Celinda > Celinda's Quotes

“You are not weak. You are not indecisive. You are strong. Fierce. Capable beyond measure.”
― Renee Ahdieh, The Wrath and the Dawn

“You were raised in a world of nobility. You know a world I do not. You know what forks to use in a formal setting, and you do not hesitate in battle. But I was raised in a world you cannot fathom....I was raised in a world where I had thousands of friends, each one waiting for me on a shelf everyday. While you practiced with bow and sword, I read. The Imperial Library houses my confidants, and I nearly spent a decade hanging onto their every word. I know them well, and if you will stop questioning me, I will be so kind as to impact their secrets to you.' —Vhalla Yarl”
― Elise Kova, Fire Falling

“Is that any way for a lady to sit?" Aldrik teased.

Vhalla: "I am a lady, and I am sitting this way; therefore, yes.”
― Elise Kova, Water's Wrath

“And I Said To My Soul, Be Loud

Madden me back to an afternoon
I carry in me
not like a wound
but like a will against a wound

Give me again enough man
to be the child
choosing my own annihilations

To make of this severed limb
a wand to conjure
a weapon to shatter
dark matter of the dirt daubers' nests
galaxies of glass

Whacking glints
bash-dancing on the cellar's fire
I am the sound the sun would make
if the sun could make a sound

and the gasp of rot
stabbed from the compost's lumpen living death
is me

O my life my war in a jar
I shake you and shake you
and may the best ant win

For I am come a whirlwind of wasted things
and I will ride this tantrum back to God

until my fixed self, my fluorescent self
my grief–nibbling, unbewildered, wall–to–wall self
withers in me like a salted slug”
― Christian Wiman, Every Riven Thing: Poems

“In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“Now hear me. Before the end, you will pluck snowdrops at midwinter, die by your own choosing, and weep for a nightingale.”
― Katherine Arden, The Bear and the Nightingale

“That's how you get deathless, volchitsa. Walk the same tale over and over, until you wear a groove in the world, until even if you vanished, the tale would keep turning, keep playing, like a phonograph, and you'd have to get up again, even with a bullet through your eye, to play your part and say your lines.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Éowyn I am, Éomund's daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

“She bent forward to breathe into his ear: "Never give me orders."
"Command me, then," he whispered back. The words went through her like wine.”
― Katherine Arden, The Winter of the Witch

“If I wanted to imprison someone until the end of days, would it not be best to use a prison that he has no desire to escape?”
― Katherine Arden, The Winter of the Witch

“Irene made a private mental resolution that if she ever became a queen, her throne would incorporate a cushion. Also a convenient bookcase.”
― Genevieve Cogman, The Lost Plot

“The atmosphere of the place soothed her automatically; the rich lantern lights, the sheer scent of paper and leather, and the fact that everywhere she looked, there were books, books, beautiful books.”
― Genevieve Cogman, The Invisible Library

“Sasha looked at his sister. He had never thought of her as girlish, but the last trace of softness was gone. The quick brain, the strong limbs were there: fiercely, almost defiantly present, though concealed beneath her encumbering dress. She was more feminine than she had ever been, and less. Witch. The word drifted across his mind. We call such women so, because we have no other name.”
― Katherine Arden, The Girl in the Tower

“Love is for those who know the griefs of time, for it goes hand in hand with loss. An eternity, so burdened, would be a torment. And yet—” He broke off, drew breath. “Yet what else to call it, this terror and this joy?”
― Katherine Arden, The Winter of the Witch

“What are you doing to me, you plague of a girl?” he whispered.
“If I’m a plague, then you should keep your distance, unless you plan on being destroyed.” The weapons still in her grasp, she shoved against his chest.
“No.” His hands dropped to her waist. “Destroy me.”
― Renee Ahdieh, The Wrath and the Dawn

“So you would have me throw Shazi to the wolves?”
“Shazi?” Jalal’s grin widened. “Honestly, I pity the wolves.”
― Renee Ahdieh, The Wrath and the Dawn

“Solovey will take me to the ends of the earth if I ask it. I am going into the world, Alyosha. I will be no one's bride, neither of man nor of God. I am going to Kiev and Sarai and Tsargrad, and I will look upon the sun on the sea.”
― Katherine Arden, The Bear and the Nightingale

“You left me this mad girl, and I love her well. She is braver and wilder than any of my sons.”
― Katherine Arden, The Bear and the Nightingale

“Sleep is cousin to death, Vasya. And both are mine.”
― Katherine Arden, The Bear and the Nightingale

“Come in, Vasya,' he said. 'It is cold.' Could the snow-laden night speak, it might have spoken with that voice.”
― Katherine Arden, The Girl in the Tower

“You were such a sweet child, when I first met you by this very tree,” remarked the Bear. “What happened?” His voice was mocking, but she could feel the tension in him when she began to undo the golden clasps.
“What happened? Love, betrayal, and time,” said Vasya. “What happens to anyone who grows to understand you, Medved? Living happens.”
― Katherine Arden, The Winter of the Witch

“Why does tragedy exist? Because you are full of rage. Why are you full of rage? Because you are full of grief.”
― Anne Carson (Translator), Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides

“Men are also wicked," Vasya returned passionately. "And good, and everything in between. Chyerti are, just as men are, just as the earth herself is. Chyerti are sometimes wise and sometimes foolish, sometimes good and sometimes cruel. God rules the next world, but what of this one? Men may seek salvation in heaven and also make offerings to their hearth-spirits, to keep their house safe from evil. Did not God make chyerti, as He made everything else in heaven and earth?”
― Katherine Arden, The Winter of the Witch

“I can live alone, if self-respect, and circumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss. I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.”
― Anna Quindlen

“Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.”
― William Butler Yeats, The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats

“To feel anything
deranges you. To be seen
feeling anything strips you
naked. In the grip of it
pleasure or pain doesn’t
matter. You think what
will they do what new
power will they acquire if
they see me naked like
this. If they see you
feeling. You have no idea
what. It’s not about them.
To be seen is the penalty.”
― Anne Carson, Red Doc>

“To be running breathlessly, but not yet arrived, is itself delightful, a suspended moment of living hope.”
― Anne Carson, Eros the Bittersweet

“It is easier to tell a story of how people wound one another than of what binds them together.”
― Anne Carson, Plainwater: Essays and Poetry