Olya Finnegan > Olya's Quotes

“You and I keep looking for light in the darkness, expecting it to appear. But it already has.” I touch his shoulder. “We’re it, boyo. Broken and cracked and stupid as we are, we’re the light, and we’re spreading.”
― Pierce Brown, Morning Star

“justice isn’t about fixing the past, it’s about fixing the future. We’re not fighting for the dead. We’re fighting for the living. And for those who aren’t yet born.”
― Pierce Brown, Morning Star

“What is pride without honor? What is honor without truth? Honor is not what you say. It is not what you read.” Romulus thumps his chest. “Honor is what you do.”
― Pierce Brown, Morning Star

“In war, men lose what makes them great. Their creativity. Their wisdom. Their joy. All that’s left is their utility.”
― Pierce Brown, Morning Star

“In his eyes I glimpse the loneliness, the longing for a life that should have been, and the glimmer of the man he wants to be underneath the man he thinks he has to be.”
― Pierce Brown, Morning Star

“Major, to what extent did you act upon your feelings for Miss LaRoux?"

"Medium."

"Excuse me?"

"How am I supposed to answer that question?”
― Amie Kaufman, Meagan Spooner, These Broken Stars

“Your key concerns at that stage?”

“Well, Miss LaRoux had a party she didn’t want to miss, and I—”

“Major, you don’t seem to understand the seriousness of your situation.”

“Sure I do. What the hell do you think our key concerns were?”
― Amie Kaufman, These Broken Stars

“The last thing I need added to my list of credentials is ‘stabbed by a mattress,’ in addition to a cocktail skewer”
― Amie Kaufman, This Shattered World

“One rather thick volume was titled Means of Execution Through the Ages, and was placed with an elegant balance of nonchalance and availability at the eye level of anyone entering the room. As threats went, it was nearly subliminal—and perhaps it was placed there for that very reason.”
― Jim Butcher, The Aeronaut's Windlass

“It was a well-known fact that humans became more addled than usual when running in herds.”
― Jim Butcher, The Aeronaut's Windlass

“Predator is not property,” Grimm said in a calm, level tone. “She is not my possession. She is my home. Her crew are not my employees. They are my family. And if you threaten to take my home and destroy the livelihood of my family again, Commodore, I will be inclined to kill you where you stand.”
― Jim Butcher, The Aeronaut's Windlass

“The heart of democracy is violence, Miss Tagwynn,” Esterbrook said. “In order to decide what to do, we take a count of everyone for and against it, and then do whatever the larger side wishes to do. We’re having a symbolic battle, its outcome decided by simple numbers. It saves us time and no end of trouble counting actual bodies—but don’t mistake it for anything but ritualized violence. And every few years, if the person we elected doesn’t do the job we wanted, we vote him out of office—we symbolically behead him and replace him with someone else. Again, without the actual pain and bloodshed, but acting out the ritual of violence nonetheless. It’s actually a very practical way of getting things done.”
― Jim Butcher, The Aeronaut's Windlass

“Bridget blinked once. “Books do not have souls, sir.” “Those who write them do,” Ferus said. “They leave bits and pieces behind them when they lay down the words, some scraps and smears of their essential nature.” He sniffed. “Most untidy, really—but assemble enough scraps and one might have something approaching a whole.” “You believe that the library has a soul,” Bridget said carefully. “I do not believe it, young lady,” Ferus said rather stiffly. “I know it.”
― Jim Butcher, The Aeronaut's Windlass

“It's a tradition,” Grimm said. “Were traditions rational, they’d be procedures.”
― Jim Butcher, The Aeronaut's Windlass

“After the way I left, I suddenly find myself wanting very much to go home. But . . . it won’t be the same when I get back. Will it?” “It will be the same,” Grimm said. “You’re the one who has changed.”
― Jim Butcher, The Aeronaut's Windlass

“There are many things you have never done,” Rowl responded. “To be frightened of them is of no use to you.”
― Jim Butcher, The Aeronaut's Windlass

“Let me be clear that I never offered House Astor an insult... Nor did I insult Reginald. I simply described him in accurate terms. If he finds himself insulted by the truth, it's hardly my concern.”
― Jim Butcher, The Aeronaut's Windlass

“...if you go exploring, you might find something that could hurt you."

"If one doesn't , one is not truly exploring”
― Jim Butcher, The Aeronaut's Windlass

“the worst madmen don’t seem odd at all,” Grimm said. “They appear to be quite calm and rational, in fact. Until the screaming starts.”
― Jim Butcher, The Aeronaut's Windlass

“A wonderful place, the mind, but if it has any kind of disappointing failure, it’s that it always attempts to put new things into the context of things which are already familiar to it.”
― Jim Butcher, The Aeronaut's Windlass

“I love you,” Journeyman said to the lift crystal. He kissed it and spread his arms across its surface in an embrace. “I love you, you big, beautiful beast. I want you to marry me. I want you to bear my children.”
“Chief,” Grimm said, reproachfully, but his heart wasn’t in it.”
― Jim Butcher, The Aeronaut's Windlass

“One grip shy of a steering column? Grimm suggested. Ten degrees short of a compass? Aviating without goggles?”
― Jim Butcher, The Aeronaut's Windlass

“It is often very useful for others to think you less intelligent than you are, "Benedict said, his tone amused. "It works particularly well against those who aren't as intelligent as you in the first place.”
― Jim Butcher, The Aeronaut's Windlass

“He’s a rather brilliant defensive tactician,” Grimm said. “I agree,” Bayard said. “The problem is that he’s an inept defensive strategist.”
― Jim Butcher, The Aeronaut's Windlass

“What did the heroines in dramas and books do in such circumstances?

Frequently, it seemed, they would use their feminine wiles upon their male captors, promising them amorous attention and then turning the tables upon the foe when the moment was right (But before, of course, sacrificing anything like their virtue for the cause).

Bridget hadn't been an agent of the Spirearch for very long, but she felt that she had the concept sufficiently surrounded to see that such a ploy was unlikely to work. Even if Ciriaco had been amenable to such a thing, he had no real reason to release her from her bonds, now, did he? And, in point of fact, what captor with any professionalism at all would be taken in by such a ploy in the first place?

Besides, Bridget was not at all sure that she had any feminine wiles. And even if she did, she felt certain that they would not function as flawlessly in life as they did in tales and dramas.”
― Jim Butcher, The Aeronaut's Windlass

“Then this," Grimm said, "is what I believe professional inquisitors refer to as a clue."
"In my considered judgment as an occasional inquisitor for the Spirearch," Benedict said, "I believe you may be correct.”
― Jim Butcher, The Aeronaut's Windlass

“Strategy and tactics, discipline and protocol are necessary, but they’re just the beginning. You have to know people, Byron. How they think, what motivates them. Watch. Learn.”
― Jim Butcher, The Aeronaut's Windlass

“The older you get, I should think, the more you will come to understand that the universe is very much a looking glass, Miss Lancaster.” “Meaning what, precisely?” “That it reflects a great deal more of yourself to your senses than you probably know.”
― Jim Butcher, The Aeronaut's Windlass

“Heroines in dramas, Bridget felt, really ought to have more sense.”
― Jim Butcher, The Aeronaut's Windlass

“The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.”
― Terry Pratchett, Diggers