Marie Brennan · 334 pages
Rating: (15.2K votes)
“But coming to terms with one’s sorrow is one thing; sharing it with strangers is quite another.”
― Marie Brennan, quote from A Natural History of Dragons
“I believed myself to be ready then; now, with the hindsight brought by greater age, I see myself for the naive and inexperienced young woman I was. We all begin in such a manner, though. There is no quick route to experience.”
― Marie Brennan, quote from A Natural History of Dragons
“Be warned, then: the collected volumes of this series will contain frozen mountains, foetid swamps, hostile foreigners, hostile fellow countrymen, the occasional hostile family member, bad decisions, misadventures in orienteering, diseases of an unromantic sort, and a plenitude of mud.”
― Marie Brennan, quote from A Natural History of Dragons
“You may think you see plenty of stars, friend reader, but you are wrong. Night is both blacker and more brilliant than you can imagine, and the sky a glory that puts to shame the most splendid jewels at Renwick's.”
― Marie Brennan, quote from A Natural History of Dragons
“If you wish, gentle reader, you may augment your mental tableau with dramatic orchestral accompaniment.”
― Marie Brennan, quote from A Natural History of Dragons
“There are proverbs about frying pans and fires that I might have quoted to myself, but I preferred to adapt a different one to my purposes: better the devil that would attack everyone impartially than the devil specifically looking to kill us.”
― Marie Brennan, quote from A Natural History of Dragons
“The dragon within my heart stirred, shifting her wings, as if remembering they could be used to fly.”
― Marie Brennan, quote from A Natural History of Dragons
“A husband willing to fund a library for his bookish wife is not so easy to obtain; most would see it as a pointless expense. You might, however, find one willing to share his library.”
― Marie Brennan, quote from A Natural History of Dragons
“More shouts, and then my father was there, staring down at me in horror: the minor pagan god, appalled at what his worshiper had done.”
― Marie Brennan, quote from A Natural History of Dragons
“Just as Manda Lewis's impressions of the world had been informed by her reading-- leading her to expect balls, duels, and conveniently timed thunderstorms out of life-- so, too, had mine; but what I expected was intellectual commerce between equals.”
― Marie Brennan, quote from A Natural History of Dragons
“Entomologists trap insects in their killing jars and then pin their corpses to cards, and no one utters a single squeak of protest. For that matter, let a gentleman hunt a tiger for its skin, and everyone applauds his courage. But to shoot a dragon for science? That, for some reason, is cruel.”
― Marie Brennan, quote from A Natural History of Dragons
“The hunt for spouses is an activity on a par with fox-hunting or hawking, though the weapons and dramatis personae differ. Just as grizzled old men know the habits of hares and quail, so do elegant society gossips know every titbit about the year’s eligible men and women.”
― Marie Brennan, quote from A Natural History of Dragons
“You may think you see plenty of stars, friend reader, but you are wrong. Night is both blacker and more brilliant than you can imagine, and the sky a glory that puts to shame the most splendid jewels at Renwick’s. Up in the mountains, where the air is crisper than the humid atmosphere of Scirland, I beheld a beauty I had never before seen.”
― Marie Brennan, quote from A Natural History of Dragons
“Why do chickens have wishbones?" I asked her one day.
One of the kitchen maids answered me in the fatuous tones of an adult adressing a child. "To make wishes on them!" (...) "You take one side of it -"
"I know what we do with them (...) That's not what chickens have them for, though, or surely the chicken would have wished not to end up in the pot for out supper.”
― Marie Brennan, quote from A Natural History of Dragons
“But I know, at least, that you would keep a library on the subject, and I hoped that I might be allowed to read from it.” He regarded me with a bemused expression. “You want me for my library.”
― Marie Brennan, quote from A Natural History of Dragons
“I have often found this to be true since, that matters which seem terribly important in the early days of such a journey (what will people back home say?) fade into triviality with the passage of time.”
― Marie Brennan, quote from A Natural History of Dragons
Marie Brennan
Born place: The United States
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“The whiles some one did chaunt this louely lay;
Ah see, who so faire thing doest faine to see,
In springing flowre the image of thy day;
Ah see the Virgin Rose, how sweetly shee
Doth first peepe forth with bashfull modestee,
That fairer seemes, the lesse ye see her may;
Lo see soone after, how more bold and free
Her bared bosome she doth broad display;
Loe see soone after, how she fades, and falles away.
So passeth, in the passing of a day,
Of mortall life the leafe, the bud, the flowre,
Ne more doth flourish after first decay,
That earst was sought to decke both bed and bowre,
Of many a Ladie, and many a Paramowre:
Gather therefore the Rose, whilest yet is prime,
For soone comes age, that will her pride deflowre:
Gather the Rose of love, whilest yet is time,
Whilest louing thou mayst loued be with equall crime.”
― Edmund Spenser, quote from The Faerie Queene
“They held the funeral on the second day, with the town coming to look at Miss Emily beneath a mass of bought flowers with the crayon face of her father musing profoundly above the bier and the ladies sibilant and macabre; and the very old men - some in their brushed Confederate uniforms - on the porch and the lawn, talking of Miss Emily as if she had been a contemporary of theirs, believing that they had danced with her and courted her perhaps, confusing time with its mathematical progression, as the old do, to whom all the past is not a diminishing road but, instead, a huge meadow which no winter ever quite touches, divided from them now by the narrow bottle-neck of the most recent decade of years.”
― William Faulkner, quote from A Rose for Emily and Other Stories
“Live life by the abc's...adventure, bravery and creativity.”
― James Thurber, quote from The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
“He explained that the leaf had fallen over and over from that same tree so I would stop trying to understand.”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from A Separate Reality
“As she neared the gazebo, the unmistakable sounds of passion drifted from the interior. She halted as a woman let out a long, soft moan.
"Oh, Robby, we need to stop. We're missing the party."
"I canna wait another minute," he grumbled in a low voice. "I need you now, Olivia."
The woman let out another long moan that Caitlyn could only interpret as surrender. She tiptoed across the grass, headed in another direction. A feminine squeal emanated from the gazebo, followed by a masculine growl.”
― Kerrelyn Sparks, quote from Eat Prey Love
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