Morganne > Morganne's Quotes

“It's surprising how often history is decided by something as trival as bad shellfish.”
― John Flanagan, The Battle for Skandia

“Twelve days north of Hopeless and a few degrees south of Freezing to Death”
― Cressida Cowell, How to Train Your Dragon

“However small we are, we should always fight for what we believe to be right. And I don’t mean fight with the power of our fists or the power of our swords…I mean the power of our brains and our thoughts and our dreams.

And as small and quiet and unimportant as our fighting may look, perhaps we might all work together…and break out of the prisons of our own making. Perhaps we might be able to keep this fierce and beautiful world of ours as free for all of us as it seemed to be on that blue afternoon of my childhood.”
― Cressida Cowell, How to Speak Dragonese

“For a Hero cannot triumph all the time. Sometimes he will be defeated, and how he faces that defeat is a test of his character.”
― Cressida Cowell, How to Steal a Dragon's Sword

“The past is another land, and we cannot go to visit. So, if I say there were dragons, and men who rode upon their backs, who alive has been there and can tell me that I'm wrong?”
― Cressida Cowell, How to Be a Pirate

“I was not a natural. . . . This is the story of becoming . . . the Hard Way.”
― Cressida Cowell, How to Train Your Dragon

“But how can we know that dragons did not exist? We have never actually BEEN to the Dark Ages.”
― Cressida Cowell, A Hero's Guide to Deadly Dragons

“History is a set of repeating circles, like the tide. The wind does blow through the ruins of tomorrow. But it is more a question of two steps forward, one step back. Humans and dragons make the same mistakes, again and again, but things do get better over time”
― Cressida Cowell

“There may yet come a time when Heroes are needed once more.
There may yet come a time when the dragons will come back.”
― Cressida Cowell, How to Train Your Dragon

“Please do not blame the story.
The story cannot help itself. We do not realize it at the time, but sometimes the story we are all a part of is not just a story about Vikings and islands and dragons.
It is a story about growing up.
And one of the things about growing up, one of the inescapable, inevitable laws, is that one day...
One day... one day...
It is going to happen.
I am sorry, but it's true.”
― Cressida Cowell, How to Steal a Dragon's Sword

“Confidence is ignorance. If you're feeling cocky, it's because there's something you don't know.”
― Eoin Colfer, Artemis Fowl

“If I win, I'm a prodigy. If I lose, then I'm crazy. That's the way history is written.”
― Eoin Colfer, Artemis Fowl

“I don't like lollipops.”
― Eoin Colfer, Artemis Fowl

“The problem is that I know the textbook answers to any question you care to ask.”
― Eoin Colfer, Artemis Fowl

“I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“He is half of my soul, as the poets say.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“In the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out of the sun.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“Name one hero who was happy."
I considered. Heracles went mad and killed his family; Theseus lost his bride and father; Jason's children and new wife were murdered by his old; Bellerophon killed the Chimera but was crippled by the fall from Pegasus' back.
"You can't." He was sitting up now, leaning forward.
"I can't."
"I know. They never let you be famous AND happy." He lifted an eyebrow. "I'll tell you a secret."
"Tell me." I loved it when he was like this.
"I'm going to be the first." He took my palm and held it to his. "Swear it."
"Why me?"
"Because you're the reason. Swear it."
"I swear it," I said, lost in the high color of his cheeks, the flame in his eyes.
"I swear it," he echoed.
We sat like that a moment, hands touching. He grinned.
"I feel like I could eat the world raw.”
― 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 am made of memories.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“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

“There are no bargains between lion and men. I will kill you and eat you raw.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“He is a weapon, a killer. Do not forget it. You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“Chiron had said once that nations were the most foolish of mortal inventions. "No man is worth more than another, wherever he is from.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“I feel like I could eat the world raw.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“Odysseus inclines his head. "True. But fame is a strange thing. Some men gain glory after they die, while others fade. What is admired in one generation is abhorred in another." He spread his broad hands. "We cannot say who will survive the holocaust of memory. Who knows?" He smiles. "Perhaps one day even I will be famous. Perhaps more famous than you.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“Chiron had said once that nations were the most foolish of mortal inventions. “No man is worth more than another, wherever he is from.”

“But what if he is your friend?” Achilles had asked him, feet kicked up on the wall of the rose-quartz cave. “Or your brother? Should you treat him the same as a stranger?”

“You ask a question that philosophers argue over,” Chiron had said. “He is worth more to you, perhaps. But the stranger is someone else’s friend and brother. So which life is more important?”

We had been silent. We were fourteen, and these things were too hard for us. Now that we are twenty-seven, they still feel too hard.

He is half of my soul, as the poets say. He will be dead soon, and his honor is all that will remain. It is his child, his dearest self. Should I reproach him for it? I have saved Briseis. I cannot save them all.

I know, now, how I would answer Chiron. I would say: there is no answer. Whichever you choose, you are wrong.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“I would know him in death, at the end of the world.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you. ”
― Pericles