Otha Johns > Otha's Quotes

“Embrace her. Embrace her darkness, and when it dawns, you will be stronger.”
― Merlin Franco, Saint Richard Parker

“Listen, you might as well learn now that life’s nothin’ but a dirt sandwich and save yourself a lot of time.”
― A.G. Russo, The Cases Nobody Wanted

“Callan sucked in a breath. As a sniper, he’d been trained by the Marines to know and recognize moments. 

Moments when all the training—his focused mind, muscle memory, weapon knowledge . . . 

When all the preparation—target reconnaissance, angle of attack, position scouting . . . 

When all the setup—hidden amid the terrain, barrel aimed, trajectory known . . . 

When everything came together in one crucial moment—when the sniper squeezed the trigger and took his shot.”
― J. Rose Black, Losing My Breath

“We’re so very sorry about this latest murder. Ignore Simon’s levity.”
― Susan Rowland, Murder on Family Grounds

“Dearie, I’m not going to speak for other people.” Megan manoeuvred her lips into a smile, but her eyes stayed cold. “Now. What else would you like to see me about?”
“Do you think things will go backwards if the Rowlands push for change?”
“It’s not my place to judge that, but I’ll tell you this for nothing. The Rowlands aren’t the only ones with a vested interest in everything around here. They might own it on paper, but folks make their living here, and if the Rowlands threaten that, they’ll get more than they bargained for.”
Something in Megan’s tone caused Saskia to tense. The smile that Megan continued to hold on her lips seemed now an image of threat.”
― Miriam Verbeek, The Forest

“Tightening his embrace around his wife and little Theo, he vowed, "I will do everything in my power to continue being worthy of the faith you have in me.”
― Therisa Peimer, Taming Flame

“Girls don’t like being called cute or adorable, so I guess we’re even,” Remy said and winked at Logan.”
― Hope Worthington, Shifting Moon: Shifting Moon Saga, Book 1

“Even though it's only a minority of men who are violent or predatory, I don't know if men realise that girls are trained our entire lives to minimise the danger from you - and blamed if we don't.”
― Sara Pascoe

“Is it still a fish cart when there’s no fish in it? When its false bottom is filled with children?”
― Andri E. Elia, Borealis: A Worldmaker of Yand Novel

“It was karma, it was kismet, it was magic. It doesn't matter how it happened, just that it did.”
― Shannon Hale, The Actor and the Housewife

“What have you been doing during my absence?'
'Nothing particular; teaching Adele as usual.'
'And getting a good deal paler than you were - as I saw at first sight. What is the matter?'
'Nothing at all, sir.'
'Did you take any cold that night you half drowned me?'
'Not the least.'
'Return to the drawing-room: you are deserting too early.'
'I am tired, sir.'
He looked at me for a minute.
'And a little depressed,' he said. 'What about? Tell me.'
'Nothing - nothing, sir. I am not depressed.'
'But I affirm that you are: so much depressed that a few more words would bring tears to your eyes - indeed, they are there now, shining and swimming; and a bead has slipped from the lash and fallen on the flag. If I had time, and was not in mortal dread of some prating prig of a servant passing, I would know what all this means. Well, to-night I excuse you; but understand that so long as my visitors stay, I expect you to appear in the drawing-room every evening; it is my wish; don't neglect it. Now go, and send Sophie for Adele. Good-night, my..' He stopped, bit his lip, and abruptly left me.
(Jane and Mr Rochester)”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“So much universe, and so little time.”
― Terry Pratchett

“….So much crueller than any British colony, they say, so much more brutal towards the local Africans, so much more manipulative after begrudgingly granting independence. But the history of British colonialism in Africa, from Sierra Leone to Zimbabwe, Kenya to Botswana and else-where, is not fundamentally different from what Belgium did in the Congo. You can argue about degree, but both systems were predicated on the same assumption: that white outsiders knew best and Africans were to be treated not as partners, but as underlings. What the British did in Kenya to suppress the pro-independence mau-mau uprising in the 1950s, using murder, torture and mass imprisonment, was no more excusable than the mass arrests and political assassinations committed by Belgium when it was trying to cling on to the Congo. And the outside world's tolerance of a dictator in the Congo like Mobutu, whose corruption and venality were overlooked for strategic expedience, was no different from what happened in Zimbabwe, where the dictator Robert Mugabe was allowed to run his country and its people into the ground because Western powers gullibly accepted the way he presented himself as the only leader able to guarantee stability and an end to civil strife. Those sniffy British colonial types might not like to admit it, but the Congo represents the quintessence of the entire continent’s colonial experience. It might be extreme and it might be shocking, but what happened in the Congo is nothing but colonialism in its purest, basest form.”
― Tim Butcher, Blood River: A Journey to Africa’s Broken Heart

“you got him alone tonight--there'll be a beautiful moon to fill him with poetry and loneliness”
― Eugene O'Neill, A Moon for the Misbegotten

“Oh Tigger, where are your manners?"

