Character Study Quotes

“He had never seen a woman look like that, he thought, fascinated despite his worry for Henry. She had tied back her outrageous hair and wrapped her head carefully in a cloth like a Negro slave woman. With her face so exposed, the delicate bones made stark, the intentness of her expression -- with those yellow eyes darting like a hawk's from one thing to another -- was the most unwomanly thing he had ever seen. It was the look of a general marshaling his troops for battle, and seeing it, he felt the ball of snakes in his belly relax a little.

She knows what she's doing, he thought.

She looked at him then, and he straightened his shoulders, instinctively awaiting orders -- to his utter amazement.”
― Diana Gabaldon, An Echo in the Bone

“He was wild with panic. That familiar, friendly darkness kissed the edges of his periphery, soothing, urging him to come into it and feel peace.”
― Molly Collier, The Paragon

“He does not want to reflect on whether they’re confusing love with loyalty at this point, or that the children who have been the glue are devolving into its antidote, or, and this is too cynical, he knows, that the two of them are held together by a deeply rooted laziness, an abhorrence to having to dismantle their cluttered, complicated household and divvy up all the useless and embarrassing suburban crap they’ve accumulated lo these many years.”
― Rebecca Hardiman, Good Eggs

“Tobias was actually grinning, but thats Tobias for you. He's never scared of weird stuff. It's the normal stuff he can't stand.”
― K.A. Applegate, The Invasion

“The Peacock & The Eagle: Cleopatra's Entry Into Tarsus by Stewart Stafford

Cleopatra arrives, regal and mighty,
From ocean spray as Aphrodite,
Wealthy and waif, yearning for her,
Dared all to defy her possessive aura.

Mark Antony, struck by her sultry gaze,
Lepidus, prisoner in a bureaucrat's maze,
Sees power slipping from a friend’s hand,
Ensnared by a siren from a scorched land.

Lepidus was Caesar's trusted right hand;
A granule falling through hourglass sand,
Antony, headstrong military provocateur;
Funeral orator from bloody crown auteur.

Bargain's scorpion pincers; no longer twain:
Cleopatra was Ceres, promising Rome grain,
Antony was Mars' armed emissary,
Business and pleasure's flood tributary.

Antony: "Barge of emerald, Elysium's onyx!
Beyond counsel words of sage sardonic,
Gliding the Cydnus's silken seam,
This Nile Helen shall be my queen."

Lepidus: "Pleasure vessel of a floating whore,
Yours for a sesterce on the Tiber's shore,
Honour your oath, noble Roman creed,
Lest passion’s shipwreck sets out to sea.”

"This Venus virago on her mirage barge;
Serpent prow, silver oars, rhythmic charge!
What hubris to think she can equal,
The bloody talons of our Roman eagle!"

Antony: "Feast your eyes past peacock's bower,
She speaks Rome's tongue of naked power.
Mark it, that obsidian Sphinx stings -
Human head, lion's body, eagle wings!

"That is the form she takes to the public:
I smell a perfumed alliance for the Republic!
With Plebeians as her tickled cats, they hum,
I crave her beauty and company. Come!"

© 2024, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“This strong and rough man, whose feathers were constantly being ruffled, had suddenly softened and brightened. Something unusual and entirely unexpected had begun to stir in his soul. Three years of separation, three years of a broken marriage had dislodged nothing from his heart. And perhaps every day of those three years he had dreamed of her, of the beloved being who had once said 'I love you' to him. Knowing Shatov, I can say for certain that he would never have allowed himself even to dream that any woman could say 'I love you' to him. He was fiercely chaste and modest, regarded himself as a dreadful freak, hated his own face and character, compared himself to some monster who was fit only to be taken around and exhibited at fairs. As a consequence of all this, he valued honesty above all things and dedicated himself to his convictions to the point of fanaticism; he was sullen, proud, quick to anger and sparing with words.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons

“This strong and rough man, whose feathers were constantly being ruffled, had suddenly softened and brightened. Something unusual and entirely unexpected had begun to stir in his soul. Three years of separation, three years of a broken marriage had dislodged nothing from his heart. And perhaps every day of those three years he had dreamed of her, of the beloved being who had once said 'I love you' to him. Knowing Shatov, I can say for certain that he would never have allowed himself even to dream that any woman could say 'I love you' to him. He was fiercely chaste and modest, regarded himself as a dreadful freak, hated his own face and character, compared himself to some monster who was fit only to be taken around and exhibited at fairs. As a consequence of all this, he valued honesty above all things and dedicated himself to his convictions to the point of fanaticism; he was sullen, proud, quick to anger and sparing with words. But now this single being who had loved him for two weeks (he had always, always believed that!), this being whom he had always regarded as immeasurably superior to himself despite his utterly sober understanding of her faults; this being whom he could forgive everything, everything (of which there really true, so that in his eyes he himself was guilty of everything could be absolutely no before her), this woman, this Marya Shatova, was suddenly question, for just the opposite was actual again in his house, before him again... this was almost impossible to understand!”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons

“The pride that usually protected her like a well-worn shawl scratched at her deceptively sensitive skin. It felt as though with age, the knots of its knit grew tighter and stronger, yet the edges ever frayed.”
― Molly Collier, The Paragon

“It sometimes seemed as though there was no place for a reserved woman in the world. One was either maternal or harsh. Warm or cold. Mirai wore her chilly nature as a badge of shame, though she knew herself to be deeper and more complex than such a label. If the rest of the world was unable to see her, so be it. Mirai knew that she was more than just one thing. More than just one box. She was a myriad.”
― Molly Collier, The Paragon

“Why was it that everyone she met looked so much worse up close?”
― Molly Collier, The Paragon

“Why was it that she’d never been able to find kinship with someone her age? Why was it that the few ties she fashioned always ended up coming undone by her own doing?”
― Molly Collier, The Paragon

“But she knew herself. Her body longed to feel pain, to exact it, but her mind feared it too much to allow herself the freedom to. Besides, her knuckles were already blistering from the beating they’d been taking for the better part of an hour. Without the gloves she’d have shattered a hand by now.
Wouldn’t that be just like her. To fear pain so and yet stumble into it at every opportunity.”
― Molly Collier, The Paragon

“Though he was still young, the burden of succession weighed heavy on his shoulders—the lonely existence of a brilliant mind among the foolish.
And in that moment, in a carefully calculated show of blatant insubordination, Isla Palik brought hope to the Tactician.”
― Molly Collier, The Paragon

“One more death would make no difference. He was already damned.
It was for his queen.
It was for his queen.”
― Molly Collier, The Paragon

“Was it malice or stupidity?
Doha had found that the motivation for most confusing attributes of other people could be classified into one of those two categories.
Someone cutting in a line? Either they were too oblivious to notice the queue (stupidity—unaware of one’s surroundings) or simply didn’t care that they were inconveniencing others (malice—a prioritization of the self above others).
So, in the case of Renee refusing to call him by his preferred name, Doha had quickly inferred that she was either consistently forgetful, even after multiple reminders (stupid to a pitiful degree) or determined to call him what she wanted to, regardless of his preference (malicious, but in a rude, undercutting sort of way).”
― Molly Collier, The Paragon

“She hadn’t understood loss until it had laid her to waste, and she feared what would become of her when she was again without purpose, left to the mercy of her own grief.”
― Molly Collier, The Paragon

“She no longer felt quite so much like a sunflower always seeking the sun’s warmth, but rather like the moon—a perfect companion made to shine brighter in its presence.”
― Molly Collier, The Paragon

“These people couldn’t possibly doubt or worry or sulk. These people couldn’t possibly feel insecurity and shame and pain. These people liked to have fun, and so they did.
Was it really that simple? Could she too reduce herself to such shallow waters and escape the depths that plagued her active mind?
She was so intoxicated by the thought, that she’d convinced herself she could be like them.”
― Molly Collier, The Paragon