Marti > Marti's Quotes

“In your place, if there is pain, nurse it, and if there is a flame, don’t snuff it out, don’t be brutal with it. Withdrawal can be a terrible thing when it keeps us awake at night, and watching others forget us sooner than we’d want to be forgotten is no better. We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster than we should that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to feel nothing so as not to feel anything — what a waste!”
― André Aciman, Call Me by Your Name

“It never occurred to me that if one word from him could make me so happy, another could just as easily crush me, that if I didn't want to be unhappy, I should learn to beware of such small joys as well.”
― André Aciman, Call Me by Your Name

“We were like gods at the dawning of the world, & our joy was so bright we could see nothing else but the other.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“When he died, all things soft and beautiful and bright would be buried with him.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“I didn't understand how you could live in a mean world and not have any of that meanness rub off on you. How could a guy live without meanness?”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“See, the thing about guys is that I didn't really care to be around them. I mean, guys really made me uncomfortable. I don't know why, not exactly. I just, I don't know, I just didn't belong. I think it embarrassed the hell out of me that I was a guy. And it really depressed me that there was the distinct possibility that I was going to grow up and be like one of those assholes.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“There is a famous painting, Nighthawks, by Edward Hopper. I am in love with that painting. Sometimes, I think everyone is like the people in that painting, everyone lost in their own private universes of pain or sorrow or guilt, everyone remote and unknowable. The painting reminds me of you. It breaks my heart.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“In your dream. You were looking for me."

"I'm always looking for you," I whispered.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“People where you live," the little prince said, "grow five thousand roses in one garden... yet they don't find what they're looking for...

They don't find it," I answered.

And yet what they're looking for could be found in a single rose, or a little water..."

Of course," I answered.

And the little prince added, "But eyes are blind. You have to look with the heart.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

“You’re seventeen,” Magnus said. “You can’t have wasted a life you’ve barely lived.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince

“They say you cannot love two people equally at once,” she said. “And perhaps for others that is so. But you and Will—you are not like two ordinary people, two people who might have been jealous of each other, or who would have imagined my love for one of them diminished by my love of the other. You merged your souls when you were both children. I could not have loved Will so much if I had not loved you as well. And I could not love you as I do if I had not loved Will as I did.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Princess

“He began it,” Cecily said, jerking her chin at Will, though she knew it was pointless. Jem, Will’s parabatai, treated her with the distant sweet kindness reserved for the little sisters of one’s friends, but he would always side with Will. Kindly, but firmly, he put Will above everything else in the world.
Well, nearly everything.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Princess

“Bran thought about it. 'Can a man still be brave if he's afraid?'
'That is the only time a man can be brave,' his father told him.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man's life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“Oh, my sweet summer child," Old Nan said quietly, "what do you know of fear?
Fear is for the winter, my little lord, when the snows fall a hundred feet
deep and the ice wind comes howling out of the north. Fear is for the long
night, when the sun hides its face for years at a time, and little children
are born and live and die all in darkness while the direwolves grow gaunt and
hungry, and the white walkers move through the woods”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“The common people pray for rain, healthy children, and a summer that never ends," Ser Jorah told her. "It is no matter to them if the high lords play their game of thrones, so long as they are left in peace." He gave a shrug. "They never are.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“Love is the bane of honor, the death of duty. What is honor compared to a woman's love? What is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms ... or the memory of a brother's smile? Wind and words. Wind and words. We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“You don’t get extra credit for doing what you’re supposed to do.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World

“Don’t ever let anybody tell you that war is something beautiful or heroic. When people say war is hell, war is hell.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World

“I looked at her. "Does God hate me? Me and Dante?"
"Of course not. I've never read anything in the Bible that indicates that God hates. Hate isn't in his job description."
"You sound so sure, Mom. Maybe you're not such a good Catholic."
"Maybe some people would say I'm not. But I don't need anybody to tell me how to live my faith."
"But me, I'm a sin, right?"
"No, you're not a sin. You're a young man. You're a human being. And you're my son.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World

“The next morning, I watched his older brother hold him in his arms as he looked at me with tears in his eyes. "It's a boy, Ari. It's a boy!" And I knew what he was thinking. And he's going to be straight. And he's going to give my parents the grandchildren I will never be able to give them.
Does being gay screw with our heads and our hearts?”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World

“The world is not a safe place for us. There are cartographers who came and made a map of the world as they saw it. They did not leave a place for us to write our names on that map. But here we are, we're in it, this world that does not want us, a world that will never love us, a world that would choose to destroy us rather than make a space for us even though there is more than enough room.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World

“If you drink much from a bottle marked 'poison' it is certain to disagree with you sooner or later.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

“Alice asked the Cheshire Cat, who was sitting in a tree, “What road do I take?”

The cat asked, “Where do you want to go?”

“I don’t know,” Alice answered.

“Then,” said the cat, “it really doesn’t matter, does it?”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

“We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad. [...] You must be, or you wouldn't be here.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

“Somebody has to start. Somebody has to step forward and do what is right, because it is right.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

“We follow the codes not because they bring gain, but because we loathe the people we would otherwise become.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

“What is a man’s life worth?” Dalinar asked softly.
“The slavemasters say one is worth about two emerald broams,” Kaladin said, frowning.
“And what do you say?”
“A life is priceless,” he said immediately, quoting his father.
Dalinar smiled, wrinkle lines extending from the corners of his eyes. “Coincidentally, that is the exact value of a Shardblade. So today, you and your men sacrificed to buy me twenty-six hundred priceless lives. And all I had to repay you with was a single priceless sword. I call that a bargain.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

“Honor is dead. But I'll see what I can do.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Words of Radiance

“The most important step a man can take. It's not the first one, is it?
It's the next one. Always the next step, Dalinar.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer