Marceline Spanswick > Marceline's Quotes

“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

“   ‘I knew it, I knew it, I damn well knew it,’ he shouted. ‘The President was right you’re all infected with this wretched MeMe chromosome even at the dawn of your pathetic little planet’s evolution. You do realise of course there’s no hope for you. It’s all going to be a complete and utter waste of time. You and your little planet are all doomed.”
― A.R. Merrydew, Our Blue Orange

“After experiencing a past life as a Native American, I remembered what the Indians believed.”
― John-Paul Cernak, The Odyssey of a Hippie Marijuana Grower

“Trust me Dani. You don’t want’a miss this. I’m not exaggeratin’ when I say the journey of a lifetime, of a hundred lifetimes, is just below us!”
― Steven Decker, Time Chain

“At one point, approximately halfway through her remarks, Merkel stated in German something about ‘being able to greet the president of the United States of America, Barack Obama,’ and an overly ambitious Obama, who perhaps thought that was his cue, headed toward the podium.  Perhaps catching the president’s movement out of the corner of her eye, Merkel thought quickly, and without even looking up from her notes, she told the excited American president, in English, ‘Not yet, dear Mr. President, dear Barack Obama.’ Obama sheepishly returned to his seat to allow the chancellor to finish her speech.”
― Claudia Clark, Dear Barack: The Extraordinary Partnership of Barack Obama and Angela Merkel

“Before machine learning, multivariate regression provided an efficient way to condition on multiple things, without the need to calculate dozens, hundreds, or thousands of conditional averages. Regression takes the data and tries to find the result that minimizes prediction mistakes, maximizing what is called “goodness of fit.”
― Ajay Agrawal, Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence

“The CID official said to the Russians, “I didn’t know contractors worked on weekends. Why are you two here today?”
― Karl Braungart, Counter Identity

“«Me gustaría saber», se dijo, «qué pasa realmente en un libro cuando está cerrado. Naturalmente, dentro hay sólo letras impresas sobre el papel, pero sin embargo… Algo debe de pasar, porque cuando lo abro aparece de pronto una historia entera. Dentro hay personas que no conozco todavía, y todas las aventuras, hazañas y peleas posibles… y a veces se producen tormentas en el mar o se llega a países o ciudades exóticos. Todo eso está en el libro de algún modo. Para vivirlo hay que leerlo, eso está claro. Pero está dentro ya antes. Me gustaría saber de qué modo».”
― Michael Ende, La historia interminable

“An awful realization that I have been fooling myself all my life thinking there was a next thing to do to keep the show going and actually I'm just a sick clown and so is everybody else...”
― Jack Kerouac, Big Sur

“Because music, like color, or a cloud, is neither intelligent nor unintelligent - it just is. The chord, the simplest building block for even the tritest, silliest chart song, is a beautiful, perfect, mysterious thing, and when an ill-read, uneducated, uncultured, emotionally illiterate boor puts a couple of them together, he has every chance of creating something wonderful and powerful. All I ask of music is that is sounds good.”
― Nick Hornby, Songbook

“It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institution and merely lukewarm defenders in those who gain by the new ones. ”
― Niccolò Machiavelli

“Dignity is as essential to human life as water, food, and oxygen. The stubborn retention of it, even in the face of extreme physical hardship, can hold a man's soul in his body long past the point at which the body should have surrendered it. The loss of it can carry a man off as surely as thirst, hunger, exposure, and asphyxiation and with greater cruelty.”
― Laura Hillenbrand

“Every true artist is the salvation of every other. Only artists produce for each other a world that is fit to live in.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Women in Love

“There are things, also, that are memories as essential and structural as bones in toes and fingers.”
― A.S. Byatt, The Children's Book

“The choices we’re working with here are a block universe, where past, present and future all coexist simultaneously and everything has already happened; chaos, where anything can happen and nothing can be predicted because we can’t know all the variables; and a Christian universe in which God made everything and it’s all here for a purpose but we have free will anyway.”
― Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife

