“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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“The hospital is as busy as it was yesterday. We go in through the main entrance, and people walk in every direction. The people in scrubs and white coats all walk a little bit faster. There’s a guy sleeping on one of the waiting room sofas, and a hugely pregnant woman leaning against the wall by the elevator. She’s swirling a drink in a plastic cup. That baby is giving her T-shirt a run for its money. A toddler is throwing a tantrum somewhere down the hallway. The shrieking echoes.
We move to the bank of elevators, too, and Melonhead isn’t one of those guys who insists on pressing a button that’s already lit. He smiles and says “Good afternoon” to the pregnant woman, but I can’t look away from her swollen belly.
My mother is going to look like that.
My mother is going to have a baby.
My brain still can’t process this.
Suddenly, the woman’s abdomen twitches and shifts. It’s startling, and my eyes flick up to find her face.
She laughs at my expression. “He’s trying to get comfortable.”
The elevator dings, and we all get on. Her stomach keeps moving.
I realize I’m being a freak, but it’s the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen. I can’t stop staring.
She laughs again, softly, then comes closer. “Here. You can feel it.”
“It’s okay,” I say quickly.
Melonhead chuckles, and I scowl.
“Not too many people get to touch a baby before it’s born,” she says, her voice still teasing. “You don’t want to be one of the chosen few?”
“I’m not used to random women asking me to touch them,” I say.
“This is number five,” she says. “I’m completely over random people touching me. Here.” She takes my wrist and puts my hand right over the twitching.
Her belly is firmer than I expect, and we’re close enough that I can look right down her shirt. I’m torn between wanting to pull my hand back and not wanting to be rude.
Then the baby moves under my hand, something firm pushing right against my fingers. I gasp without meaning to.
“He says hi,” the woman says.
I can’t stop thinking of my mother. I try to imagine her looking like this, and I fail.
I try to imagine her encouraging me to touch the baby, and I fail.
Four months.
The elevator dings.
“Come on, Murph,” says Melonhead.
I look at the pregnant lady. I have no idea what to say. Thanks?
“Be good,” she says, and takes a sip of her drink.
The elevator closes and she’s gone”
― Brigid Kemmerer, quote from Letters to the Lost
“If someone isn't what others want them to be, the others become angry. Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.”
― Paulo Coelho, quote from Alkimist
“In one sense, (Duchamp's) “The Large Glass” is a glimpse into Hell; a peculiarly modernist Hell of repetition and loneliness.”
― Robert Hughes, quote from The Shock of the New
“Perhaps nothing speaks more eloquently of the variability of spelling in the age than the fact that a dictionary published in 1604, A Table Alphabeticall of Hard Words, spelled “words” two ways on the title page.”
― Bill Bryson, quote from Shakespeare: The World as Stage
“Hmm…’ Ciri bit her lower lip, then leaned over and put her eye closer to the hole. ‘Madam Yennefer is standing by a willow… She’s plucking leaves and playing with her star. She isn’t saying anything and isn’t even looking at Geralt… And Geralt’s standing beside her. He’s looking down and he’s saying something. No, he isn’t. Oh, he’s pulling a face… What a strange expression…’ ‘Childishly simple,’ said Dandelion, finding an apple in the grass, wiping it on his trousers and examining it critically. ‘He’s asking her to forgive him for his various foolish words and deeds. He’s apologising to her for his impatience, for his lack of faith and hope, for his obstinacy, doggedness. For his sulking and posing; which are unworthy of a man. He’s apologising to her for things he didn’t understand and for things he hadn’t wanted to understand—’ ‘That’s the falsest lie!’ said Ciri, straightening up and tossing the fringe away from her forehead with a sudden movement. ‘You’re making it all up!’ ‘He’s apologising for things he’s only now understood,’ said Dandelion, staring at the sky, and he began to speak with the rhythm of a balladeer. ‘For what he’d like to understand, but is afraid he won’t have time for… And for what he will never understand. He’s apologising and asking for forgiveness… Hmm, hmm… Meaning, conscience, destiny? Everything’s so bloody banal…’ ‘That’s not true!’ Ciri stamped. ‘Geralt isn’t saying anything like that! He’s not even speaking. I saw for myself. He’s standing with her and saying nothing…’ ‘That’s the role of poetry, Ciri. To say what others cannot utter.’ ‘It’s a stupid role. And you’re making everything up!’ ‘That is also the role of poetry. Hey, I hear some raised voices coming from the pond. Have a quick look, and see what’s happening there.’ ‘Geralt,’ said Ciri, putting her eye once more to the hole in the wall, ‘is standing with his head bowed. And Yennefer’s yelling at him. She’s screaming and waving her arms. Oh dear… What can it mean?’ ‘It’s childishly simple.’ Dandelion stared at the clouds scudding across the sky. ‘Now she’s saying sorry to him.”
― Andrzej Sapkowski, quote from Time of Contempt
Sugar
Hell
Knight's Fork
An Affair Before Chr...
The Starfish and the...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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