Lane > Lane's Quotes

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“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

“In my mind I am eloquent; I can climb intricate scaffolds of words to reach the highest cathedral ceilings and paint my thoughts. But when I open my mouth, everything collapses.”
― Isaac Marion, Warm Bodies

“One should not become an artist because he can, but because he must. It is only for those who would be miserable without it.”
― Irving Stone, The Agony and the Ecstasy

“It's a very Greek idea, and a very profound one. Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it. And what could be more terrifying and beautiful, to souls like the Greeks or our own, than to lose control completely? To throw off the chains of being for an instant, to shatter the accident of our mortal selves? Euripides speaks of the Maenads: head thrown I back, throat to the stars, "more like deer than human being." To be absolutely free! One is quite capable, of course, of working out these destructive passions in more vulgar and less efficient ways. But how glorious to release them in a single burst! To sing, to scream, to dance barefoot in the woods in the dead of night, with no more awareness of mortality than an animal! These are powerful mysteries. The bellowing of bulls. Springs of honey bubbling from the ground. If we are strong enough in our souls we can rip away the veil and look that naked, terrible beauty right in the face; let God consume us, devour us, unstring our bones. Then spit us out reborn.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“In my mind are all the tides, their seasons, their ebbs and their flows. In my mind are all the halls, the endless procession of them, the intricate pathways. When this world becomes too much for me, when I grow tired of the noise and the dirt and the people, I close my eyes and I name a particular vestibule to myself; then I name a hall.”
― Susanna Clarke, Piranesi

“The more you try to crush your true nature, the more it will control you. Be what you are. No one who really loves you will stop.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Fallen Angels

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Without music, life would be a mistake.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“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

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“My life to yours. My breath become yours.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Warbreaker

“I am what the universe made me to be, my dear.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Warbreaker

“Some love comes like the wind off the sea, while others grow slowly from the seeds of friendship and kindness.”
― Raymond E. Feist, Magician: Apprentice

“The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite.”
― Susanna Clarke, Piranesi

“May your Paths be safe, your Floors unbroken and may the House fill your eyes with Beauty.”
― Susanna Clarke, Piranesi

“Crowns do queer things to the heads beneath them.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings

“I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings

“I want to weep, she thought. I want to be comforted. I’m so tired of being strong. I want to be foolish and frightened for once. Just for a small while, that’s all …a day … an hour ...
...One day, she promised herself as she lay abed, one day she would allow herself to be less than strong.
But not today. It could not be today.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings

“Let all who look upon you see the nature of the heart beating in your breast,”
― Leife Shallcross, The Beast's Heart

“For the longest time after the curse fell, I did not know if I was a beast who dreamed of being a man, or a man who dreamed he was a beast.”
― Leife Shallcross, The Beast's Heart

“I kind of lost track of time..."
"For two hours?"
Elend nodded sheepishly. "There were books involved.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Well of Ascension

“There are two ways to stay safe, Reen's voice whispered to her. Either be so quiet and harmless that people ignore you, or be so dangerous that they're terrified of you.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Well of Ascension

“Other men are strong like bricks - firm, unyielding, but if you pound on them long enough, they crack. You... you're strong like the wind. Always there, so willing to bend, but never apologetic for the times when you must be firm.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Well of Ascension

“But you can't kill me, Lord Tyrant. I represent that one thing you've never been able to kill, no matter how hard you try. I am hope.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Mistborn: The Final Empire

“I saw, I wrote, and the world changed a little.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender's Shadow

“I think women are foolish to pretend they are equal to men, they are far superior [to men] and always have been.”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“Maybe there is a beast… maybe it's only us.”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“Evil is a point of view. We are immortal. And what we have before us are the rich feasts that conscience cannot appreciate and mortal men cannot know without regret. God kills, and so shall we; indiscriminately He takes the richest and the poorest, and so shall we; for no creatures under God are as we are, none so like Him as ourselves, dark angels not confined to the stinking limits of hell but wandering His earth and all its kingdoms.”
― Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire

“It was as if when I looked into his eyes I was standing alone on the edge of the world...on a windswept ocean beach. There was nothing but the soft roar of the waves.”
― Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire