Kemberly Funicello > Kemberly's Quotes

“     ‘That has to be Mr Davis,’ Semilla said with an air of complete confidence as she stared at the inferno rising above the roof tops.
     ‘How can you be so certain?’ Burt questioned looking slightly pensive.
     Semilla gave a shrug. ‘Let’s face it he’s been in the vicinity of one or two little disasters lately.”
― A.R. Merrydew, Our Blue Orange

“A traditional New Mexico Christmas differs from the rest of the world with four amazing traditions: tamales, bisochitos, empanadas, and luminarias. The first three Mexican specialties add delicious flavor to any meal, and the last one lights up our towns!”
― Larada Horner-Miller, Hair on Fire: A Heartwarming & Humorous Christmas Memoir

“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

“Expecting fairness at work isn’t being petty – it’s being human.”
― Hanna Hasl-Kelchner

“This world would be a pleasant place if people didn’t inhabit it.”
― K. Ritz, Sheever's Journal, Diary of a Poison Master

“There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories.”
― ursula le guin

“Maybe your father needed to show that he was always right - that he could always SURVIVE - because he felt GUILTY about surviving.”
― Art Spiegelman, Maus

“A lot of people—young and old— have not done a very good job of taking care of our country so we can enjoy living in it. Almost everywhere today you see the marks of the stupid and the careless who are ruining what we should all take care of for our own pleasure—and our own good.”
― Munro Leaf, Who Cares? I Do.

“Why, Esther wonders, do any of us believe our lives lead outward through time? How do we know we aren't continually traveling inward, toward our centers? Because this is how it feels to Esther when she sits on her deck in Geneva, Ohio, in the last spring of her life; it feels as if she is being drawn down some path that leads deeper inside, toward a miniature, shrouded, final kingdom that has waited within her all along.”
― Anthony Doerr, Memory Wall

“I would like to stay stoned all the time, it scares me it’s so good. I would like to stay stoned every minute of every day for the rest of my life.”
― Beatrice Sparks

“Startled, he tried to comfort him. But Father said slowly, "I ask myself whether I am afraid of death. I don't think I am. My life as it is now is worse. And it looks as if there is not going to be any ending. Sometimes I feel weak: I stand by Tranquillity River and think, Just one leap and I can get it over with. Then I tell myself I must not. If I die without being cleared, there will be no end of trouble for all of you… I have been thinking a lot lately. I had a hard childhood, and society was full of injustice. It was for a fair society that I joined the Communists. I've tried my best through the years. But what good has it done for the people? As for myself, why is it that in the end I have come to be the ruin of my family? People who believe in retribution say that to end badly you must have something on your conscience. I have been thinking hard about the things I've done in my life. I have given orders to execute some people…"

Father went on to tell Jin-ming about the death sentences he had signed, the names and stories of the e-ba ('ferocious despots') in the land reform in Chaoyang, and the bandit chiefs in Yibin.

"But these people had done so much evil that God himself would have had them killed.

What, then, have I done wrong to deserve all this?"

After a long pause, Father said, "If I die like this, don't believe in the Communist Party anymore.”
― Jung Chang, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China

“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

“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

“This book was under arrest, along with its author. This event occurred on March 27, 1986. During that time, the totalitarian system in East Europe was called socialism and even by the scientific nonsense and absurd names of Communism and Communist system. In this system, the official ideology was allegedly Marxism, but really it could not endure any Marxist criticism. Since this “socialist” system was afraid of the weapon of criticism, it applied criticism of the weapon against its own citizens, as Marx would have said.”
― Todor Bombov, Socialism Is Dead! Long Live Socialism!: The Marx Code-Socialism with a Human Face

“Forget professional,” Penny said. “Tonight, you and I are just man and woman like Adam and Eve, Tarzan and Jane.”
― Shafter Bailey, James Ed Hoskins and the One-Room Schoolhouse: The Unprosecuted Crime Against Children

“I sincerely want to use her knowledge to help me with my dissertation.”
― Steven Decker, Time Chain: A Time Travel Novel

“Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!" It seems to me that there is nothing which would stimulate a man's sense of responsibleness more than this maxim, which invites him to imagine first that the present is past and, second, that the past may yet be changed and amended.”
― Viktor Frankl

“car. Remembering her kneeling the dirt, planting morning glory seeds.”
― Kim Edwards, The Memory Keeper's Daughter

“You really want to know what being an X-Man feels like? Just be a smart bookish boy of color in a contemporary U.S. ghetto. Mamma mia! Like having bat wings or a pair of tentacles growing out of your chest.”
― Junot Diaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

“I'm saying I'm in love with you! I've been in love with you this whole bleeding year!”
― Stephanie Perkins, Anna and the French Kiss

“If one believes that words are acts, as I do, then one must hold writers responsible for what their words do.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places

“But say a man does know. He sees the world as it is and he looks back thousands of years to see how it all come about. He watches the slow agglutination of capital and power and he sees its pinnacle today. He sees America as a crazy house... He sees a whole damn army of unemployed and billions of dollars and thousands of miles of land wasted... He sees how when people suffer just so much they get mean and ugly and something dies in them. But the main thing he sees is that the whole system of the world is built on a lie. And although it's as plain as the shining sun—the don't-knows have lived with that lie so long they just can't see it.”
― Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

“I’m pretty sure she’s got an angel job now where she plucks a large handful of flowers and carries them up to God where they will bloom even brighter than on earth.”
 
Can we ask God to bring her back home?”
You know what, she’s already home.” Starla patted her chest. “She’ll always be right here in our hearts.”
But I can’t give her a hug.”
 
Yes, you can . . . if you hug yourself or me or Willa or Daddy or Big Pop or GoGo you’re hugging her because she’s a part of us.”
― JoDee Neathery, A Kind of Hush

“It was not his policy to talk to strangers.”
― Jennifer Mugrage, The Strange Land

“Theo, no matter what happens in life, you must always remember that we live in a mathematically precise world. Everything that happens has a reason and even though we rarely understand those reasons and often don’t even see them, that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”
― Alexander Morpheigh

“I looked at the face in front of me. ‘Adey?’  ‘Sorry mate. Time’s up!’ he said”
― Brian J. Twiddy, Blessing

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

“You cannot!' Tatiana said sharply. 'If you order a gun there is only a single shot, and once delivered the doors are locked and will not open until it has been fired.”
― R.D. Ronald, The Zombie Room

“Plotting murder is as good a topic as any.”
― K. Ritz, Sheever's Journal, Diary of a Poison Master

“None of us deserves anything, good, Rich, but what we do deserve,” the priest paused to finger the crucifix he wore under his collar, “he already bore”
― Lin Wilder, Plausible Liars: A Dr. Lindsey McCall Medical Mystery 5