“There was something familiar but strange about her - Snow White with a suntan. Cinderella in biker boots. Tough and delicate and magical and real all at once.”
― Allyse Near, quote from Fairytales for Wilde Girls
“A memory: Isola as a toddler, sugarlump teeth, skin still smelling of milk. Hair that curled without use of an iron and sweet dresses that didn’t matter were dirtied. When she was old enough, she demanded the usual suspects at bedtime: The Little Mermaid, Hansel and Gretel, Beauty and the Beast.
Even then, Mother’s contempt for non-Pardieu fairytales was obvious.
‘Hmph,’ she snorted derisively, folding up her knees to perch on Isola’s bed. ‘Listen to me, Isola. The original Beauty’s just an encouragement to young women to accept arranged marriages. What it’s really saying to impressionable girls is, “Don’t worry if your new husband is decades older than you, or ugly, or horrid. If you’re sweet and obedient enough, you might just discover he’s a prince in disguise!’’
Mother’s Most Lasting Advice
‘Never be that girl, Isola. Never pick the beast or the wolf on the off-chance he won’t devour you.”
― Allyse Near, quote from Fairytales for Wilde Girls
“Her lips were frosted with sugar and faeriedust.”
― Allyse Near, quote from Fairytales for Wilde Girls
“And they lived ever after, whether they were happy about it or not.”
― Allyse Near, quote from Fairytales for Wilde Girls
“Ah, sweetie. If the poets couldn’t unriddle them, then you certainly can’t. Be kind, and keep your ears on offer if she wants to talk. But you can’t draw out the strangeness, Edgar. It’s not a poison.”
― Allyse Near, quote from Fairytales for Wilde Girls
“His face was a ghost story: graveyard eyes, cheekbones as sharp as urban legends, a sealed-coffin mouth.”
― Allyse Near, quote from Fairytales for Wilde Girls
“No sooner are her glass toes thrust into the mud grave than the revolutions begin. Uprisings, fire and steel. The prince is lynched in the ballroom with the dead girl's hair. Royalty's a thing of the past. The kingdom chooses their monarch.
Naturally, they elect a wolf.”
― Allyse Near, quote from Fairytales for Wilde Girls
“Once upon a time, Isola Wilde was watching late-night television with her eldest brother, Alejandro, when Channel 12 broadcast a live suicide.”
― Allyse Near, quote from Fairytales for Wilde Girls
“Don't deny yourself your oddities but DON'T FOLLOW AFTER ME”
― Allyse Near, quote from Fairytales for Wilde Girls
“He shook his head,'Fuck, you say such fucking weird things.'
'Is that still your favourite word?' asked Isola interestedly, 'I like "verisimilitude". Tolkein said the most beautiful English phrase is "cellar door",”
― Allyse Near, quote from Fairytales for Wilde Girls
“I may not be the most kind, the most loving, the most steadfast – but I have a little of all those things, and while I have those qualities, and the memories of the people who gave them to me, why, then Loneliness can never hurt me!”
― Allyse Near, quote from Fairytales for Wilde Girls
“He said her name like a detective unmasking the face of the culprit he'd suspected all along.”
― Allyse Near, quote from Fairytales for Wilde Girls
“He's Jack the Ripper baby.He'll take your heart.”
― Allyse Near, quote from Fairytales for Wilde Girls
“The bathroom was jungle-fogged, flooded with puddles, piled with soaked towels; cakes of soap with long strands of blonde baked in.
A girl in pieces: Barbie-thin ankles, a shaving cut on her knee; hipbones she could stab you with; white hands gelled with strawberry body lotion.”
― Allyse Near, quote from Fairytales for Wilde Girls
Allyse Near
Born place: Australia
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“I found myself within a forest dark,”
― Dante Alighieri, quote from La Divina Comedia
“A very wise person once told me, “When it comes to overcoming obstacles, there are three kinds of people. The first kind sees most obstacles as insurmountable and walks away. The second kind sees an obstacle and says, I can overcome it, and starts to dig under, climb over, or blast through it. The third type of person, before deciding to overcome the obstacle, tries to find a viewpoint where what is on the other side of the obstacle can be seen. Then, only if the reward is worth the effort, does he attempt to overcome the obstacle.”
― W. Timothy Gallwey, quote from The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance
“abilities gradually deteriorate in the absence of deliberate efforts to improve. So”
― K. Anders Ericsson, quote from Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise
“The infamous Jeramiah Poe,” the being said, sliding off the rock with a fluid grace. “Outlaw. Violator of ancient codes. Fugitive of the Gendarme…”
― Lucian Bane, quote from Seven Sons of Zion
“With the ascension of Charles I to the throne we come at last to the Central Period of English History (not to be confused with the Middle Ages, of course), consisting in the utterly memorable Struggle between the Cavaliers (Wrong but Wromantic) and the Roundheads (Right but Repulsive).”
― quote from 1066 and All That: A Memorable History of England
Seduce Me at Sunrise
The Night Watch
Shards of Honour
Behemoth
The Letters of Vince...
The Sisters BrothersBookQuoters 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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