Mallory Bye > Mallory's Quotes

“You shall address me as ‘My Dearest’,’ he repeated in a mocking voice, trying to copy her tone. ‘You will forget all about this conversation when you leave this room.’ It was interesting that tone; it had a sort of hypnotising ring to it.”
― Max Nowaz, The Three Witches and the Master

“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

“Aurelia was just about to take a sip of a mimosa when Mother Guardian snatched the flute away and promptly downed the drink in one gulp. Burping unashamedly, she said, "We can't have the validity of the marriage contracts jeopardized because the bride got rat-assed on her wedding day.”
― Therisa Peimer, Taming Flame

“Rule number one on a dance floor: if you see that girl who smiles for no reason, gives you boobs-pressing hugs, compliments you, and encourages you to keep on dancing, then she is an event promoter or a multilevel marketing agent”
― Merlin Franco, Saint Richard Parker

“This generation will witness social and economic changes in our societies, that will be irreversible, thanks to AI.”
― A.R. Merrydew

“The summer sun bowing out threw slashes of colour between the buildings. London looked big, empty, and lonely. She stood in the doorway, like a cat trying to make up its mind.”
― Sara Pascoe, Being a Witch, and Other Things I Didn't Ask For

“Why did you start to write?


I left at 15.. I started to write becase I was taken off a ship from Germany when I was 18. They said I wouldn't live for 6 months.

I'd been given up for dead many times and I just didn't want to waste my life. I had what I now realize was a spiritual experience.

I realized that I would die,
and that just before I would die,
two things would happen.

number one, I would regret my entire life.
and number two, I would want to live my life over again.
and then I would die.
and that terrified me.

[...]

to think that I would live my entire life, look at it, and say oh..I blew it. was such a terrifying thought
that I bought a typewriter

I didn't know what I was going to do with it, but I bought a typewriter.
but that is what got me to start writing, was

I did not want to waste my life

I wanted to, and I HAD to, do something with my life”
― Hubert Selby Jr.

“And the further they go, the more they'll remember, they can take it from me.”
― Rohinton Mistry, Swimming Lessons and Other Stories from Firozsha Baag

“Occasionally words must serve to veil the facts. But let this happen in such a way that no one become aware of it; or, if it should be noticed, excuses must be at hand to be produced immediately.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli

“The spell. Victor said you had to want me... to care about me... for it to work." When he didn't say anything, I tried to grip his shirt, but my fingers were too weak. "Did you? Did you want me?"
His words came out thickly. "Yes, Roza. I did want you. I still do. I wish... we could be together."
"Then why did you lie to me?"
We reached the clinic, and he managed to open the door while still holding me. As soon as he stepped inside, he began yelling for help.
"Why did you lie?" I murmured again.
Still holding me in his arms, he looked down at me. I could hear voices and footsteps getting closer.
"Because we can't be together."
"Because of the age thing, right?" I asked. "Because you're my mentor?"
His fingertip gently wiped away a tear that had escaped down my cheek. "That's part of it," he said. "But also... well, you and I will both be Lissa's gaurdians someday. I need to protect her at all cost. If a pack of Strogoi come, I need to throw my body between them and her."
I know that. Of course that's what you have to do." The black sparkles were dancing in front of my eyes again. I was fading out.
"No. If I let myself love you, I won't throw myself in front of her. I'll throw myself in front of you.”
― Richelle Mead, Vampire Academy

“He had never even glimpsed her.”
― Kim Edwards, The Memory Keeper's Daughter

“We know about the wildlife for God’s sake!” screamed Aideen. “We’re being attacked by a feckin’ pack of chimpanzees right now! Get us out of here!”
― Steven Decker, The Balance of Time

“Every night I dream a lot. Every day I live a little.”
― Max Nowaz, Get Rich or Get Lucky

“I'm the biggest critic of my own work, but sometimes you nail a chapter so good that you have to take a step back and admire that bitch.”
― R.D. Ronald

“   At one side of the creek, she builds a small cairn of stones underneath a large, oak tree.  “In remembrance of Aunt Beca,” she says.  “Thank you for all the things you taught me.  For all the times you listened when I needed someone to talk to.  For all the love and support you offered me.”
― Dawn Chalker, Lost and Found

“On the 30th of April 1975, American helicopters flew out of Saigon in an ignominious retreat as the tanks of the People’s Liberation Army of Vietnam rumbled into the grounds of the American Embassy in Saigon.”
― Michael G. Kramer, A Gracious Enemy & After the War Volume One

“Love was the quiet hum of a lullaby slipping pas sleeping ears on a late November evening.”
― J. Rose Black

“Noren noted the two tall Coelete warriors. “You travel in strange company, Alex. I have heard of the deeds of the Red Cameron and note your colours, but those two are from the stories our forefathers told of a tribe of tall warriors that live in the mountains in the north and who helped the early settlers of Erwick build our town.”
― Robert Reid, White Light Red Fire

“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

“I knew exactly what kind of effort I was going to need to get where I wanted to go.”
― Vernon Davis

“And though it be not so in the physical, yet in moral science that which cannot be understood is not always profitless. For the soul awakes, a trembling stranger, between two dim eternities,—the eternal past, the eternal future. The light shines only on a small space around her; therefore, she needs must yearn towards the unknown; and the voices and shadowy movings which come to her from out the cloudy pillar of inspiration have each one echoes and answers in her own expecting nature.”
― Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin

“The artist doesn't have time to listen to the critics. The ones who want to be writers read the reviews, the ones who want to write don't have the time to read reviews. ”
― William Faulkner

“Charlie interpreted the song to mean that the Beatles were telling blackie to get guns and fight whitey.”
― Vincent Bugliosi, Helter Skelter

“...only someone who'd never been an animal would put up a sign saying not to feed them....”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

“leagues, till we were able to work no longer, being already spent with labour while we were in the ship. ”
― Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels

“As far as I was concerned, the sun could have melted the blue right off the sky. Then the sky could be as miserable as I was.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe