Lea Williams > Lea's Quotes

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

“I will hurt you for this. I don't know how yet, but give me time. A day will come when you think yourself safe and happy, and suddenly your joy will turn to ashes in your mouth, and you'll know the debt is paid.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings

“Power resides only where men believe it resides. [...] A shadow on the wall, yet shadows can kill. And ofttimes a very small man can cast a very large shadow.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings

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

“Bran thought about it. 'Can a man still be brave if he's afraid?'
'That is the only time a man can be brave,' his father told him.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“When you play a game of thrones you win or you die.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“What do we say to the Lord of Death?'

'Not today.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“In the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out of the sun.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“I feel like I could eat the world raw.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“You're mine," she whispered. "Mine, as I'm yours. And if we die, we die. All men must die, Jon Snow. But first, we'll live.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords

“We look up at the same stars and see such different things.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords

“It all goes back and back," Tyrion thought, "to our mothers and fathers and theirs before them. We are puppets dancing on the strings of those who came before us, and one day our own children will take up our strings and dance in our steads.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords

“I've lost a hand, a father, a son, a sister, and a lover, and soon enough I will lose a brother. And yet they keep telling me House Lannister won this war.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords

“They are children, Sansa thought. They are silly little girls, even Elinor. They’ve never seen a battle, they’ve never seen a man die, they know nothing. Their dreams were full of songs and stories, the way hers had been before Joffrey cut her fathers head off. Sansa pitied them. Sansa envied them.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords

“She wondered where this courage had come from, to speak to him so frankly. From Winterfell, she thought. I am stronger within the walls of Winterfell.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords

“A pure world, Sansa thought. I do not belong here.
Yet she stepped out all the same.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords

“Drifting snowflakes brushed her face as light as lover’s kisses, and melted on her cheeks. At the center of the garden, beside the statue of the weeping woman that lay broken and half-buried on the ground, she turned her face up to the sky and closed her eyes. She could feel the snow on her lashes, taste it on her lips. It was the taste of Winterfell. The taste of innocence. The taste of dreams.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords

“I don't ever want t' leave this cave, Jon Snow. Not ever ”
― George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords

“I did not do it. Yet now I wish I had.’ He turned to face the hall, that sea of pale faces. ‘I wish I had enough poison for you all. You make me sorry that I am not the monster you would have me be, yet there it is. I am innocent, but I will get no justice here.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords

“We couldn’t have done it without somebody else! We couldn’t have won this race or got the Fleece or saved Grover or anything! We owe our lives to Tyson, Percy’s…’
‘Brother!’ I said, loud enough for everybody to hear. ‘Tyson, my baby brother.’
Tyson blushed. The crowd cheered. Annabeth planted a kiss on my cheek.”
― Rick Riordan, The Sea of Monsters

“Sometimes you simply needed someone kind to sit with you while you dealt with things.”
― Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

“Although it’s good to try new things and to keep an open mind, it’s also extremely important to stay true to who you really are.”
― Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

“I have been waiting for death all my life. I do not mean that I actively wish to die, just that I do not really want to be alive.”
― Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

“There are days when I feel so lightly connected to the earth that the threads that tether me to the planet are gossamer thin, spun sugar. A strong gust of wind could dislodge me completely, and I’d lift off and blow away, like one of those seeds in a dandelion clock. The threads tighten slightly from Monday to Friday.”
― Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

“When you're struggling hard to manage your own emotions, it becomes unbearable to have to witness other people's, to have to try and manage theirs too.”
― Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

“There are scars on my heart, just as thick, as disfiguring as those on my face. I know they’re there. I hope some undamaged tissue remains, a patch through which love can come in and flow out. I hope.”
― Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine