Margaret Rogerson · 300 pages
Rating: (10.8K votes)
“Why do we desire, above all other things, that which has the greatest power to destroy us?”
― Margaret Rogerson, quote from An Enchantment of Ravens
“No. You surpass us all." Beside me she looked colorless and frail. "You are like a living rose among wax flowers. We may last forever, but you bloom brighter and smell sweeter, and draw blood with your thorns.”
― Margaret Rogerson, quote from An Enchantment of Ravens
“Ah, but you were not a pawn. All along, you have been the queen.”
― Margaret Rogerson, quote from An Enchantment of Ravens
“Frankly, I had no idea how anyone knew if they were in love in the first place. Was there ever a single thread a person could pick out from the knot and say “Yes—I am in love—here’s the proof!” or was it always caught up in a wretched tangle of ifs and buts and maybes?”
― Margaret Rogerson, quote from An Enchantment of Ravens
“Isobel, I love you wholly. I love you eternally. I love you so dearly it frightens me. I fear I could not live without you. I could see your face every morning upon waking for a thousand years and still look forward to the next as though it were the first.”
― Margaret Rogerson, quote from An Enchantment of Ravens
“I quite like eggs,” I replied firmly, well aware that the enchantments he described would all turn strange and sour, even deadly, in the end. Besides, what on earth would I do with men’s hearts? I couldn’t make an omelette out of them.”
― Margaret Rogerson, quote from An Enchantment of Ravens
“When the world failed me, I could always lose myself in my work.”
― Margaret Rogerson, quote from An Enchantment of Ravens
“The ability to feel is a strength, not a weakness.”
― Margaret Rogerson, quote from An Enchantment of Ravens
“Walking along a blade’s edge was only fun until the blade stopped being a metaphor.”
― Margaret Rogerson, quote from An Enchantment of Ravens
“If you must stare at something for hours on end, I’d prefer it to be me alone.”
― Margaret Rogerson, quote from An Enchantment of Ravens
“Isobel. Isobel, listen. The teapot is of no consequence. I can defeat anyone, at any time.”
― Margaret Rogerson, quote from An Enchantment of Ravens
“What a pretty bird you are," I crooned.
His struggling slowed, then stilled. I felt him cock his head.
"What a lovely bird," I repeated in a syrupy voice. "Yes, you're the loveliest bird." I stroked his back. He made a pleased muttering sound in his breast. Soon his smug silence indicated that he was quite content to remain as he was, so long as I continued my praise.”
― Margaret Rogerson, quote from An Enchantment of Ravens
“And we wouldn't live happily ever after, because I don't believe in such nonsense, but we both had a long, bold adventure ahead of us, and a great deal to look forward to at last.”
― Margaret Rogerson, quote from An Enchantment of Ravens
“One raven for uncertain peril. Six for danger sure to arrive. A dozen for death, if not avoided. The enchantment is sealed.”
― Margaret Rogerson, quote from An Enchantment of Ravens
“Rook's heart beat against my fingertips through his soft feathers, and my eyes sank closed as I murmured drowsy endearments to the spoiled prince nestled against my stomach, warm within a nest of blankets.”
― Margaret Rogerson, quote from An Enchantment of Ravens
“Yet no matter what they were doing, everyone in the forest waited with an indrawn breath, waiting for the taste of autumn, the smell of change, the first news of a king and queen unlike any the world had known before.”
― Margaret Rogerson, quote from An Enchantment of Ravens
“But isn’t absurdity part of being human? We aren’t ageless creatures who watch centuries pass from afar. Our worlds are small, our lives are short, and we can only bleed a little before we fall.”
― Margaret Rogerson, quote from An Enchantment of Ravens
“They looked like a pair of cupids who had decided they liked shooting people with real arrows better. They were horrible. I loved them so much.”
― Margaret Rogerson, quote from An Enchantment of Ravens
“We were in the autumnlands.
Dim as it was, the forest glowed. The golden leaves flashing by blazed like sparks caught in the updraft of a fire. A scarlet carpet unrolled before us, rich and flawless as velvet. Rising from the forest floor, the black, tangled roots breathed a bluish mist that reduced the farthest trees' trunks to ghostly silhouettes, yet left their foliage's luminous hues untouched. Vivid moss speckled the branches like tarnished copper. The crisp spice of pine sap infused the cool air over a musty perfume of dry leaves. A knot swelled in my throat. I couldn't look away. There was too much of it, too fast. I'd never be able to drink it all in...”
― Margaret Rogerson, quote from An Enchantment of Ravens
“I was alive in a way I never had been before, in a world that no longer felt stale but instead crackled with breathless promise.”
― Margaret Rogerson, quote from An Enchantment of Ravens
“After he left, I couldn’t shake the notion that he’d insisted on ravens for a reason. I was almost finished cleaning up by the time the explanation occurred to me. My cheeks warmed, and a wistful pang plucked a sweet, sad chord in my stomach. It was simple, really. He didn’t want me to forget him once he’d gone.”
