Marija Ilic > Marija's Quotes

“A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors.”
― Charles Baudelaire

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

“People who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader and the Imagination

“At first glance, the key and the lock it fits may seem very different," Sazed said. "Different in shape, different in function, different in design. The man who looks at them without knowledge of their true nature might think them opposites, for one is meant to open, and the other to keep closed. Yet, upon closer examination he might see that without one, the other becomes useless. The wise man then sees that both lock and key were created for the same purpose.”
― 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

“Vin isn't…like other women."
Tindwyl raised an eyebrow, her voice softening slightly.
"I think that the more women you come to know, Your Majesty, the more you'll find that statement applies to all of them.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Well of Ascension

“The study's small ventilation window bumped open, and Vin squeezed through, pulling in a puff of mist behind her. She closed the window, then surveyed the room.

"More?" she asked incredulously. "You found more books?"

"Of course," Elend said.

"How many of those things have people written?" she asked with exasperation.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Well of Ascension

“Zane didn't make sense. He didn't have to. That was, perhaps, one of the advantages of being insane.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Well of Ascension

“I talk about the gods, I am an atheist. But I am an artist too, and therefore a liar. Distrust everything I say. I am telling the truth. The only truth I can understand or express is, logically defined, a lie. Psychologically defined, a symbol. Aesthetically defined, a metaphor.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness

“It seems that the rebels found the chaos of transition more difficult to accept than the tyranny they had known before. They joyfully welcomed back authority-even oppressive authority-for it was less painful for them than uncertainty.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Well of Ascension

“Reading good books ruins you for enjoying bad books.”
― Mary Ann Shaffer, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

“The prophecies are not literal, Mistress," OreSeur said. "They're metaphors - expressions of hope. Or, at least, that is how I have always seen them. Perhaps your Terris prophecies are the same? Expressions of a belief that if the people were in danger, their gods would send a Hero to protect them? In this case, the vagueness would be intentional - and rational. The prophecies were never meant to mean something specific, but more to speak of a general feeling. A general hope.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Well of Ascension

“You must love him enough to trust his wishes, even if you disagree with them. You must respect him - no matter how wrong you think he may be, no matter how poor you think his decisions, you must respect his desire to make them. Even if one of them includes loving you.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Well of Ascension

“Go to bed; tired is stupid.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea

“And yet, he was finding more and more that he didn't want to take his mind off her. Which was more potent? The pain of memory, or the pain of forgetting?”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Well of Ascension

“Do you know how to read?'
'No. It is one of the black arts.'
He nodded. 'But a useful one,' he said.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Tombs of Atuan

“The end justifies the means. But what if there never is an end? All we have is means.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven

“I write these words in steel, for anything not set in metal cannot be trusted.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Well of Ascension

“Hardly anybody ever writes anything nice about introverts. Extroverts rule. This is rather odd when you realise that about nineteen writers out of twenty are introverts. We are been taught to be ashamed of not being 'outgoing'. But a writer's job is ingoing.”
― Ursula K. LeGuin

“The skaa called Sazed holy, but at that moment he realized that he was the most profane of men. He was a creature who knew three hundred religions, yet had faith in none of them.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Well of Ascension

“I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia.”
― Woody Allen

“When you can't have both freedom and safety, boy, which do you choose?" Elend was silent. "I make my own choice," he finally said. "And I leave the others to make their own as well.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Well of Ascension

“We dream in our waking moments, and walk in our sleep.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

“If you give up what you want most for what you think you should want more, you'll end up miserable.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Hero of Ages

“No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

“I think the trick is convincing yourself that you deserve the reactions you get. You can wear the court's dresses, Vin, but make them your own. Don't worry that you aren't giving people what they want. Give them who you are, and let that be enough.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Well of Ascension

“...Chillingworth was a striking evidence of man's faculty of transforming himself into a devil, if he will only, for a reasonable space of time, undertake a devil's office.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

“I always want to know the things one shouldn't do."
"So as to do them?" asked her aunt.
"So as to choose," said Isabel”
― Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady

“Lately, I feel like my life is a book written in a language I don't know how to read.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Hero of Ages

“I'm yours for ever--for ever and ever. Here I stand; I'm as firm as a rock. If you'll only trust me, how little you'll be disappointed. Be mine as I am yours.”
― Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady