Alison > Alison's Quotes

“The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature, to those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt

“Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisioned by the enemy, don't we consider it his duty to escape?. . .If we value the freedom of mind and soul, if we're partisans of liberty, then it's our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can!”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion, it is not the desire to mate every second minute of the day, it is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every cranny of your body. No, don't blush, I am telling you some truths. That is just being "in love", which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.”
― Shawn Slovo, Captain Corelli's Mandolin filmscript

“‎Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.”
― Voltaire

“I prefer to be left alone with my books.”
― Alison Weir, Innocent Traitor

“I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

“If you can't look after something in your care, you have no right to keep it.”
― Enid Blyton

“One wonders what would happen in a society in which there were no rules to break. Doubtless everyone would quickly die of boredom. ”
― Susan Howatch

“I love you. I love the way you rub the scar on the back of your hand when you're nervous. I love the way you make a sword into a living part of your body. I love the way you burn your eyes into me, as if you're seeing me fresh every time. I love the black streak in you that wants to kill the world, and the soft streak that is sorry afterward. I love the way you laugh, as if you're surprised that you can laugh at all. I love the way you kiss my breath away. I love the way you breathe and speak and smile. I love the way you take the air out of my lungs when you hold me. I love the way you make a dance out of death. I love the confusion I see in your eyes when you realize you are happy. I love every muscle and bone in your body, every twist and bend in your soul.”
― Kate Quinn, Mistress of Rome

“Have you ever been - well, i mean, have you ever - really wanted someone ? Wanted them like water in the desert - even when you knew all their faults, every single one - and it didnt matter ?”
― Kate Quinn, Mistress of Rome

“Paulinus, everyone knows. Say the word, and I'll run the bitch over with my chariot”
― Kate Quinn, Mistress of Rome

“The very purpose of a knight is to fight on behalf of a lady.”
― Thomas Malory

“Books may well be the only true magic.”
― Alice Hoffman

“If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

“I love new clothes. If everyone could just wear new clothes everyday, I reckon depression wouldn’t exist anymore.”
― Sophie Kinsella, Confessions of a Shopaholic

“There is no friend as loyal as a book.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“I guess there are never enough books.”
― John Steinbeck, A John Steinbeck Encyclopedia

“All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.”
― William Shakespeare, As You Like It

“Reading brings us unknown friends”
― Honore de Balzac

“Sometimes you read a book so special that you want to carry it around with you for months after you've finished just to stay near it.”
― Markus Zusak

“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes...you're Doing Something.”
― Neil Gaiman

“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”
― C.S. Lewis

“It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

“Love all, trust a few,
Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy
Rather in power than use; and keep thy friend
Under thy own life's key: be check'd for silence,
But never tax'd for speech.”
― William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well

“... a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”
― Jorge Luis Borges

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“When I was about eight, I decided that the most wonderful thing, next to a human being, was a book.”
― Margaret Walker