“All I've learned in today's Shakespeare class is: Sometimes you have to fall in love with the wrong person just so you can find the right person. A more useful lesson would've been: Sometimes the right person doesn't love you back. Or sometimes the right person is gay. Or sometimes you just aren't the right person.
Thanks for nothing, Shakespeare.”
“Mortals always want something more- they wish for money, but what they're really after is to be carefree. Power when what they really want is control. Beauty when they want love. Sometimes they know it, sometimes they don't”
“I think we’re always looking for new pieces,” Viola says quietly.
What?
She continues, “I was looking for Lawrence, then for something to replace Lawrence, then for Aaron… maybe that’s the real truth about being broken. We’re always whole, we’re just looking to add on to ourselves, to be more whole. And then when a piece leaves, it’s broken away. But we aren’t left any less whole than we were to begin with…”
“But feeling broken—” I begin, the words tight in my throat. I’m grateful that Viola cuts me off.
“Is horrible. Painful,” she finishes. “But then, when you aren’t expecting it, new pieces appear and suddenly…they’re attached.” Her eyes rise to meet mine. “And you end up more whole than you were before.”
“Keanu Reeves?" she asks in amazement. I nod. "What did he wish for?" "Isn't it obvious?" I say, waving a hand at the screen. "Fame." "That's why he's famous? Because of a wish?" "Have you seen his movies? Surely you didn't think he made it on his acting skills?" I grant wishes; I don't work miracles. Viola looks back at the screen, eyes screwed up in awe. "I guess that makes sense," she says faintly as my former master delivers a line poorly. "Wow.”
“She’s forgotten me. It’s over. I don’t want to see her again, and now I’ll have to. I won’t be able to help it. I’ll have to sit back and just watch her…live. Without me.”
The ifrit shrugs. “Then I overestimated your feelings for her.”
My jaw drops. “How dare you? Because I don’t want to see that she’s forgotten me?”
"No. Because nothing is really ever gone or forgotten. If she’s a piece of you, and you of her, then memory is merely an obstacle—our power covers the memory, it doesn’t erase it. And I should think, at least based on what I saw in your eyes last night, that it’s an obstacle worth going up against.”
“what did you think would happen—best case? She’ll forget about you when you return to Caliban, you know that. Or do you think she won’t wish, that you can stay here with her? That for the rest of her life, she’ll put you above getting whatever she wishes for? Even better—that for the rest of her life, she won’t slip up and say something like ‘I wish it would stop raining’? You can’t win this. In the end, you’ll be in Caliban. She’ll forget you. And whatever ‘friendship’ you think you have will be gone. Relationships are not for immortals. A bird and a fish may long for each other, but where could they live?”
“I became an ifrit to save the lives of my fellow jinn. What kind of life saver would I be if I let you sit here and wither away in paradise?”
Just an obstacle. Just an obstacle.
I meet the ifrit’s eyes. “What happened to all your talk about birds and fish having nowhere to live?”
The ifrit shrugs. “I suggest you start holding your breath, my friend,” he says, then pushes through the hearing room doors.”
“Los mortales siempre quieren algo más. Desean dinero, pero en realidad buscan una vida sin preocupaciones. Poder, cuando lo que quieren de verdad es control. O belleza, cuando quieren amor. A veces lo saben y a veces no.”
“Un pájaro y un pez puede que quieran estar juntos, pero ¿dónde vivirían?”
“Jealousy is a mortal emotion. One that means I feel I have something to lose--something that, if gone, will tear away a part of me.”
“No me había dado cuenta de la vida tan insatisfecha que tenía hasta que tuve más. Hasta que tuve la pieza que no sabía que me faltaba.”
“Si pudiera descubrir porqué se encasillan, podría averiguar por qué yo no lo hago, por qué me he convertido en una chica invisible. El tipo de chica que tiene unos cuantos amigos y un montón de conocidos, pero no pertenece a nada en concreto. Supongo que ser invisible es mejor que fingir formar parte de algo; pero no te hace sentir menos solo.”
