Elina Helmle > Elina's Quotes

“Aye. I’m afraid for my immortal soul now.”
― Gabriel F.W. Koch, Steel Blood

“Scott glanced at his watch but didn't register what it said. The notion of time had become as absurd as the quietly glowing trees.”
― R.D. Ronald, The Elephant Tree

“Even though it's only a minority of men who are violent or predatory, I don't know if men realise that girls are trained our entire lives to minimise the danger from you - and blamed if we don't.”
― Sara Pascoe

“he couldn't entice me with his pills, hookers, guns or war mission”
― Edward Williams, Framed & Hunted: A True Story of Occult Persecution

“The most sophisticated instrument – the heart – tested feelings related to visions, the path to enlightenment and connection.”
― Raz Mihal, Just Love Her

“The artist’s rendition displayed evidence of a warped mind. Malevolence flaunted in the form of a portrait painted with blood.”
― Steve Rush, Lethal Impulse

“For if we allow that human life is always guided by reason, we destroy the premise that life is possible at all.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“What is perceptible to one’s mistrust is the cut-and-dried way that life is divided up and the ready-made form it assumes, the ever-recurring sameness of it, the pre-formations passed down by generation after generation, the ready-made language not only of the tongue but also of the sensations and the feelings. ”
― Robert Musil

“Be obscure clearly.”
― E.B. White

“The question,’ she replied, ‘is not whether you will love, hurt, dream, and die. It is what you will love, why you will hurt, when you will dream, and how you will die. This is your choice. You cannot pick the destination, only the path.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer

“Talking nonsense is the sole privilege mankind possesses over the other organisms. It's by talking nonsense that one gets to the truth! I talk nonsense, therefore I'm human”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead

“No one can dispute that. He was a good man, a kind man. “But you know, so was my husband Keo. So were hundreds of other men who lived and died here. Yet sometimes it seems the world is more moved by the death of one white priest than by the passing of hundreds, thousands, of Hawaiians. Everyone knows Damien’s name now, but will anyone remember these girls, other than you and me?”
― Alan Brennert, Moloka'i

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

“I remember Peyton [Manning] called me as soon as I got out to Denver. He started the conversation by asking me, ‘When did you get in?’ We mainly just talked to get familiar with each other.”
― Vernon Davis, Playing Ball: Life Lessons from My Journey to the Super Bowl and Beyond

“you calm down and listen carefully to these words.” He pressed the play button on his recorder and held it to the sending end of the telephone.”
― Shafter Bailey, James Ed Hoskins and the One-Room Schoolhouse: The Unprosecuted Crime Against Children

“Eliza answered, “My Lady, that was Sir Roger Mortimer!”
― Michael G. Kramer, Isabella Warrior Queen

“He thrust his shoulders back and spoke in a whisper that sounded like the hiss of a snake.
‘Yes, the very battle between good and evil, played out even in the lowliest of lives like yours. Witches killing dogs because they did not get their favourite drink.”
― Sara Pascoe, Being a Witch, and Other Things I Didn't Ask For

“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

“It was good to see her laugh. Even if it was at me.”
― Chuck Dixon, Birds of Prey (1999-2009) #8

“There's nothing more embarrassing than to have earned the disfavor of a perceptive animal.”
― Michael Chabon, Wonder Boys

“Amelia Bedelia," said Mrs. Rogers,
"Christmas is just around the corner."
"It is?" said Amelia Bedelia. "Which corner?"
Mrs. Rogers lauhged and said,
"I mean tomorrow is Christmas Day."
"I know that," said Amelia Bedelia.”
― Peggy Parish, Merry Christmas, Amelia Bedelia

“You're getting to be a big boy; and while I'm gone, you'll be the man of the family. I want you to act like one. You take care of Mama and Little Arliss. You look after the work and don't wait around for your mama to point out what needs to be done. Think you can do that?”
― Fred Gipson, Old Yeller

“We're not really conscious of what we're doing most of the time.”
― Sebastian Faulks, Engleby