Reader > Reader's Quotes

“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

“Rather than get hung up on theological debates, why don’t we focus on the depraved state of the people who need freedom? While debates rage, the devil is laughing as people stay in bondage.”
― Kathryn Krick, Unlock Your Deliverance: Keys to Freedom From Demonic Oppression

“But this is my fucking life! My mom died and some reporter wanted a story.” I heaved for air. “And all I cared about was playing in some game. Like that was what mattered. She was dying, and I was mad. I’m still fucking pissed. Criminals survive every day. Murderers and rapists and lunatics. But not her.”
“Life, in all the years I’ve been living it, son, doesn’t make a lick of sense where that’s concerned.”
― J. Rose Black, Chasing Headlines

“The fire on the mountain.” That was Anna. “Alchemy,” she said. “I feel it singing in my bones.”
“Singing?” Mary would never understand Anna. The young woman turned away.
Wiseman’s reply was tinged with respect.
“That great pair of alchemists, Francis Ransome and Roberta Le More, believed the work they did affected the world’s spirit, the anima mundi. The Native Americans they met believed they too could and should interact with the Great Spirit. They lived with reverence for the land and all its peoples, the ancestors, the animals, the rocks, the trees, mountains.” 
Mary’s jaw dropped; Caroline glowed; Anna pretended not to listen. Wiseman nodded, then continued.
“You mean…?” began Mary.
“Yes, it could have been so different, a meeting of like-minded earth-based spiritualities. Just imagine, what could have been?”
― Susan Rowland, The Alchemy Fire Murder

“Hours passed—or maybe days. It didn’t matter. The body adapted. But the mind—
The mind needed purpose.
      ”
― D.L. Maddox, The Dog Walker: The Prequel

“They chatter together like birds on Cypress Hill, but all they say is 'Live, live, live, live, live!' It's all they've learned, it's the only advice they can give.”
― Tennessee Williams, Orpheus Descending

“He would not recognize the significance of the moment for a long time. It did not feel like the beginning of anything. The same would be true for each of the great quests in John Sawtelle’s life.”
― David Wroblewski, Familiaris

“Jamie, when the stakes are high, I never cheat. I consider myself too important to do that.”
― E. L. Konigsburg

“If I am a sword, I am a sword made of glass, and I feel myself beginning to shatter.”
― Victoria Aveyard, Glass Sword

“Yet such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

“They accepted the pleasures of morning, the bright sun, the whelming sea and sweet air, as a time when play was good and life so full that hope was not necessary and therefore forgotten.”
― Golding William, Lord of the Flies

“Consider and then act, don't react. A worthy opponent will calculate his move to entice a response from you. Make your own play.”
― R.D. Ronald, The Elephant Tree

“Americans have a love affair with weak coffee.’ ‘And you’re a coffee expert, too,’ Gwen said, cutting a thick slice of apple pie.”
― Gary Clemenceau, Banker's Holiday: A Novel of Fiscal Irregularity

“There’s no need for hyperbole.’ Oswald paused to see if Melvin understood this big word. Oswald was going to be famous, and fame, he knew, came with responsibilities, like setting a good example for others, being a role model.”
― Sara Pascoe, Oswald the Almost Famous Opossum

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

“People are becoming more and more like pets in digital cages, where the only meaning of their lives is to consume and isolate themselves from others like themselves.”
― Alexander Morpheigh, The Pythagorean

“Democracy is a pretty word. Democracy is a captivating magic. The oppressed classes always wanted and the oppressing ones always promised a democracy. But this was precisely for democracy that the both parts had always fought. The great French Revolution proclaimed the great appeal "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity". The history showed that from the class viewpoint, they could indicate different things, distinct contents; these concepts must be filled with different sense. In the class society, in the society locked in a state, Liberty is always at the top of somebody’s spear! Equality is the Achilles’ heel, into which this spear is plunged. Humanity is the pledge for plunging it by all force.  ”
― Todor Bombov, Socialism Is Dead! Long Live Socialism!: The Marx Code-Socialism with a Human Face

“Hydrogen is used in more compounds (nearly 100) than any other element because it can form bonds with almost all metals, metalloids, and non-metals. Some of the most common hydrogen compounds are water (H2O), Hydrogen Peroxide (H202) and table sugar (C12H220111)”
― Sybrina Durant, Magical Elements of the Periodic Table Presented Alphabetically by the Metal Horn Unicorns

“David, you have been so kind to me and this gift will always be treasured. I have one last request. Could you show me some of the secret ways in and out of the castle?”
As he spoke the words, the image of the spark of red light appearing from the depths of the castle sprang to his mind again, together with the whispered words, “I am here, Audun.” He knew that one day he would have to return to Aldene and learn the secret of what lay in the deep dungeon below the castle”
― Robert Reid, The Emperor

“
It was a letter that described someone’s misfortunes so vividly that the recipient of the letter would feel better about his or her own misfortunes.”
― Ashby Jones, The Little Bird

“In a bravura demonstration of stonewalling, righteousness, and hurt sincerity, Steve Jobs successfully took to the stage the other day to deny the problem, dismiss the criticism, and spread the blame among other smartphone makers,” Michael Wolff of newser.com wrote. “This is a level of modern marketing, corporate spin, and crisis management about which you can only ask with stupefied incredulity and awe: How do they get away with it? Or, more accurately, how does he get away with it?” Wolff attributed it to Jobs’s mesmerizing effect as “the last charismatic individual.” Other CEOs would be offering abject apologies and swallowing massive recalls, but Jobs didn’t have to. “The grim, skeletal appearance, the absolutism, the ecclesiastical bearing, the sense of his relationship with the sacred, really works, and, in this instance, allows him the privilege of magisterially deciding what is meaningful and what is trivial.”
― Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs

“I believe in deeds, not words.”
― Tamora Pierce, Alanna: The First Adventure

“I had bought a plastic bottle of petrol to run his small generator and I could hear the delighted screams of his children gathered around a television inside, watching a low-budget Nigerian-made film about adult women falling in love with a magical eight-year-old boy.”
― Tim Butcher, Blood River: A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart

“Secrecy is essential to the command and control of nuclear weapons. Their technology is the opposite of open-source software. The latest warhead designs can’t be freely shared on the Internet, improved through anonymous collaboration, and productively used without legal constraints.”
― Eric Schlosser, Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety

“Susie, what shall I do - there is'nt room enough; not half enough, to hold what I was going to say. Wont you tell the man who makes sheets of paper, that I hav'nt the slightest respect for him!”
― Emily Dickinson

“But I'm a selfish man. I've wanted you since you fell into my office. You are exquisite, honest, warm, strong, witty, beguilingly innocent; the list is endless. I'm in awe of you. I want you, and the thought of anyone else having you is like a knife twisting in my dark soul.”
― E.L. James, Fifty Shades Darker