the next night, but I didn’t. I promised to record my deeds. But I can’t. The price is too high.”
― K. Ritz, Sheever's Journal, Diary of a Poison Master

“Seeing all the kids pick out different books brings a smile to her face.”
― Coco Calvoz Cordon, Debbie Wants No Words

“Nothing is ever going to be perfect,” said Zillah. “Things are not meant to be perfect.”
― Jennifer Mugrage, The Strange Land

“The key to inner freedom, bliss, and self-realization is learning to hear and understand the language of the heart. To do this, we must first listen—an inner listening that is attuned to the whisperings of the heart. The heart’s language is simplicity itself. It has nothing to do with yes or no, good or bad, right or wrong. Its basic vocabulary is, most simply, open or closed. Within this, there are many variations and degrees: ecstasy, love, joy, acceptance, indifference, rejection, hardness, fear. If we listen and pay attention to the joy, the love, and the bliss in our hearts and follow this, it will guide us on our true path. But first we must learn to listen, to tune in to what the heart is whispering.”
― Katherine Parker, Resonance Alchemy: Awakening the Tree of Life

“Even if you are an introvert, you’ll still find many possibilities for meeting others. Everyone is so welcoming, and you will make friends regardless because the town is small!”
― Pilar Calvoz Cordón, Shape Your Path at IE University : What to expect from Spain’s Instituto de Empresa University

“We don’t know, we can only hope and pray”
― Lin Wilder, Plausible Liars: A Dr. Lindsey McCall Medical Mystery 5

“Although enemy forces had overrun the mortar and some gun positions, they did not have everything their own way.”
― Michael G. Kramer, A Gracious Enemy

“Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

“Don't be mysterious; there isn't the time.”
― E.M. Forster, Where Angels Fear to Tread

“You reason well, and your wit is bold, but you are too prejudiced. You do not let your eyes see nor your ears hear, and that which is outside your daily life is not of account to you. Do you not think that there are things which you cannot understand, and yet which are, that some people see things that others cannot?”
― Bram Stoker, Dracula

“Anywhere in the world, East or West, you can walk up to a stranger and say, “let me show you how to be saved.” And you’ll be understood. You may not be believed or welcomed when you speak those words, but you will be understood. The fact that you’ll be understood should astonish you, but it doesn’t, because you’ve been prepared from childhood by a hundred thousand voices-a million voices- to understand those words yourself. You know instantly what it means to be “saved” and it doesn’t matter in the least whether you believe in the salvation referred to. You also know the methods can be used by everyone and works for everyone.

A complex and profound worldview is implicit in salvationist messages. According to this worldview, the human condition is such that everyone is born in an unsaved state and remains unsaved until the requisite ritual or inner action is performed, and all who die in this state either fail to attain eternal happiness with god, or fail to escape the weary cycle of death and rebirth.”
― Daniel Quinn, The Story of B

“لا أفهم أبدًا كيف يستطيع الناس التغاضي بلا مبالاة عن الأذى الذي يتسبّبون به عندما يتبعون قلوبهم.”
― Paula Hawkins, The Girl on the Train

“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him;
The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones,
So let it be with Caesar ... The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answered it ...
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest,
(For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all; all honourable men)
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral ...
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man….
He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?
O judgement! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason…. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me”
― William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar