Ricky Catto

“If an optimist had his left arm chewed off by an alligator, he might say in a pleasant and hopeful voice, "Well this isn't too bad, I don't have a left arm anymore but at least nobody will ever ask me if I'm left-handed or right-handed," but most of us would say something more along the lines of, "Aaaaaa! My arm! My arm!”
― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid

“I almost never like things some people think everyone likes. I do not like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I do not like paddling a kayak in the hot sun. I do not like Santa Claus. I do not like it when someone takes out a guitar and everyone has to sing. I do not like standing in a cheering crowd, particularly if the crowd is watching people whose job it is to throw a ball throw a ball. I do not like a picture of a man on a horse. I do not like it when everybody is doing the same thing and someone is standing with a stopwatch waiting to give a prize to the person who finishes doing it first. I do not like hot chocolate and I do not like wearing a shirt or a hat with the name of a place written on it so everyone knows you have been to that place, and I am not a fan of raisins, so I am often frowning at the music in the supermarket.”
― Lemony Snicket, Poison for Breakfast

“But Juniper knows. She’s had too many hands raised against her, too many bruises, too many long nights in the lonely black of the cellar. He’s going to hurt her, maybe kill her, because there’s no one to stop him. Because he can.

Juniper keeps a little flame flickering in her chest, a bitter, hungry thing just waiting for something to burn. Now it blazes high, a towering, terrible thing. A killing thing.”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Once and Future Witches

“All stories are true,” Skarpi said. “But this one really happened, if that’s what you mean.” He took another slow drink, then smiled again, his bright eyes dancing. “More or less. You have to be a bit of a liar to tell a story the right way. Too much truth confuses the facts. Too much honesty makes you sound insincere.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind