Chris > Chris's Quotes

“The burning of a book is a sad, sad sight, for even though a book is nothing but ink and paper, it feels as if the ideas contained in the book are disappearing as the pages turn to ashes and the cover and binding--which is the term for the stitching and glue that holds the pages together--blacken and curl as the flames do their wicked work. When someone is burning a book, they are showing utter contempt for all of the thinking that produced its ideas, all of the labor that went into its words and sentences, and all of the trouble that befell the author . . .”
― Lemony Snicket, The Penultimate Peril

“Wicked people never have time for reading. It's one of the reasons for their wickedness.”
― Lemony Snicket

“The weak are cruel. The strong have no need to be.”
― Alice Hoffman, The Foretelling

“and Heaven have mercy on us all - Presbyterians and Pagans alike - for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending.”
― Herman Melville

“I thought about mistakes I had made in the past. I thought about when things went wrong. And I realized it was never an issue of intent, but of intensity. I was a good guy, recall.”
― Chris Lynch, Inexcusable

“There are just some kind of men who-who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“Do you defend niggers, Atticus?" I asked him that evening.
"Of course I do. Don't say nigger, Scout. That's common."
"'s what everybody at school says."
"From now on it'll be everybody less one--"
"Well if you don't want me to grow up talkin' that way, why do you send me to school?”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“His rage passes description - the sort of rage that is only seen when rich folk that have more than they can enjoy suddenly lose something that they have long had but have never before used or wanted.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, Or, There And Back Again

“It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again

“There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West. Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again

“Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again

“Lily told her about what had happened so far. (If you're interested, you can go back to the beginning of the book and read all the way through to this point again.)”
― M.T. Anderson, Whales on Stilts: M. T. Anderson's Thrilling Tales

“You know who you should ask about this? My pal Ray, who works with me. He could tell you all about this." Lily's dad nodded. "Except he was taken out of the office a few days ago with his hands tied behind his back and a bandanna tied as a gag on his mouth." Her father thought for a second. "Huh. He hasn't been in to work since. I wonder if he has the flu.”
― M.T. Anderson, Whales on Stilts: M. T. Anderson's Thrilling Tales

“Everybody knew that books were dangerous. Read the wrong book, it was said, and the words crawled around your brain on black legs and drove you mad, wicked mad.”
― Frances Hardinge, Fly by Night

“Where is your sense of patriotism?"

I keep it hid away safe, along with my sense of trust, Mr. Clent. I don't use 'em much in case they get scratched.”
― Frances Hardinge, Fly by Night

“If you want someone to tell you what to think," the phantom answered briskly, without looking up, "you will never be short of people willing to do so." . . . "Come now," he said at last, "you can hardly claim that I have left you ignorant. I taught you to read, did I not?”
― Frances Hardinge, Fly by Night

“Dearest dumpling, one day your imagination is going to get you into trouble," whispered his mother.

He would never do that," Pecorino replied. "We're best friends.”
― Alan Madison, Pecorino's First Concert

“Even if it's not your fault, it's your responsibility.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“Knowing things is magical, if other people don't know them.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“Normal: lacking in taste, compassion, understanding, kindness, and ordinary human decency.”
― Frank Portman, King Dork

“D and D: a role-playing game played only by very cool guys.”
― Frank Portman, King Dork

“Girls have all the same parts, basically, and so much of how they look depends on the attitude, expectations, and obsessions of those who are looking at them.”
― Frank Portman, King Dork

“He might have thought white people was coyotes, but he still shared food with me. Long as people do that, I guess it don't matter what they think of you.”
― David Ives, Scrib

“I felt flattered to be the kinda person one would kick out of a saloon. That takes some character.”
― David Ives, Scrib

“I know, up on top you are seeing great sights, but down here at the bottom we, too, should have rights.”
― Dr. Seuss, Yertle the Turtle and Gertrude McFuzz

“Books are like mirrors: if a fool looks in, you cannot expect a genius to look out.”
― J.K. Rowling

“It is difficult for my fellow countrymen who have never lived abroad to understand that until a foreign man is about sixty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he'd like to punch an American in the face. Even people like the Chinese, who mostly like us, think of us--at least partly--as loud, fat, poorly dressed, overprivileged, hectoring, naive, arrogant, self-righteous bullies with little knowledge and no interest in any culture other than our own. I once had a conversation with a Japanese journalist who said to me, "You don't seem like an American." When I asked him, slightly hurt, why he said that, he replied, "Because you listen.”
― Matthew Polly, American Shaolin: Flying Kicks, Buddhist Monks, and the Legend of Iron Crotch: An Odyssey in the New China

“Just because I'm a librarian doesn't mean I'm at all tame.”
― James Turner, Rex Libris, Volume I: I, Librarian

“In any case, fire burns; that's its nature, and you can't expect to change that. You can use it to cook your meat or to burn down your neighbor's house. And is the fire you use for cooking any different from the one you use for burning? And does that mean you should eat your supper raw?"

Maddy shook her head, still puzzled. "So what you're saying is . . . I shouldn't play with fire," she said at last.

Of course you should," said One-Eye gently. "But don't be surprised if the fire plays back.”
― Joanne Harris, Runemarks

“I realized then how much alike we were. Both of us looked backwards to a beloved time that was lost to us, a time where everything had been beautiful. Both of us looked forward to some time and place that would be better. And both of us were here, now, in a grim, unhappy time where little was as we wanted it to be. We lived in our memories and in our hopes, enduring the present because we had no other choice, and because we loved the people who lived here with us.”
― Susan Palwick, The Necessary Beggar