“... es que es imposible ser una persona rota o completa. No eres más que una persona. Sólo puedes existir, sólo formas parte de ti misma, tú eres la única responsable de tu felicidad o de formar parte de algo o de lo que sea. Ese sentimiento de estar rota o completa no es más que un truco de la mente mortal. Los tres deseos no te harán sentir más completa de lo que eres ahora. Al menos no por mucho tiempo.”
“Todo lo que he aprendido hoy en la clase sobre Shakespeare es que a veces tienes que enamorarte de la persona equivocada para encontrar a la correcta. Una lección más útil hubiera sido que a veces la persona adecuada no te corresponde. O que a veces la persona adecuada es gay. O que a veces tú mismo no eres la persona adecuada.
Gracias por nada, Shakespeare.”
“-Creo que siempre estamos buscando nuevas piezas. Siempre estamos enteros, más enteros. Entonces, cuando una pieza se va, se rompe. Pero no nos quedamos menos enteros que al principio...
—Pero sí con la sensación de que estamos rotos... —añado, con las palabras pegadas a la garganta.
Agradezco que Viola me interrumpa.
—Es horrible. Doloroso —termina—. Pero cuando menos te lo esperas, aparecen nuevas piezas y de repente... encajan.”
“No se trata de ser buena. Se trata de ponerle pasión.”
“No importa si no te entienden, lo que importa es que tengas el valor de decirlo.”
“Quiero demostrarle que no me hace falta pedir un deseo para formar parte de nada. Aquí estoy yo y me están invitando a una fiesta. Puedo tener amigos yo solita, sin el pelo, la ropa o los zapatos que él me ofrecía, sin un deseo. Sólo tengo que decir "sí".”
“Si quieres que tus deseos duren, tienes que pedir algo que te haga feliz y no la felicidad.”
“Los mortales se olvidan de advertir que el tiempo pasa.”
“-Me has dicho que no dura, que desear ser feliz nunca dura. Así que lo que me haría sentir completa es formar parte de algo en vez de ser invisible, pero no quiero desear eso. No puede que sea tan patética para desear algo así –su voz se apaga. –No sé qué hacer.
Me río. No quiero, pero no puedo evitarlo. No me extraña que no pueda saber lo que quiere, puesto que no es un auténtico deseo. Los ojos de Viola brillan de ira.
-Me alegro de que te haga gracia.
Suelto otra carcajada.
-Bueno, es que es imposible ser una persona rota por completo. No eres más que una persona. Solo puedes existir. Solo formas parte de ti misma, tú eres la única responsable de tu felicidad o de lo que sea. Ese sentimiento de estar rota o completa no es más que un truco de la mente mortal. Los tres deseos no te harán sentir más completa de lo que eres ahora. Al menos no por mucho tiempo.”
“¿Cuántos momentos de mi vida he desperdiciado para siempre por la culpa de esto?”
“I don't care anymore. Even if she never speaks to me again because of the press, she's worth it. She makes me a person, not just a wish granter.”
“This is why Caliban was a punishment. I realize it now -- it's a beautiful, perfect world of nothingness. No connection, no longing, no . . . love. A world we're trapped in until we're needed here, a world we're condemned to while everyone we might care about forgets us.”
“Not that folks disliked me or that I ever went around being mean, but folks never did get close to me and it was most likely my fault. There was always something standoffish about me. I liked folks, but I liked the wild animals, the lonely trails, and the mountains better.”
“I ain't going to talk to you until I am blue in the face trying to make you change. I'm going to tell you what's on my mind and hope you get it and I'm going to move on. That's what we have to do sometimes--move on. Try to help others, extend your hand, and then help the next. If they don't want to accept it, keep moving on. Don't let them discourage you. Never stop doing what you're doing because of somebody else's unwillingness to learn.”
“It seems to me [he wrote in early April] that in no other war in history has the issue been so distinctly drawn between the forces of arbitrary oppression on the one side and, on the other, those conceptions of individual liberty, freedom, and dignity, under which we have been raised in our great Democracy….”
“A smile, bracketing his still mouth, spread like bane over Lymond's pale face.”
“I’m not the only kid who lives here. There’s my sister, Natalie, except she doesn’t count.”
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