― Margaret Rogerson, quote from An Enchantment of Ravens
“But that was the problem with the old me, I was coming to realize. She'd accepted that behaving correctly meant not being happy, because that was the way the world worked. She hadn't asked enough - of life, or of herself.”
― Margaret Rogerson, quote from An Enchantment of Ravens
“I wiped off my fingers, but it wasn't the mold or maggots making my stomach revolt... No, it was the knowledge that all around me sat empty people in rotting clothes, nibbling on flyblown trifles while they spoke of nothing of consequence with fixed smiles on their false faces.”
― Margaret Rogerson, quote from An Enchantment of Ravens
“Then he strode right over and, in one smooth motion, insinuated himself into the bed next to me, facing me, under the covers, with the bold and unselfconscious vanity of a cat sitting down on an open book.”
― Margaret Rogerson, quote from An Enchantment of Ravens
“Soft and sharp at once, an aching tenderness edged with sorrow, naked proof of a heart already broken.”
― Margaret Rogerson, quote from An Enchantment of Ravens
“You are empty,” I said, my throat working, “and cruel.” “Ah. Yes, now that is true. Would you like to know the greatest secret of fairykind?” When I didn’t answer he continued, “We prefer to pretend otherwise, but truly, we have never been the immortal ones. We may live long enough to see the world change, but we’re never the ones who changed it. When we finally reach the end, we are unloved and alone, and leave nothing behind, not even our name chiseled on a stone slab. And yet—mortals, through their works, their Craft, are remembered forever.” He turned us gracefully through the crowd without missing a step. “Oh, you cannot imagine the power your kind holds over us. How very much we envy you. There is more life in your littlest fingernail than in everyone in my court combined.”
― Margaret Rogerson, quote from An Enchantment of Ravens
“He was astonishingly vain even by fair folk standards, which was like saying a pond is unusually wet, or a bear surprisingly hairy.”
― Margaret Rogerson, quote from An Enchantment of Ravens
“What must it be like? To meet someone, to forge a connection, all in the span of one golden afternoon—only to find out that for her, each passing minute was a year. Each second, an hour. She would be dead before the sun rose the next day. A keen, quiet pain twisted my heart.”
― Margaret Rogerson, quote from An Enchantment of Ravens
“Are you in love with me?" I blurted out.
A terrible silence followed. Rook didn't turn around.
"Please say something."
He rounded on me. "Is that so terrible? You say it as though it's the most awful thing you can imagine. It isn't as though I've done it on purpose. Somehow I've even grown fond of your - your irritating questions, and your short legs, and your accidental attempts to kill me."
I recoiled. "That's the worst declaration of love I've ever heard!”
― Margaret Rogerson, quote from An Enchantment of Ravens
“After the bare requisites to living and reproducing, man wants most to leave some record of himself, a proof, perhaps, that he has really existed. He leaves his proof on wood, on stone or on the lives of other people. This deep desire exists in everyone, from the boy who writes dirty words in a public toilet to the Buddha who etches his image in the race mind. Life is so unreal. I think that we seriously doubt that we exist and go about trying to prove that we do.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from The Pastures of Heaven
“He was a what?” The earl was still frowning and still pondering the duke’s revelations regarding Anna’s decline. “Eight-months’ wonder.” The duke nodded sagely. “Ask any papa, and he’ll tell you a proper baby takes nine and half months to come full term, first babies sometimes longer. Bart was a little early, as Her Grace could not contain her enthusiasm for me.” “Her Grace could not…?” The earl felt his ears turn red as the significance of his father’s words sunk in. “Fine basis for a marriage,” the duke went on blithely. “What? You think all ten children were exclusively my fault? You have much to learn, my lad. Much to learn.”
― Grace Burrowes, quote from The Heir
“Twinkle twinkle little star. You are nothing. You've been dead for a thousand years...”
― Lynda Barry, quote from Cruddy
“Even then, retailers learned early that shoppers prefer their shopping suggestions not be too truthful. One of the great unwritten chapters of retail intelligence programming featured a “personal shopper” program that all-too-accurately modeled the shoppers’ desires and outputted purchase ideas based on what shoppers really wanted as opposed to what they wanted known that they wanted. This resulted in one overcompensatingly masculine test user receiving suggestions for an anal plug and a tribute art book for classic homoerotic artist Tom of Finland, while a female test user in the throes of a nasty divorce received suggestions for a small handgun, a portable bandsaw, and several gallons of an industrial solvent used to reduce organic matter to an easily drainable slurry.”
― John Scalzi, quote from The Android's Dream
“Maybe man is nothing in particular,' Cross said gropingly. 'Maybe that's the terror of it. Man may be just anything at all. And maybe man deep down suspects this, really knows this, kind of dreams that it is true; but at the same time he does not want really to know it? May not human life on this earth be a kind of frozen fear of man at what he could possibly be? And every move he makes might not these moves be just to hide this awful fact? To twist it into something which he feels would make him rest and breathe a little easier? What man is is perhaps too much to be borne by man...”
― Richard Wright, quote from The Outsider
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