Marci > Marci's Quotes

“In each of us lie good and bad, light and dark, art and pain, choice and regret, cruelty and sacrifice. We’re each of us our own chiaroscuro, our own bit of illusion fighting to emerge into something solid, something real. We’ve got to forgive ourselves that. I must remember to forgive myself. Because there is a lot of grey to work with. No one can live in the light all the time.”
― Libba Bray

“Because you don't notice the light without a bit of shadow. Everything has both dark and light. You have to play with it till you get it exactly right.”
― Libba Bray, A Great and Terrible Beauty

“What if evil doesn't really exist? What if evil is something dreamed up by man, and there is nothing to struggle against except out own limitations? The constant battle between our will, our desires, and our choices?”
― Libba Bray, Rebel Angels

“You must remember, my dear lady, the most important rule of any successful illusion: First, the people must want to believe in it.”
― Libba Bray, The Sweet Far Thing

“Eve didn't choose to eat the apple. She was tempted by the serpent."
"Yes," I argue, thoughts coming out half-formed. "But...she didn't have to take a bite. She chose to.”
― Libba Bray

“Do you think they missed him terribly when he fell? Did God cry over his lost angel, I wonder?”
― Libba Bray, Rebel Angels

“People have a habit of inventing fictions they will believe wholeheartedly in order to ignore the truth they cannot accept.”
― Libba Bray, The Sweet Far Thing

“That's what living in their world is-a big lie. An illusion where everyone looks the other way and pretends that nothing unpleasant exists at all, no goblins of the dark, no ghosts of the soul.”
― Libba Bray

“I had thought Felicity dangerous a moment ago, when she felt powerful. I was wrong. Wounded and powerless, she is more dangerous than I could imagine.”
― Libba Bray, A Great and Terrible Beauty

“Heaven's brightest and best-loved angel, who was cast out for inspiring a rebellion against God. Having lost Heaven, Lucifer and his rebel angels vowed to continue fighting here on earth."
"I don't understand why he had to fight. He was already in heaven."
"True. But he wasn't content to serve. He wanted more."
"He had all he could ask for, didn't he?" Ann asks.
"Exactly." Miss Moore states. "He had to ask. He was dependent upon someone else's whim. It's a terrible thing to have no power of one's own. To be denied.”
― Libba Bray, Rebel Angels

“We create the illusions we need to go on.”
― Libba Bray

“This morning, as Charlotte approached the brick facade of Hartnett, she found herself overcome with a great sense of dread. It hit her with a strange and sudden force, and she had an overwhelming urge to turn back, get into bed and not go out for about three weeks. She stopped in her tracks. The feeling itself was alarming to Charlotte - was she sensing something? Something dangerous? And was it something supernatural or just middle school? Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference.”
― Anne Ursu, The Siren Song

“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven..”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

“Better to reign in Hell, than to serve in Heaven.”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

“Desire is not always lessened by disgust. Nor can it be bestowed, like a favor, to those most deserving of it. And as my words bind my magic, so you can know the truth. If she doesn’t desire his kiss, she won’t be free.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Ashes

“Let me put it this way, my father believed in a righteous God. Deus volt, that was his motto- 'because God wills it.' It was the Crusaders' motto, and they went into battle and were slaughtered just like my father. And when I saw him lying dead in a pool of his own blood, I knew then that I hadn't stopped believing in God. I'd just stopped believing God cared. There might be a God, Clary, and there might not, but I don't think it matters. Either way we're on our own.”
― Jace from Cassandra Clare's City of Bones, City of Bones

“We mutinied quietly, using every lesson we’d been taught by every person who’d ever used us for their own benefit.”
― Laura Wiess, Leftovers

“Ignorance of the outcome doesn't exempt you from the consequences.”
― Laura Wiess, Leftovers

“Principal Principal: Where's your late pass, mister?
Errant Student: I'm on my way to get one now.
PP: But you can't be in the hall without a pass.
ES: I know, I'm so upset. That's why I need to hurry, so I can get a pass.
Principal Principal pauses with a look on his face like Daffy Duck's when Bugs is pulling a fast one.
PP: Well, hurry up, then, and get that pass.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak

“You have to know what you stand for, not just what you stand against.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak

“I have never heard a more eloquent silence.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak

“A little kid asks my dad why that man is chopping down the tree.

Dad: He's not chopping it down. He's saving it. Those branches were long dead from disease. All plants are like that. By cutting off the damage you make it possible for the tree to grow again. You watch - by the end of summer, this tree will be the strongest on the block.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak

“Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.”
― Marthe Troly-Curtin, Phrynette Married

“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”
― Andre Gide, Autumn Leaves

“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“Secrets are more powerful when people know you've got them.”
― E. Lockhart, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

“Have you ever had so much to say that your mouth closed up tight struggling to harness the nuclear force coalescing within your words? Have you ever had so many thoughts churning inside you that you didn’t dare let them escape in case they blew you wide open? Have you ever been so angry that you couldn’t look in the mirror for fear of finding the face of evil glaring back at you?”
― Ellen Hopkins, Crank

“Harry was left to ponder in silence the depths to which girls would sink to get revenge.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

“I'm going to keep going until I succeed — or die. Don't think I don't know how this might end. I've known it for years.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets