Celia Padarebones > Celia's Quotes

“The condition of your soul will determine the condition of your life. Because it determines how you think, what you feel, and what you choose to do.”
― Gregory Dickow, Soul Cure: How to Heal Your Pain and Discover Your Purpose

“Where did you see him?” Heidi asked.
“At the grocery store,” Mildred replied. “He was picking out a cantaloupe. Of course, I had to give him some tips. He was about to pick one that wasn’t anywhere near ripe.” The women tossed each other knowing looks.”
― Kirsten Fullmer, Problems at the Pub

“Again, the exercise begins. For me, the American in me, the city of Detroit comes to mind. A house, once within the bustling city, now lies on the outskirts. Industry has come and gone, and the car manufacturers have relocated. I recall images of the rough lifestyles south of 8 Mile. The city’s borders have changed. Post-apocalyptic, long grasses sway with the wind. The house is melancholy and lonely. The owners: maybe there, maybe not.”
― Colin Phelan, The Local School

“Protection is the first necessity of opulence and luxury”
― Joseph Conrad

“Listen to me, he thought. If I were talking out loud, I’d be whining. Derek gets hit and I act like I’m the one getting messed up. It”
― Gary Paulsen, The River

“gray pennies that had been made out of steel instead of copper during the Second World War.”
― Andrew Clements, Lunch Money

“Political balance among the competing groups was unstable because the king had no permanent armed force at his command.”
― Barbara W. Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

“The real and proper question is: why is it beautiful?”
― Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

“If you want to be great, you have to be a leader. You’ve got to listen to me, son. That’s what we brought you here to do, to be a leader. And you can do it.”
― Vernon Davis, Playing Ball: Life Lessons from My Journey to the Super Bowl and Beyond

“I have words for this patently pedantic policy and what the mildly misogynistic men who tried to run my life could do with it. And if it rhymed with "dove it up their mass," I'd never tell a soul.”
― J. Rose Black, Chasing Headlines

“Yeah. I’m an asshole. But I promise you, when the shit rolls downhill and you need someone with a shovel, I’m an asshole who can get the job done.”
― Lotchie Burton, Gabriel's Fire

“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 contemplative clinking and methodical chewing are a little weird, but it is proof that souls are housed
inside the physical body.”
― Tom Hillman, Digging for God

“Jamie’s eyes gleamed. “God forgive me, I want there to be a murderer after the Falconer family so we in the College feel less to blame.”
― Susan Rowland, Murder on Family Grounds

“The family discussed some of the things they could do to stop the forest from being cut down. They talked about making flyers and delivering them in the neighbourhood.”
― Ellen J. Lewinberg, Joey and His Friend Water

“Democracy is a pretty word. Democracy is a captivating magic. The oppressed classes always wanted and the oppressing ones always promised a democracy. But this was precisely for democracy that the both parts had always fought. The great French Revolution proclaimed the great appeal "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity". The history showed that from the class viewpoint, they could indicate different things, distinct contents; these concepts must be filled with different sense. In the class society, in the society locked in a state, Liberty is always at the top of somebody’s spear! Equality is the Achilles’ heel, into which this spear is plunged. Humanity is the pledge for plunging it by all force.  ”
― Todor Bombov, Socialism Is Dead! Long Live Socialism!: The Marx Code-Socialism with a Human Face

“And the goblins--they had not really been there at all? They were only the phantoms of cowardice and unbelief? One healthy human impulse would dispel them? Men like the Wilcoxes, or ex-President Roosevelt, would say yes. Beethoven knew better. The goblins really had been there. They might return--and they did. It was as if the splendour of life might boil over and waste to steam and froth. In its dissolution one heard the terrible, ominous note, and a goblin, with increased malignity, walked quietly over the universe from end to end. Panic and emptiness! Panic and emptiness! Even the flaming ramparts of the world might fall. Beethoven chose to make all right in the end. He built the ramparts up. He blew with his mouth for the second time, and again the goblins were scattered. He brought back the gusts of splendour, the heroism, the youth, the magnificence of life and of death, and, amid vast roarings of a superhuman joy, he led his Fifth Symphony to its conclusion. But the goblins were there. They could return. He had said so bravely, and that is why one can trust Beethoven when he says other things.”
― E.M. Forster, Howards End

“This was safe enough — the shape didn't move, at least — but it could do terrible thing to, let us say, the gyroscope of the soul.”
― Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff

“As Brother Francis readily admitted, his mastery of pre-Deluge English was far from masterful yet. The way nouns could sometimes modify other nouns in that tongue had always been one of his weak points. In Latin, as in most simple dialects of the region, a construction like servus puer meant about the same thing as puer servus, and even in English slave boy meant boy slave. But there the similarity ended. He had finally learned that house cat did not mean cat house, and that a dative of purpose or possession, as in mihi amicus, was somehow conveyed by dog food or sentry box even without inflection. But what of a triple appositive like fallout survival shelter? Brother Francis shook his head. The Warning on Inner Hatch mentioned food, water, and air; and yet surely these were not necessities for the fiends of Hell. At times, the novice found pre-Deluge English more perplexing than either Intermediate Angelology or Saint Leslie's theological calculus.”
― Walter M. Miller Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz

“... I grant you that anyone who pokes around in history long enough may well go mad.”
― Elizabeth Kostova, The Historian

“Comrades, it is peoples’ power that shall soon become the crucial factor that is safeguarding our independence.”
― Michael G. Kramer, The Full Circle for Mick

“That's why Twinkle likes the place so much, Scott thought, looking around at the faded wood veneer tables, and the faded souls drinking at them. Misery was soaked through the place like the old beer soaked through its carpets.”
― R.D. Ronald, The Elephant Tree

“Truthfully, Professor Hawking? Why would we allow tourists from the future muck up the past when your contemporaries had the task well in Hand?"
Brigadier General Patrick E Buckwalder 2241C.E.”
― Gabriel F.W. Koch, Paradox Effect: Time Travel and Purified DNA Merge to Halt the Collapse of Human Existence

“My Lady, turn away; do not look into the wagon, it is too frightening for a lady to view.”
― Dorlies von Kaphengst Meissner Rasmussen, Escaping the Russian Onslaught: A Family’s Story of Fleeing the Russian Army after Hitler’s Nazi Regime

“Gentlemen, the world rapidly approaches a convergence point… the very future of civilization hangs in the balance.”
― Guy Morris, The Image: A Quantum Portal Has Opened

“Sylva was unmoved. “I want the threat of this child permanently removed, and I will ensure my brother carries out my instructions. I need details of the family, their names and where they live in Tamin.”
― Robert Reid, The Emperor

“It's amazin’ what people tell you when they’re relaxed and sittin’ in a barber chair.”
― A.G. Russo, Bangtails, Grifters, and a Liar's Kiss

“He desperately tried to think of a story to explain his involvement in her sudden appearance, without mentioning the book of magic in his possession.
 ”
― Max Nowaz, The Three Witches and the Master

“To be reborn one must die, Tenar. It is not so hard as it looks from the other side.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Tombs of Atuan

“Kurt said, “I have always wanted to wipe that self-satisfied smug look from the face of thee Prussian Pickle!”
― Michael G. Kramer, His Forefathers and Mick