“You two were in a cave together?’ said Miss Simpkins in horror.
‘Yes,’ said Kate, ‘and it was very, very dark.”
― Kenneth Oppel, quote from Airborn
“Why do you need to fly so much?” she asked.
“If I don’t, it’ll catch up with me.” The words just came out.
“What will?”
I took my hands from my face, panting. I stared out at the storm.
“Unhappiness.”
― Kenneth Oppel, quote from Airborn
“The sky pulsed with stars. Some people say it makes them lonesome when they stare up at the night sky. I can't imagine why. There's no shortage of company. By now there's not a constellation I can't name. Orion. Lupus. Serpens. Hercules. Draco. My father taught me all of their stories. So when I look up I see a galaxy of adventures and heroes and villains, all jostling together and trying to outdo one another, and I sometimes want to tell them to hush up and not distract me with their chatter. I've glimpsed all the stars ever discovered by astronomers, and plenty that haven't been.”
― Kenneth Oppel, quote from Airborn
“Is there anything you can't do, Mr. Cruse?" she said.
"I can't sing," I said.”
― Kenneth Oppel, quote from Airborn
“Never climb a tree in a long dress," Kate panted, coming up behind me.
"I'll remember that," I said.”
― Kenneth Oppel, quote from Airborn
“There's fancy math to explain all this, of course. (...) But when you saw the Aurora, saw her floating and rising, you forget all about the match and just stared.”
― Kenneth Oppel, quote from Airborn
“I'm glad being shipwrecked appeals to you."
"Captain Walken made a point of avoiding that word."
"Well, he was trying to keep everyone jolly, wasn't he. It's no good having everyone running around screaming and eating each other."
"I wouldn't run around screaming," she said. "I can see eating someone in a pinch, though. If it really came down to it, I mean."
"I don't doubt it."
"Come on, Matt Cruse, don't you find it just a bit exciting, being here?"
"No."
She looked at me as if I'd suggested we stop breathing for a few hours.”
― Kenneth Oppel, quote from Airborn
“I whirled to see the snake springing up from the ferns and bouncing towards us, fast. This time we turned and ran. Every time I looked around, the snake was still there. I wanted to laugh and scream at the same time. The little creature was ridiculous. It was terrifying, and it was also gaining on us.”
― Kenneth Oppel, quote from Airborn
“I couldn't imagine such men at rest, their faces smooth and innocent despite the wickedness of their hearts.”
― Kenneth Oppel, quote from Airborn
“They’re eating liked starved apes,” Baz muttered as he swished past me with more food. “Haven’t they had enough yet?” he wondered a minute later when we passed again. “Keep your hands well clear of their forks,” he warned me as we pirouetted round each other at the dumbwaiter. “I was nearly stabbed clean through. They’ll be eating the cutlery soon!” “And us if we’re not quick enough,” I added. Baz guffawed then coughed to cover it up.”
― Kenneth Oppel, quote from Airborn
“I tried to lure sleep to me, but she slowly shook her raven tresses and would not come back.”
― Kenneth Oppel, quote from Airborn
“He was afraid of the world, afraid it would find a way to swallow him up. But, maybe everyone was sometimes. Maybe some people can just turn it off when they need to. After”
― John Corey Whaley, quote from Highly Illogical Behavior
“That part is kind of fuzzy, because then I went all Xena Warrior Princess on his ass.”
― A.R. Torre, quote from The Girl in 6E
“I learned early on that war forms its own culture. The rush of battle is a potent and often lethal addiction, for war is a drug, one I ingested for many years. It is peddled by mythmakers- historians, war correspondents, filmmakers, novelists, and the state- all of whom endow it with qualities it often does possess: excitement, exoticism, power, chances to rise above our small stations in life, and a bizarre and fantastic universe that has a grotesque and dark beauty.”
― Chris Hedges, quote from War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning
“It took the mind of Albert Einstein, the twentieth century’s most brilliant and influential, to show that we can more accurately describe gravity’s action-at-a-distance as a warp in the fabric of space-time, produced by any combination of matter and energy.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson, quote from Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution
“O Me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d;
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer.
That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.”
― Walt Whitman, quote from Leaves of Grass: The First (1855) Edition
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