“This is the human way, she thought. On the edge of destruction, at the end of all things, we still dance. And hope.”
“..You always have to choose between the path of needles and the path of pins. When a dress is torn, you know, you can just pin it up, or you can take the time to sew it together. That's what it means. The quick and easy way or the painful way that works.”
“Do you think that doing the right thing will always be pretty?”
“I knew you lived," her mother said after a moment. "Any daughter of mine would be ruthless enough.”
“In all your life, your only choice is the path of needles or the path of pins.”
“The problem with martyrs is that they’re all dead”
“Whatever creature you turn into, whatever form you take, I won't let go of you.”
“But that’s what makes it so exciting. Will she kiss me or will she kill me—I think every man secretly wants to play that game”
“She had won them the sun and the moon, but she had become a monster”
“Every day for the last three years, she had thought she deserved to die. She still didn’t want to. She wanted to live with every filthy desperate scrap of her heart”
“There were three of them, all with rapiers, and she had only a dagger. It would have been a wretchedly uneven fight, if she were human.
It was still a wretchedly uneven fight; it was just uneven in her favor.”
“He knew what she was and he was not letting go.”
“Mademoiselle, you are very kind," he said to Soleil. "But I did not lose my hands for the purpose of making you feel special.”
“If I'm damned, what's the point of pretending that I'm not?”
“Her dreams were a tangled mess of blood and shuddering trees”
“Speechless?” asked Erec. “Don’t be ashamed. I bring all ladies to that state sooner or later.”
“Too bad for you,” she said, “I’m not a lady.”
“I think sometimes there is no right thing.”
“For your penance," the Bishop said finally, "say three rosaries, one for each year of your sinful life, and offer them for the people you have harmed."
"That is not remotely enough," she snapped.
"Do you need also to confess doubts about the power of God to forgive sins?"
"Yes," she admitted after a few moments.
"In that case, for your penance, say only one rosary.”
“He grinned at her, and it felt like there was no space or barrier at all between them, like his smile was happening inside her heart. Without meaning to at all, she smiled back.”
“He leaned close and breathed in her ear, "You will be the lady dearest and most dreadful."
For a moment, she almost felt the wind of the Great Forest in her hair.”
“I tell you, there was nothing she would not do for her brother.”
“I grow impatient, little girl.” “Then learn to wait,”
“I killed somebody and I'm not sorry," she said, calmly and very distinctly. "I don't think you want me on your altars unless blasphemy is the custom of your kingdom.”
“She said that you always had to choose between the path of needles and the path of pins. When a dress is torn, you know, you can just pin it up, or you can take the time to sew it together. That’s what it means. The quick and easy way, or the painful way that works.”
“He stared at her a moment longer, then laughed softly. “I wouldn’t love you if you were any weaker,” he said, and let go of her.”
“Just because things were fair didn't make them easy.”
“The question is," said Amelie, sounding like she had just come to the end of a long speech, "are you brave enough?"
"What?"
"I can't make you beautiful," said Amelie. "I'm going to give you the most beautiful makeup you've ever seen, but if you just sit under it and - and wilt, you'll look pathetic. It's like a sword. If you don't wield it, then it isn't any use to you. And it's all right if you want to look pathetic most of the time, but this is my one chance to show anyone what I can do, so you are not going to ruin it. Understood?”
“I'd rather worship bloody bones than the murderer who makes them.”
“The problem with martyrs is that they’re all dead. What do they have to do with us that are simple enough to still be alive? Should we just give up and want to die because death is better than dishonor? But suicide is a sin too so we really are damned if we do and damned if we don't.”
“She had never, in her whole life, been satisfied with peace.”
“Oh my God. Oh my God, J.P. is in love with me. And we blew up the school.”
“Reasonable behavior was the last thing you wanted. You felt as if the resolution of human problems demanded passion and brute unreason, some spitting and shouting. This absence of recrimination, of accusation and counter-accusation, the lack of long-term unspoken resentments and grudges suddenly unearthed and exposed in the heat of argument, disturbed her.”
“He who is slow to anger has great understanding,”
“little and ran away if a girl tried to touch him. Or maybe he was queer—anybody who sat around reading all the time and looked like he did… But he didn’t talk like a queer.”
“From 2002 to 2008, the United States was fighting bloody wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; among active military personnel, there were an average 1,643 fatalities per year. But over the same stretch of time in the early 1980s, with the United States fighting no major wars, there were more than 2,100 military deaths per year. How can this possibly be? For one, the military used to be much larger: 2.1 million on active duty in 1988 versus 1.4 million in 2008. But even the rate of death in 2008 was lower than in certain peacetime years. Some of this improvement is likely due to better medical care. But a surprising fact is that the accidental death rate for soldiers in the early 1980s was higher than the death rate by hostile fire for every year the United States has been fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. It seems that practicing to fight a war can be just about as dangerous as really fighting one. And,”
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