Petronilla > Petronilla's Quotes

“Chi abita nel cielo e quanto paga
d' affitto? Ecco le lune
di Giove sopra i fili del telefono, il viale
sarà tutto magnolie e i giardinieri
avranno un gran lavoro.”
― Elio Pagliarani, La Ragazza Carla / A Girl Named Carla

“- Non le succede qualche volta, guardando la forma del fuoco, di provare una strana sensazione? - chiese a Miyake.
- Cioè?
- Sentire in modo stranamente preciso delle cose che nella vita di tutti i giorni di solito non percepiamo. Non so come dire...non sono brava a esprimermi, ma a stare così a guardare il fuoco, senza alcuna ragione provo una sensazione di pace.
Miyake ci pensò su.
- La forma del fuoco è libera. E siccome è libera, chi la guarda può vederci qualunque cosa. Se lei guardando il fuoco prova una sensazione di pace, è perché la sensazione di pace che ha dentro ci si riflette. Capisce cosa intendo?
- Sì.
- Però, non si può dire che questo succeda guardando le fiamme di qualsiasi fuoco. Perché accada, le fiamme devono essere libere.”
― Haruki Murakami, After the Quake

“- Lei non è di quella zona? - gli chiese il fotografo che viaggiava con lui.
- Sì, - rispose.
Tuttavia non telefonò ai suoi. Junpei prese l'aereo e ritornò a Tokyo e alla sua solita routine. Non accendeva la televisione e non apriva i giornali. Quando si parlava di terremoto, taceva. Era un'eco da un passato morto e lontano. Dopo la laurea non aveva mai più messo piede in quella città. Ma ciononostante le immagini di quel paesaggio in rovina avevano riaperto in lui ferite nascoste. Sembrava che quel disastro immane, fatale, stesse modificando impercettibilmente ma inesorabilmente diversi aspetti della sua vita. Provava un profondo senso di solitudine, mai avvertito prima.
Non ho nessuna radice, pensava, non sono legato a nulla.”
― Haruki Murakami, After the Quake

“If life has taught me one thing, it's that there are no villains. Only people, doing their best.”
― Joe Abercrombie, Half a King

“What is the world coming to when an honest man cannot burn corpses without suspicion?" asked Nothing.”
― Joe Abercrombie, Half a King

“A minister stands for Father Peace, but a good one is no stranger to Mother War.”
― Joe Abercrombie, Half a King

“sad to say, not all men that die are killed by me.”
― Joe Abercrombie, Half a King

“When the fire goes out, you'll start feeling the cold. You'll wake up whether you want to or not.”
― Haruki Murakami, After the Quake

“I want to write about people who dream and wait for the night to end, who long for the light so they can hold the ones they love.”
― Haruki Murakami, After the Quake

“A fire can be any shape it wants to be. It's free. So it can look like anything at all, depending on what's inside the person looking at it. If you get this deep, quiet kind of feeling when you look at a fire, that's because it's showing you the deep, quiet kind of feeling you have inside yourself...”
― Haruki Murakami, After the Quake

“You know something?" she said.
"What?"
"I'm completely empty."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah.”
― Haruki Murakami, After the Quake

“There's nothing at all in here," she said much later, her voice hoarse. "I'm cleaned out. Empty.”
― Haruki Murakami, After the Quake

“A gust of wind set the leaves of grass to dancing and celebrated the grass's song before it died.”
― Haruki Murakami, After the Quake

“—Dice que hay una piedra dentro de usted. Una piedra blanca y dura. Grande como el puño de un niño. No sabe de dónde ha venido.
—¿Una piedra? —dijo Satsuki.
—En la piedra hay algo escrito, pero está en japonés y no puede leerlo. Hay trazados unos pequeños caracteres en tinta negra. Es algo muy antiguo, usted debe de llevar muchos años viviendo con ello en su interior. Debe deshacerse de esa piedra. Si no lo hace, esa piedra permanecerá, ella sola, incluso después de que usted haya muerto y hayan incinerado su cuerpo. (Tailandia)”
― Haruki Murakami, After the Quake

“And besides, thought Yoshida, If it was all right for God to test man, why was it wrong for man to test God?”
― Haruki Murakami, After the Quake

“If I cannot be better than them, I will become so much worse.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“What could I become if I stopped worrying about death, about pain, about anything? If I stopped trying to belong? Instead of being afraid, I could become something to fear.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“Because you’re like a story that hasn’t happened yet. Because I want to see what you will do. I want to be part of the unfolding of the tale.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“Father, I am what you made me. I’ve become your daughter after all.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“That’s what comes of hungering for something; you forget to check if it’s rotten before you gobble it down”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“I love my parents' murderer; I suppose I could love anyone.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“I am tired of caring,” I say. “Why should I?”

“Because they could kill you!”

“They better,” I say to her. “Because anything less than that isn’t going to work.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“God damn it, Minyard. This is why we can't have nice things.”
― Nora Sakavic, The Foxhole Court

“When I see the expression ' as cruel as a tiger' and ' as bloodthirsty as a tiger' in print, I think of a small boy armed with an old muzzle-loading gun—the right barrel of which was split for six inches of its length, and the stock and barrels of which were kept from falling apart by lashings of brass wire—wandering through the jungles of the terai and bhabar in the days when there were ten tigers to every one that now survives; sleeping anywhere he happened to be when night came on, with a small fire to give him company and warmth, wakened at intervals by
the calling of tigers, sometimes in the distance, at other times near at hand; throwing another stick on the fire and turning over and continuing his interrupted sleep without one thought of unease; knowing from his own short experience and from what others, who like himself had spent their days in the jungles, had told him, that a tiger, unless molested, would do him no harm; or during daylight hours avoiding any tiger he saw, and when that was not possible, standing perfectly still until it had passed and gone, before continuing on his way. And I think of him on one occasion stalking half-a-dozen jungle fowl that were feeding in the open, and on creeping up to a plum bush and standing up to peer over, the bush heaving and a tiger walking out on the far side and, on clearing the bush, turning round and looking at the boy with an expression on its face which said as clearly as any words, 'Hello, kid, what the hell are you doing here?' and, receiving no answer, turning round and waiting away very slowly without once looking back.”
― Jim Corbett, Man-Eaters of Kumaon

“Wisdom is for the meek,” he returns. “And it seldom helps them as much as they believe it will. After all, as wise as you are, you still married Locke. Of course, perhaps you are wiser than even that—perhaps you’re so wise you made yourself a widow, too.”
― Holly Black, The Queen of Nothing

“Tell me what I must slay, what I must steal, tell me the riddle I must solve or the hag I must trick. Only tell me the way, and I will do it, no matter the danger, no matter the hardship, no matter the cost.”
― Holly Black, The Queen of Nothing

“Although many of us may think of ourselves as thinking creatures that feel, biologically we are feeling creatures that think”
― Jill Bolte Taylor, My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey

“When lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler gamester is the soonest winner”
― William Shakespeare, Henry V

“His jest shall savour but a shallow wit, when thousands more weep than did laugh it.”
― William Shakespeare, Henry V

“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”
― William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part Two