Missy > Missy's Quotes

“The Bible just said ‘Thou shalt not kill’, then told hundreds of stories of people killing each other and becoming heroes, like David with Goliath.”
― John Marsden, Tomorrow, When the War Began

“I'm not a legend or a hero, I don't slay dragons, I don't do any of the things that a real hero can. But I can make things better, one day at a time, for most of the kingdom.”
― Mercedes Lackey, Fortune's Fool

“Things to do today:
1) Breathe in.
2) Breathe out.”
― Ned Vizzini, It's Kind of a Funny Story

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.”
― Frank Herbert

“KISS ME, HARDY! Kiss me, QUICK!”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“I don't care if I pass your test, I don't care if I follow your rules. If you can cheat, so can I. I won't let you beat me unfairly - I'll beat you unfairly first.
- Ender ”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game

“Perhaps it's impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game

“In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them.... I destroy them.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game

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

“Humanity does not ask us to be happy. It merely asks us to be brilliant on its behalf.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game

“I've lived too long with pain. I won't know who I am without it.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game

“Rule number one: Don't fuck with librarians.”
― Neil Gaiman

“All Librarians are Secret Masters of Severe Magic. Goes with the territory.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two

“Adult librarians are like lazy bakers: their patrons want a jelly doughnut, so they give them a jelly doughnut. Children’s librarians are ambitious bakers: 'You like the jelly doughnut? I’ll get you a jelly doughnut. But you should try my cruller, too. My cruller is gonna blow your mind, kid.”
― John Green

“Don't you see? You can't be brave without being afraid. The brave ones are always afraid. But they do what they must, even so.”
― Teri Hall, The Line

“You know how sometimes you lie in bed at night and think, “What if the law of gravity just wears out and lets go and I drift into space?” Does that ever make you anxious?”
― Elaine May

“The beautiful part of writing is that you don't have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon.”
― Robert Cormier

“It's amazing that the heart makes no noise when it cracks.”
― Robert Cormier, Heroes

“You don’t have a soul, Doctor. You are a soul. You have a body, temporarily.”
― Walter M. Miller Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz

“Because a doubt is not a denial. Doubt is a powerful tool, and it should be applied to history.”
― Walter M. Miller Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz

“I'm not so sure he's mad, Father. Just a little devious in his sanity.”
― Walter M. Miller Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz

“Bless me Father, I ate a lizard.”
― Walter Miller Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz

“Steel screams when it's forged, it gasps when it's quenched. It creaks when it goes under load. I think even steel is scared, son. Take half an hour to think? A drink of water? A drink of wind? Totter off awhile. If it makes you seasick, then prudently vomit. If it makes you terrified, scream. If it makes you anything, pray.”
― Walter M. Miller Jr.

“That contraption -- listen, Brother, they claim it thinks. I didn't believe it at first. Thought, implying rational principle, implying soul. Can the principle of a 'thinking machine' -- man-made -- be a rational soul? Bah! It seemed a thoroughly pagan notion at first. But do you know what?"

"Father?"

"Nothing could be that perverse without premeditation! It must think! It knows good and evil, I tell you, and it chose the latter.”
― Walter M. Miller Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz

“The truth is, Colonel, that there's no divine spark, bless you. There's many a man alive no more value than a dead dog. Believe me, when you've seen them hang each other...Equality? Christ in Heaven. What I'm fighting for is the right to prove I'm a better man than many. Where have you seen this divine spark in operation, Colonel? Where have you noted this magnificent equality? The Great White Joker in the Sky dooms us all to stupidity or poverty from birth. no two things on earth are equal or have an equal chance, not a leaf nor a tree. There's many a man worse than me, and some better, but I don't think race or country matters a damn. What matters is justice. 'Tis why I'm here. I'll be treated as I deserve, not as my father deserved. I'm Kilrain, and I God damn all gentlemen. I don't know who me father was and I don't give a damn. There's only one aristocracy, and that's right here - " he tapped his white skull with a thick finger - "and YOU, Colonel laddie, are a member of it and don't even know it. You are damned good at everything I've seen you do, a lovely soldier, an honest man, and you got a good heart on you too, which is rare in clever men. Strange thing. I'm not a clever man meself, but I know it when I run across it. The strange and marvelous thing about you, Colonel darlin', is that you believe in mankind, even preachers, whereas when you've got my great experience of the world you will have learned that good men are rare, much rarer than you think.”
― Michael Shaara, The Killer Angels

“He bent down, scratched the black dirt into his fingers. He was beginning to warm to it; the words were beginning to flow. No one in front of him was moving. He said, "This is free ground. All the way from here to the Pacific Ocean. No man has to bow. No man born to royalty. Here we judge you by what you do, not by what your father was. Here you can be something. Here's a place to build a home. It isn't the land--there's always more land. It's the idea that we all have value, you and me, we're worth something more than the dirt. I never saw dirt I'd die for, but I'm not asking you to come join us and fight for dirt. What we're all fighting for, in the end, is each other.”
― Michael Shaara, The Killer Angels

“Why do there have to be men like that, men who enjoy another man's dying?”
― Michael Shaara, The Killer Angels

“A man who has been shot at is a new realist, and what do you say to a realist when the war is a war of ideals?”
― Michael Shaara, The Killer Angels

“I don't really understand it. Never have. The more I think on it the more it horrifies me. How can they look in the eyes of a man and make a slave of him and then quote the Bible?”
― Michael Shaara, The Killer Angels