ariesmagic > ariesmagic's Quotes

“The truth is, everyone likes to look down on someone. If your favorites are all avant-garde writers who throw in Sanskrit and German, you can look down on everyone. If your favorites are all Oprah Book Club books, you can at least look down on mystery readers. Mystery readers have sci-fi readers. Sci-fi can look down on fantasy. And yes, fantasy readers have their own snobbishness. I’ll bet this, though: in a hundred years, people will be writing a lot more dissertations on Harry Potter than on John Updike. Look, Charles Dickens wrote popular fiction. Shakespeare wrote popular fiction—until he wrote his sonnets, desperate to show the literati of his day that he was real artist. Edgar Allan Poe tied himself in knots because no one realized he was a genius. The core of the problem is how we want to define “literature”. The Latin root simply means “letters”. Those letters are either delivered—they connect with an audience—or they don’t. For some, that audience is a few thousand college professors and some critics. For others, its twenty million women desperate for romance in their lives. Those connections happen because the books successfully communicate something real about the human experience. Sure, there are trashy books that do really well, but that’s because there are trashy facets of humanity. What people value in their books—and thus what they count as literature—really tells you more about them than it does about the book.”
― Brent weeks

“You possess other people's...bodies."

He accepted that statement with a nod.

"Do you want to possess my body?"

"I want to do a lot of things to your body, but that's not one of them.”
― Becca Fitzpatrick, Hush, Hush

“And once, a sophomore English teacher, Mr. Watts, found out that one of his students had spent the past eight class periods carving an elaborate design into his desk. The "artwork" read: "Mr. Watts and Dickens sucks dick." Mr. Watts confronted the carver, telling him, "That's wrong!" Then Mr. Watts took the knife and crossed out the last s in sucks. "This sentence has two objects," he explained. "You need to conjugate the verb differently." And he handed the knife back.”
― Flynn Meaney, Bloodthirsty

“Swanstein seriously had tears coming down his face! I watched in amazement. Seeing girls cry makes me very uncomfortable, but a fellow male in tears, in public, was pure fascination. I wanted to get a front-row seat and put on some 3-D glasses for the show.”
― Flynn Meaney, Bloodthirsty

“You all right?" he asked.
I felt dizzy. "Yeah. Lots of blood, though..."
"The head always bleeds a lot," Luke told me. "Remember when I fell from the chandelier?"
I smiled through my nausea. "Yeah."
"And from that third-story window?"
"Yeah."
"And from the flagpole of our Montessori school?"
"I remember." I managed a small laugh. "But I'm surprised you do.”
― Flynn Meaney, Bloodthirsty

“I mean, I've had the name Finbar for sixteen years, and I've only been punched in the face once.”
― Flynn Meaney, Bloodthirsty

“I did remember. The librarian had picked me up and held me to her chest as we evacuated beneath the flashing fire alarm. I'd felt so safe and nonflammable between her breasts.
"So what's that got to do with you?" I asked.
"I knew you liked her," Luke said. "So I set that up."
"You pulled the alarm?" I asked, shocked.
"No!" Luke protested. Then he grinned. "I set the fire.”
― Flynn Meaney, Bloodthirsty

“To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man's life.”
― T.S. Eliot, The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism

“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

“A person can be educated and still be stupid, and a wise man can have no education at all.”
― Jennifer A. Nielsen, The False Prince

“I never denied being a fool. That's the difference between us.”
― Jennifer A. Nielsen

“You eat with your left hand. That's unacceptable. Can you do it with your right?"
"Can you do it with your left?”
― Jennifer A. Nielsen

“There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.”
― Socrates

“Too many of us are hung up on what we don't have, can't have, or won't ever have. We spend too much energy being down, when we could use that same energy – if not less of it – doing, or at least trying to do, some of the things we really want to do.”
― Terry McMillan , Disappearing Acts

“Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.”
― Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse: Dune

“The unfed mind devours itself.”
― Gore Vidal

“Still, the image haunted his dreams throughout the night: a lovely girl gazing at the stars, and the stars who gazed back.”
― Sarah J. Maas, Throne of Glass

“I carry your heart with me. I carry it in my heart. I am never without it. Anywhere I go, you go, my dear. And whatever is done by only me...is your doing. I fear no fate...for you are my fate, I want no world cause you are my world. Here is the deepest secret no one knows. Here is the root of root and bud of bud & the sky of the sky of the tree of life. Which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide. It's the wonder that keeps the stars apart.”
― E.E. Cummings

“What's the point in having a mind if you don't use it to make judgements?"

"What's the point of having a heart if you don't use it to spare others from the harsh judgements of your mind?”
― Sarah J. Maas

“Libraries were full of ideas—perhaps the most dangerous and powerful of all weapons.”
― Sarah J. Maas, Throne of Glass

“When we die," she said, "I don't think the gods will even know what to do with us.”
― Sarah J. Maas, The Assassin and the Empire

“We all bear scars,... Mine just happen to be more visible than most.”
― Sarah J. Maas, Throne of Glass

“Real generosity towards the future lies in giving all to the present.”
― Albert Camus, Notebooks 1935-1942

“Everybody has a secret world inside of them. I mean everybody. All of the people in the whole world, I mean everybody — no matter how dull and boring they are on the outside. Inside them they've all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds... Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 5: A Game of You

“So here's the truth - I love you. I love everything about you – the way you stick up for people even when it costs you. The way you keep trying to do the right thing even when you're not exactly sure what the right thing is. I love how you put words together. You're as skilled with words as any knife fighter with a blade. You can put an enemy down on his back, or you can raise people up so they find what's best in themselves. You've changed my life. You've given me the words I need to become whatever I want.
I love how you talk to lytlings. You don't talk down to them. You respect them, and anybody can tell you're actually interested in what they have to say.
I love the way you ride a horse – how you stick there like an upland thistle, whooping like a Demonai. I love the way you throw back your head and stomp your feet when you dance. I love how you go after what you want – whether it's kisses or a queendom.
I love your skin, like copper dusted over with gold. And your eyes – they're the color of a forest lake shaded by evergreens. One of the secret places that only the Demonai know about.
I love the scent of you – when you've been out in the fresh air, and that perfume you put behind your ears sometimes.
Believe it or not, I even love your road smell – of sweat and horses and leather and wool.
I want to breathe you in for the rest of my life.”
― Cinda Williams Chima, The Crimson Crown

“Hope is a dangerous thing, Raisa thought. Once kindled, it's hard to put out. It makes wise people into fools.”
― Cinda Williams Chima, The Crimson Crown

“So," he called to her back, "Just out of curiosity, you know, purely conversation and all, at what age will you be entertaining offers of marriage?"

"You think it'll be so easy?" she called back over her shoulder. "No way. There will be tasks. Like in a fairy tale."
"Sounds dangerous."
"Very, so think twice."

"No need," he said. "You're worth it.”
― Laini Taylor, Days of Blood & Starlight

“Dead souls dream only of death. Small dreams for small men. It is life that expands to fill worlds. Life is your master, or death is”
― Laini Taylor, Days of Blood & Starlight

“A wave of weariness took him. How could life be so unrelentingly ugly?”
― Laini Taylor, Days of Blood & Starlight

“Yes, I have a driver's license."

I leaned back against the wall, sighing. "Man, that must be so cool."

"It ranks right up there with lockers. In fact, sometimes I put my license inside my locker, and it's so cool I worry that the whole thing might explode with the sheer coolness of it all.”
― Kiersten White, Paranormalcy