"I don’t know, but I bet they’re having more fun than I am.”
― A.A. Milne

“Make no mistake: You will be challenged at some point in time. We all are. That’s just life.”
― Vernon Davis, Playing Ball: Life Lessons from My Journey to the Super Bowl and Beyond

“The dream of all peoples—a world without weapons, a world without wars—despite any initiatives, no matter whether they are strategic or not, is only a utopia within the contemporary content of the State. Nowadays, the State is the biggest, the most powerful criminal organization of continuous robbery of social labor. The State is a mafia today, in which the basic principle is the “law” omertá—“who’s not mum, is dead!” Now the State is the final phase of the organized criminality. It is “a conspiracy of the rich” (Thomas More), where because of the judicial astrology, “in every situation, powerful rogues know how to save themselves at the expense of the feeble” (Jean-Jacque Rousseau). Until now, the class society represents a power of one family that divided for itself the state as private property!”
― Todor Bombov, Socialism Is Dead! Long Live Socialism!: The Marx Code-Socialism with a Human Face

“We must go back to the firm discipline and simplicity of the one-room schoolhouse to find a better education for our children.”
― Shafter Bailey, James Ed Hoskins and the One-Room Schoolhouse: The Unprosecuted Crime Against Children

“Afterward, I curl around her. We lie in silence until darkness falls, and then, haltingly, she begins to talk...She speaks without need or even room for response, so I simply hold her and stroke her hair. She talks of the pain, grief, and horror of the past four years; of learning to cope with being the wife of a man so violent and unpredictable his touch made her skin crawl and of thinking, until quite recently, that she'd finally managed to do that. And then, finally, of how my appearance had forced her to realize she hadn't learned to cope at all.”
― Sara Gruen, Water for Elephants

“Well, I shall tell you. My thesis is this, I want you to believe." "To believe what?" "To believe in things that you cannot.”
― Bram Stoker, Dracula

“Following the pattern of other African groups, they explained they were the BaKongo people and called their language KiKongo. Inland, they said, was the capital of their tribe, MbanzaKongo, where there lived a powerful leader or king, the ManiKongo.”
― Tim Butcher, Blood River: The Terrifying Journey through the World's Most Dangerous Country

“They were Englishmen and, to them, the decline of other nations was the most natural thing in the world. They belonged to a race blessed with so sensitive an appreciation of its own talents (and so doubtful an opinion of anybody else's) that they would not have been at all surprised to learn that the Venetians themselves had been entirely ignorant of the merits of their own city - until Englishmen had come to tell them it was delightful.”
― Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

“It is The Way,” he said softly. “Take only what ye need. When ye take the deer, do not take the best. Take the smaller and the slower and then the deer will grow stronger and always give you meat. Pa-koh, the panther, knows and so must ye.” And”
― Forrest Carter, The Education of Little Tree

“Even speech bubbles are too long.”
― Coco Calvoz Cordon, Debbie Wants No Words

“Sitting there on the beach, with the sounds of the gulls and children’s laughter as a backdrop, it all seemed so long ago.”
― Anne Allen, The Ghost of Seagull Cottage: Inspired by The Ghost and Mrs Muir

“Such abilities are the true gifts of the spirit, my daughter.”
― Candace Lynn Talmadge, Stoneslayer: Book One Scandal

“Outside, the sky is as black as my soul.
”
― K. Ritz, Sheever's Journal, Diary of a Poison Master

“Ngo Diem was heard to say, “I want a repressive machine controlling the whole of the country of South Vietnam from Saigon to the remotest villages. You shall apply massacres, torture, deportations, and mass imprisonment while conducting constant raids. You shall make the population so fearful of this government that no-one shall ever dare to become a revolutionary or any other kind of outlaw!”

(A Gracious Enemy & After the War Volume Two)”
― Michael G. Kramer

“Around the outside of the room other beautiful women wearing little or nothing at all flitted between the infatuated, intoxicated men, sometimes luring them away for a private dance. The men would follow obediently, weighed down by lust and credit cards.”
― R.D. Ronald, The Zombie Room

“Along with the pain, an even greater Love and Compassion seemed to gently hold all the suffering of the world in an embrace.
”
― Katherine Parker, Resonance Alchemy: Awakening the Tree of Life