Dwain Markakis > Dwain's Quotes

“Nguyen said, “Ho and I shall return to our positions on the deck, where we are keeping watches of two people on duty for two hours at a time.”

He then continued, he said, “Cung, from what you have told me, you appear to be a loyal citizen of Vietnam. Yet, you are being hunted by the Vietnamese security organisations!”

(A Gracious Enemy & After the War Volume Two)”
― Michael G. Kramer

“Out of the bedroom window, Tara watches the silver moon in the night sky cast a faint glow on the pine trees.  Ian was right.  It’s time to move on.  Not to forget, but to forge ahead.”
― Dawn Chalker

“If there was one thing a former sniper could do well, it was wait. Patiently. Quietly. Without a sound. Barely a movement. Just him, a quiet mind and his breath.”
― J. Rose Black, Losing My Breath

“Senator Collins and Speaker Bowling are two cuts or more above typical politicians. If all politicians modeled their examples, we’d have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.”
― Shafter Bailey, James Ed Hoskins and the One-Room Schoolhouse: The Unprosecuted Crime Against Children

“Various large trees— willowy peppers and especially the pines—seem to be reaching down to hold your hand.”
― Tom Hillman, Digging for God

“One other thing—she was always armed. Ossie May talked about her gun even more than she bragged about her cooking. Out of nowhere, she took me to the gun range. She finished one clip with her right hand then unloaded the other clip with her left hand. I certainly got the message. She was not to be messed with or messed over. I was scared straight by this woman.”
― Harold Phifer, Surviving Chaos: How I Found Peace at A Beach Bar

“We need to embrace deliverance in the body of Christ so that God’s people can receive their full inheritance and be free from the chains of the devil.”
― Kathryn Krick, Unlock Your Deliverance: Keys to Freedom From Demonic Oppression

“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

“Gabe suffers from survivor’s remorse. He won’t admit it because he doesn’t see it. Can’t recognize it in himself. He overcompensates for coming back alive, when so many didn’t. He’s got issues. You’ve got issues. Everyone has issues. But issues are a part of life. And whether we like it or not, even bad things happen for a reason.”
― Lotchie Burton, Gabriel's Fire

“Dames. Sometimes all they got to do is let it out and a few buckets later there's no way you'd ever know.”
― Frank Miller, Sin City Volume 1: The Hard Goodbye

“Catch-22 did not exist, he was positive of that, but it made no difference. What did matter was that everyone thought it existed, and that was much worse, for there was no object or text to ridicule or refute, to accuse, criticize, attack, amend, hate, revile, spit at, rip to shreds, trample upon or burn up.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“I have so very much. I have so very little.”
― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta #2

“When you are an addict and you get caught, you always seem to be at your lowest point.”
― Andrew Mann, Such Unfortunates

“I was too dazed to follow right away, because there was something new happening, a wheel inside my heart I’d never noticed before, and it was spinning so fast it made me dizzy. And the farther away she got, the faster it spun, like there was an invisible cord unreeling from it that stretched between us, and if she went too far it would snap - and kill me. I wondered if this strange, sweet pain was love.”
― Ransom Riggs, Hollow City

“It's difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hope rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It's a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at It's utterly impossible for me to build my life on a foundation of chaos, suffering and death. I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness, I hear the approaching thunder one day, will destroy us too, I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too will end, that peace and tranquility will return once more. In the meantime must hold on to my ideals. Perhaps the day will come when I'll be able to realize them!”
― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl