Natalie Storozhenko > Natalie's Quotes

“Does such a thing as 'the fatal flaw,' that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature? I used to think it didn't. Now I think it does. And I think that mine is this: a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that. So after, when he whispers, “You love me. Real or not real?” I tell him, “Real.”
― Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

“Is it disrespectful to the House to love some Statues more than others? I sometimes ask Myself this question. It is my belief that the House itself loves and blesses equally everything that it has created. Should I try to do the same? Yet, at the same time, I can see that it is in the nature of men to prefer one thing to another, to find one thing more meaningful than another.”
― Susanna Clarke, Piranesi

“You're in the right place at the right time, and you care enough to do what needs to be done. Sometimes that's enough.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“Secrets have power. And that power diminishes when they are shared, so they are best kept and kept well. Sharing secrets, real secrets, important ones, with even one other person, will change them. Writing them down is worse, because who can tell how many eyes might see them inscribed on paper, no matter how careful you might be with it. So it's really best to keep your secrets when you have them, for their own good, as well as yours.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist; a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.”
― Ursula K. LeGuin, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

“Blue was perfectly aware that it was possible to have a friendship that wasn’t all-encompassing, that wasn’t blinding, deafening, maddening, quickening. It was just that now that she’d had this kind, she didn’t want the other.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Blue Lily, Lily Blue

“Gansey stepped in then, putting his phone neatly into his pocket, fetching out his keys instead. There was still something stretched thin about his expression. He looked, in fact, like he had in the cave, his face streaked and unfamiliar. It was so strange to see him without his Richard Campbell Gansey III guise on in public that Blue couldn't stop staring at his face. No — it wasn't his face. It was the way he stood, his shoulder shrugged, chin ducked, gaze from below uncertain eyebrows.

"SHE WAS ALL RIGHT," Jesse assured him.

"My head knew that," Gansey said. "But the rest of me didn't.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Blue Lily, Lily Blue

“He was a book, and he was holding his final pages, and he wanted to get to the end to find out how it went, and he didn't want it to be over.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven King

“The head is too wise. The heart is all fire.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven King

“You're asking me to define an abstract concept that no one has managed to explain since time began. You sort of sprang it on me," Gansey said. "Why do we breathe air? Because we love air? Because we don't want to suffocate. Why do we eat? Because we don't want to starve. How do I know I love her? Because I can sleep after I talk to her. Why?”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven King

“It wasn't that Henry was less of himself in English. He was less of himself out loud. His native language was thought.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven King

“I don't care to be pretty," Blue shot back hotly, "I care to look on the outside like I look on the inside.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven King

“If you can’t be unafraid, Henry said, be afraid and happy.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven King

“It was just that there was something newly powerful about this assembled family in the car. They were all growing up and into each other like trees striving together for the sun.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven King

“Not today!” Artemus said. “No, thank you! Too many events this decade. Perhaps later! Cannot do the shock! Thank you for your time.”

He had been an adviser to kings.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven King

“Writing is the closest thing we have to real magic”
― R.F. Kuang, Yellowface

“For the first time since I submitted the manuscript, I feel a deep wash of shame. This isn’t my history, my heritage. This isn’t my community. I am an outsider, basking in their love under false pretenses. It should be Athena sitting here, smiling with these people, signing books and listening to the stories of her elders.”
― R.F. Kuang, Yellowface

“I wonder if that’s the final, obscure part of how publishing works: if the books that become big do so because at some point everyone decided, for no good reason at all, that this would be the title of the moment.”
― R.F. Kuang, Yellowface

“I have become something wonderful, she thought. I have become something terrible. Was she now a goddess or a monster? Perhaps neither. Perhaps both.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War

“Children ceased to be children when you put a sword in their hands. When you taught them to fight a war, then you armed them and put them on the front lines, they were not children anymore. They were soldiers.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War

“They were monsters!" Rin shrieked. "They were not human!"

"Have you ever considered" he said slowly "that that was exactly what they thought of us?”
― R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War

“Well, fuck the heavenly order of things. If getting married to a gross old man was her preordained role on this earth, then Rin was determined to rewrite it.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War

“I don't need your pity. I need you to kill them for me. You have to kill them for me," Venka hissed. "Swear it. Swear on your blood that you will burn them.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War

“I am a mortal who has woken up, and there is power in awareness.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War

“A rational explanation eluded her.
Because the answer could not be rational. It was not founded in military strategy. It was not because of a shortage of food rations, or because of the risk of insurgency or backlash. It was, simply, what happened when one race decided the other was insignificant.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War

“War was not a game, where one fought for honor and admiration, where masters would keep her from sustaining any real harm. War was a nightmare.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War

“If you were the victim, what could you say to make your tormentor recognize you as human? How did you get your enemy to recognize you at all?”
― R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War

“Fire and water looked so lovely together. It was a pity they destroyed each other by nature.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Dragon Republic

“People will seek to use you or destroy you. If you want to live, you must pick a side. So do not shirk from war, child. Do not flinch from suffering. When you hear screaming, run toward it.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Dragon Republic