Eugenio Prchlik > Eugenio's Quotes

“Outside, Santa Fe breathed the way it does in early fall—cool, steady, unhurried.”
― D.L. Maddox, Stolen

“Coincidence is God's way of showing He cares.”
― Ashby Jones, The Little Bird

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

“Now that he wielded some power and finally felt he had achieved what had always been destined to be his, he adopted the arrogance and pomp of a baboon.”
― Tony Debajo, A Heart Full of Malice

“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

“Let’s get to know each other. My name’s William, William More, but you can call me Willy. I’m an engineer-chemist who graduated from MIT. So . . . but you’re all alike to me . . . of course, you would be . . . you’re robots. And all your names are that sort of, um . . . codes, technical numbers . . . I need some marker where I can pick you out. Well, well, to you I’ll call . . .,” and Willy pondered for a moment, “Gumball, yes, Gumball! Do you mind?” “No, sir, actually no,” CSE-TR-03 said, agreeing with its new given name. “Ah, that’s wonderful. And then you’re Darwin,” Willy said, accosting the second robot. “Look what a nice name—Darwin! What do you say, eh?” “What can I say, sir? I like it,” CSE-TR-02 agreed too. “Yes, a human name with a past . . . You and Gumball . . . are from the same family, the Methanesons!” “It turns out thus, sir,” Darwin confirmed its family belonging. “And you’re like Larry. You’re Larry. Do you know that?” More addressed the next robot in line. “Yes, sir, just now I learned that,” the third robot said, accepted its name as well.”
― Todor Bombov, Homo Cosmicus 2: Titan: A Science Fiction Novel

“#metooasachild”
― Aimee Cabo Nikolov, Love is the Answer, God is the Cure: A True Story of Abuse, Betrayal and Unconditional Love

“Things change when you're not in danger anymore.”
― Mitch Albom, For One More Day

“The Lion and the Fox”
― Aesop, Aesop's Fables - Book 1: 80 Short Stories for Children - Illustrated

“All the major world religions (always excluding animism, of course), are founded on these notions: that man and man alone was the desired object of creation, that man occupies a preeminent place in the order of creation, that man has a value in God’s eyes that is transcendently greater than that of all other creatures, that this world of matter is illusory, transitory, and worthless.”
― Daniel Quinn, Providence: The Story of a Fifty-Year Vision Quest

“It Is Our Duty To Remember”
― Steve Snyder, Shot Down: The True Story of Pilot Howard Snyder and the Crew of the B-17 Susan Ruth

“I don’t know why religious zealots have this compulsion to try to convert everyone who passes before them – I don’t go around trying to make them into St Louis Cardinals fans, for Christ’s sake – and yet they never fail to try.
Nowadays when accosted I explain to them that anyone wearing white socks with Hush Puppies and a badge saying HI! I’M GUS! probably couldn’t talk me into getting out of a burning car, much less into making a lifelong commitment to a deity, and ask them to send someone more intelligent and with a better dress sense next time, but back then I was too meek to do anything but listen politely and utter non-committal ‘Hmmmm’s’ to their suggestions that Jesus could turn my life around. Somewhere over the Atlantic, as I was sitting taking stock of my 200 cubic centimetres of personal space, as one does on a long plane flight, I spied a coin under the seat in front of me, and with protracted difficulty leaned forward and snagged it. When I sat up, I saw my seatmate was at last looking at me with that ominous glow.
‘Have you found Jesus?’ he said suddenly.
‘Uh, no, it’s a quarter,’ I answered and quickly settled down and pretended for the next six hours to be asleep, ignoring his whispered entreaties to let Christ build a bunkhouse in my heart.”
― Bill Bryson, Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe

“Clarity of purpose often comes from wandering through mistakes”
― Joseph A. Anderson, Eden 2:b

“The music felt like a special gift from Ted, a view into his soul.”
― Marcia Breece, The Last Bottle

“There were no clues left by the murderer inside the judge’s chambers. No fingerprints. Nothing. The only thing found that was out of the ordinary was a single strand of long auburn hair on the window ledge. A single strand of hair from an unknown female. All dead ends. From my initial perspective, the police were as thorough as they could have been.”
― Behcet Kaya, Appellate Judge

“I love your farm, you know I do, but this is your passion. I’m figuring out what mine is. I’m good at marketing. My supervisor says I have a good eye and creative ideas.”
― Maria Jane, Perfect

“A wise man, my father, always said, a bitter root bears bitter fruit and then he’d point to the crucifix on the mantel adding . . . he’s the only one who had the right to be bitter and wasn’t.”
― JoDee Neathery, A Kind of Hush

“After all her years in the Pietà, she had learned the greatest gift she could give them was dispensing words of encouragement that prodded them forward.”
― Jennifer Wizbowski, Poinsettia Girl: The Story of Agata della Pieta

“Not happening. I’m getting you out, one way or another.”
― D.L. Maddox, Reckoning

“Mary moved down to join the gathered actors, but little was said beyond questioning whispers. This was, after all, a morgue.”
― Theasa Tuohy, Mademoiselle le Sleuth

“Your physical and emotional health are in danger.”
― Arelis Calkins, Rising Above Adversity: Healing and Nurturing your Inner Child

“Wherever she was, familiar territory or not, the mountains were her home, and the trees her friends.”
― Isham Cook, The Tao of Poison

“Real magic can never be made by offering someone else's liver. You must tear out your own, and not expect to get it back.”
― Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn

“Goethe’s poems are like tiny paintings in beautiful frames” or “Lenz must write on a typewriter.”
― Bernhard Schlink, The Reader

“Mobutu’s dictatorial reign between 1965 and 1997 created the violent free-for-all of today’s Congo.”
― Tim Butcher, Blood River: The Terrifying Journey through the World's Most Dangerous Country

“He wants the minute and secret reflection between them, the depth of field minimal, their foreignness intimate like two pages of a closed book.”
― Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient

“On Saturday, he ate through one piece of chocolate cake, one ice-cream cone, one pickle, one slice of Swiss cheese, one slice of salami, one lollipop, one piece of cherry pie, one sausage, one cupcake, and one slice of watermelon

That night he had a stomach ache.”
― Eric Carle, The Very Hungry Caterpillar

“You learn to write by writing, and by reading and thinking about how writers have created their characters and invented their stories. If you are not a reader, don't even think about being a writer.”
― Jean M. Auel