“Une grosse vieille dame à côté de moi se retenait à la courroie et sa robe sans manches laissait voir un incroyable nid d'oiseau sous son bras. C'est la chose la plus nauséabonde que j'aie jamais vue. J'espère que Tim ne l'a pas vue, il en serait devenu pédéraste.”
― Beatrice Sparks, Go Ask Alice

“His noise is getting quieter, but I can still see it there still-
See how he feels the skin of my hand against his, see how he wants to take it and press it against his mouth, how he wants to breathe in the smell of me and how beautiful I look to him, how strong after all that illness, and how he wants to just lightly touch my neck, just there, and how he wants to take me in his arms and-
"Oh, God," he says, looking away suddenly. "Viola, I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"
But I just put my hand to the back of his neck-
And he says, "Viola-?"
And I pull myself towards him-
And I kiss him.
And it feels like, finally.”
― Patrick Ness, Monsters of Men

“Mama said that there was not going to be a bank robbery—the Lord wouldn’t allow it. Frank didn’t see why not, and Papa seemed to agree with him—he said, “Well, he’s allowed plenty of ’em.” Mama said that sometimes Satan got away with things and sometimes he didn’t,”
― Jane Smiley, Some Luck

“He was shy in her presence the next morning, his brittle spirit quenched enough not to shatter. The children did not see the ghost she saw, only his longed-for presence.”
― Leslie K. Simmons, Red Clay, Running Waters

“Show him that it’s not a weakness to love.”
― Becky Wilde, Bratva Connection: Maxim

“The joey, large-eyed and gangly in the way of almost all young animals, frisked about. He – she – it (Saskia couldn’t tell what sex) batted its front paws at its mother – who straightened from her feeding with a look of resigned patience to fend off the tiny fists before reaching out and enfolding the youngster in her arms. The joey melted into her embrace, touching its nose against her mouth. Saskia took several photos, letting out a small “oooh!” at the cuteness of the interaction. The youngster hopped away and leapt into the air with twists that could be for no other reason than the joy of doing them. Suddenly, it returned to the doe and, once again, interrupted her grazing by thrusting its head into her pouch.”
― Miriam Verbeek, The Forest: A thrilling international crime novel

“When those we care about are weakest, that’s when we must be strong for them.”
― A.G. Russo, The Cases Nobody Wanted

“Like water around rocks, people streamed around them as though this sort of interaction, noisy and involving foreigners, was nothing unusual.”
― Sara Pascoe, Being a Witch, and Other Things I Didn't Ask For

“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

“The spring breeze felt like the warm breath of a child on Kumiko’s face. It played delicately with her hair like tiny fingers, and made the trees whisper a breathless song.”
― John Rachel, Love Connection: Romance in the Land of the Rising Sun

“Nearing the Riefler's big red brick house he could see the yellow light spill out on the galerie Yvonne had insisted her German husband wrap around the house.  There was a tightening in Victor's chest.  It happened to him whenever he got close to the Riefler's house, or church on Sunday- anytime he thought he might catch a glimpse of Celena.”
― Barbara Sontheimer, Victor's Blessing

“The hair on the back of her neck was tingling, and she felt like someone was watching her. She knew she was alone as the locker room was silent.”
― Hope Worthington, Shifting Moon: Shifting Moon Saga, Book 1

“Kada sam ga upitao kada ću umrijeti, on je odgovorio da ću vjerojatno biti prilično zdrav sljedećih tri do šest mjeseci. To me podsjetilo na moje posjete Disneylandu. Kada biste njihove zaposlenike upitali kada se park zatvara oni bi obično odgovorili da je park otvoren do osam navečer.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“Several minutes passed. Several more. Nothing but silence and darkness.
"I think they're gone," Brenda whispered. She flicked on her torch.
"Hello, noses!" a hideous voice yelled from the room.
Then a bloody hand reached through the doorway and grabbed Thomas by the shirt.”
― James Dashner, The Scorch Trials

“If the maladministration of the democracy ever brings about a revolutionary crisis, and if monarchical institutions ever become practicable in the United States, the truth of what I advance will become obvious.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America