“Less is less. Heartbreak is heartbreak. You think I'm sitting here gloating. Telling myself that my suffering beats yours? Hurt is hurt. You don't measure these things.”
― Stephanie Kallos, quote from Broken for You
“Her heart was finished. It bore, perhaps, records of life, but it wasn't alive. Too late for decoration. Too late for effects. Further handling could only result in cracks and fractures. People could cut themselves on the edgesof her heart, she was sure of it.”
― Stephanie Kallos, quote from Broken for You
“Love? It's when you don't give a thought to all the ifs and want-to's in the world. It's when if all the fires of hell were between you, you'd walk in them gladly to be with him, and sing with joy at your own burnin' if only his kiss was on your mouth.”
― Stephanie Kallos, quote from Broken for You
“The broken are not always gathered together,of course, and not all mysteries of the flesh are solved. We speak of "senseless tragedies" but really: Is there any other kind? Mothers and wives disappear without a trace. Childeren are killed. Madamen ravage the world, leaving wounds immeasurably deep, and endlessy mourned. loved ones whose presence once filled us move into the distance; our eyes follow them as long as possible as they recede from view. Maybe we chase them clumsily, across railroad tracks and trafficked streets; Over roads new printed with their foot steps,the dust still whirling in the wake of them; through impossibly big cities people with strangers whose faces and bodies carry fragments of their faces and bodies, whose laughter, steadiness, pluck, stuberness remind us of the beloved we seek. Maybe we stay put, left behind, and look for them in our dreams. But we never stop looking, not even after those we love become part of the unreachable horizon. we can never stop carrying the heavy weight of love on this pilgimage; we can only transfigure what we carry. We can only shatter it and send it whirling into the world so that it can take shape in some new way.”
― Stephanie Kallos, quote from Broken for You
“She soon learned, though, that giving weight to other people's opinions was creative nihilism; it was like being banished from the Land of No Words and exiled to the Land of All Bullshit.”
― Stephanie Kallos, quote from Broken for You
“Sometimes a person can say I’m sorry a thousand times and that glue will never dry.”
― Stephanie Kallos, quote from Broken for You
“If God exists, He is there, in the small, cast-off pieces, rough and random and no two alike.”
― Stephanie Kallos, quote from Broken for You
“He was shorter than an average eight-year-old boy but exceptionally tall for a tulip.”
― Stephanie Kallos, quote from Broken for You
“But in dying so suddenly her mother had become a riddle at the gate instead of the road you walked to get there.”
― Stephanie Kallos, quote from Broken for You
“The Book put forth the theory that what a person envisions is what a person attracts, so that if you envision loss, despair, loneliness, etc., that is indeed what will befall you. The Book also claimed that all of us lie to ourselves all the time, so why not tell positive lies—known as “affirmations”—instead of negative ones?”
― Stephanie Kallos, quote from Broken for You
“Loss is loss. Heartbreak is heartbreak. You think I’m sitting here gloating. Telling myself that my suffering beats yours? Hurt is hurt. You don’t measure these things.”
― Stephanie Kallos, quote from Broken for You
“extras, in case you want to send some.” “Irma,” M.J. said. “Who am I going to write a postcard to? You’re the”
― Stephanie Kallos, quote from Broken for You
Stephanie Kallos
Born place: Mountainhome, Idaho
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“When you least expect it, life may propose something to you. Something you might not necessarily be looking for, but without a doubt has the ability to offer your life some form of enrichment.”
― Scott Hildreth, quote from Undefeated
“It is dangerous to live in a secure world.”
― Teju Cole, quote from Open City
“Her name was Jane,” I said, and Olivia stopped walking. “We were together for two years, married after a few months. I was happy, genuinely happy. Even though she was human, and I knew I’d outlive her, I just wanted to enjoy the time that we had together. “It all ended on a damp November morning in seventeen eighty-two. I’d been away working for Avalon for a few months and had been eager to get home. I found her inside the house we’d shared. She’d been butchered. Her blood decorated our bedroom. She was naked and appeared to have been dead for several days. My rage was…terrifying. I buried Jane with my own hands, placing her near a field that we used to love going to. And then I burnt the house to the ground.” Olivia’s shoulders sagged, but she didn’t turn and face me. “I hunted her killer for a year. I didn’t care who I hurt to get the information I needed. I was so single-minded, so determined to have vengeance. Eventually, I discovered that her murderer had been part of the king’s army, which had been going through the area. “The killer was an officer by the name of Henry. No idea what his last name was. It didn’t matter. He liked hurting women, and once he’d finished with them, he kept their hair as a souvenir. The rest of his squad had waited outside while he brutalized and murdered the woman I loved. No one had helped Jane, and no one had tried to stop him. “I discovered that they’d been on training maneuvers the day of the murder, just their squad of thirty. And after all my searching, I found them and I killed them. They died in one night of blood and rage. All but one. I left Henry until last. I took him away to a secluded place and had my fill of vengeance. It took a week for him to die, and when he finally succumbed, I buried Hellequin with him.” The memory of Henry’s blind and bloody form flashed in my mind—his pleas had long since silenced because I’d removed his tongue. I hadn’t wanted information from him; I’d just wanted to make him suffer. Before he’d lost his ability to talk, he’d told me that someone had paid him to do it, but he never said who. No matter what I did to him, he took that secret to his grave. And after a few years of searching, I decided he’d been lying. Trying to prolong his life for a short time more, hoping for mercy where there was none to give. “I no longer had the desire to go by that name,” I continued, still talking to Olivia’s back, “I no longer wanted to instill fear with a word. I hoped that the legend would die, but it didn’t, it grew, became more…fanciful. “You’re right, I’m a killer. I’ve killed thousands, and very few of them have ever stained my conscience. I can go to a dark place and do whatever I need to. But for those I care about, those I love, I will move fucking mountains to keep them safe. And I care about Tommy and Kasey, whether you grant permission or not.”
― Steve McHugh, quote from Born of Hatred
“Too many people would rather fight to the death to defend their bullhead positions. Tyrone was impressed whenever someone changed their mind. It meant acting on reason, and with reason came self-improvement.”
― Jack Kilborn, quote from Trapped
“The cookies combine butter and spices in such a way that you could eat a hundred of them and only realize how sick you are after it's too late.”
― Peter Høeg, quote from Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow
The Secret River
Lean on Me
Knight & Stay
A Time of Gifts
The Carpetbaggers
The Eden Express: A...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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