Barbara Vazquez > Barbara's Quotes

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passin'.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others. Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice, indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating, in F. W.

I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look, will be enough to decide whether I enter your father's house this evening or never.”
― Jane Austen, Persuasion

“A woman, especially if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“Remember, the enemy's gate is down.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game

“Because never in my entire childhood did I feel like a child. I felt like a person all along--the same person that I am today. I never felt that I spoke childishly. I never felt that my emotions and desires were somehow less real than adult emotions and desires. And in writing _Ender's Game_, I forced the audience to experience the lives of these children from that perspective--the perspective in which their feelings and decisions are just as real and important as any adult's. ... _Ender's Game_ asserts the personhood of children, and those who are used to thinking of children in another way ... are going to find _Ender's Game_ a very unpleasant place to live.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game

“Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men, doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again

“It was a pleasure to burn.”
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

“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

“You have to be a bit of a liar to tell a story the right way.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

“Bones mend. Regret stays with you forever.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

“I also felt guilty about the three pens I'd stolen, but only for a second. And since there was no convenient way to give them back, I stole a bottle of ink before I left.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

“It both surprised and angered me that {they} had reached a consensus of agreement against me. The way I looked at the world, enemies criticized and friends affirmed.”
― Pat Conroy, The Lords of Discipline

“Ninety-nine percent of everything that goes on in most Christian churches has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual religion. Intelligent people all notice this sooner or later, and they conclude that the entire one hundred percent is bullshit, which is why atheism is connected with being intelligent in people's minds.”
― Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash

“Supposing that originally there was nothing but one creator, how could ordinary binary sexual relations come into being?”
― Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash

“Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign

“I've always thought tests are a gift. And great tests are a great gift. To fail the test is a misfortune. But to refuse the test is to refuse the gift, and something worse, more irrevocable, than misfortune.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Shards of Honour

“My home is not a place, it is people.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Barrayar

“If you can't be seven feet tall, be seven feet smart.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Labyrinth

“I've got forward momentum. There's no virtue in it. It's just a balancing act. I don't dare stop. ”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Warrior's Apprentice

“Cecil flashed a grin. "Quite. Plus your rather irritating habit of treating your superior officers as your, ah..." Cecil paused, apparently groping again for just the right word.

"Equals?" Miles hazarded.

"Cattle," Cecil corrected judiciously.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Vor Game

“Oh, was that liquor of yours a stimulant?" asked Elena. "I wondered why he didn't fall asleep."
"Couldn't you tell?" chuckled Mayhew.
"Not really."
Miles twisted his head to take in Elena's upside-down worried face, and smile in weak reassurance. Sparkly black and purple whirlpools clouded his vision. Mayhew's laughter faded. "My God," he said hollowly, "you mean he's like that all the time?”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Warrior's Apprentice

“If you're trying to take a roomful of people by surprise, it's a lot easier to hit your targets if you don't yell going through the door.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Young Miles

“The best fantasy is written in the language of dreams. It is alive as dreams are alive, more real than real ... for a moment at least ... that long magic moment before we wake.

Fantasy is silver and scarlet, indigo and azure, obsidian veined with gold and lapis lazuli. Reality is plywood and plastic, done up in mud brown and olive drab. Fantasy tastes of habaneros and honey, cinnamon and cloves, rare red meat and wines as sweet as summer. Reality is beans and tofu, and ashes at the end. Reality is the strip malls of Burbank, the smokestacks of Cleveland, a parking garage in Newark. Fantasy is the towers of Minas Tirith, the ancient stones of Gormenghast, the halls of Camelot. Fantasy flies on the wings of Icarus, reality on Southwest Airlines. Why do our dreams become so much smaller when they finally come true?

We read fantasy to find the colors again, I think. To taste strong spices and hear the songs the sirens sang. There is something old and true in fantasy that speaks to something deep within us, to the child who dreamt that one day he would hunt the forests of the night, and feast beneath the hollow hills, and find a love to last forever somewhere south of Oz and north of Shangri-La.

They can keep their heaven. When I die, I'd sooner go to middle Earth.”
― George R.R. Martin

“Winter is coming.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“It's called civilization. Women invented it, and every time you men blow it all to bits, we just invent it again.”
― Orson Scott Card, The Folk of the Fringe