“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 could hear him swallowing hard, trying not to cry. Why is it that we always try to be brave at moments when bravery is futile?”
― Douglas Kennedy, quote from The Pursuit of Happiness
“When I leave school I will drive around looking for prostitutes like Julia.”
― John van de Ruit, quote from Spud
“office by now. It still didn’t take long to find him, though. You could only go so far when you were nothing but a torso and arms. He’d pulled his upper half into a patch of blackness, but I could still smell that”
― Rob Thurman, quote from Roadkill
“We'd better get. But y'all have a nice night,' I say. Apparently, fear turns me Texan. A startling personality insight that I'll jot down later if I'm not dead in a ditch.”
― A.M. Robinson, quote from Vampire Crush
“Tendai remembered his last birthday. It seemed one shouldn't make wishes idly. Who knew which spirits were listening. He considered a moment and then thought, I wish for courage. Because with courage, you weren't afraid to look at the truth. You weren't afraid to ask questions or do the right thing.”
― Nancy Farmer, quote from The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm
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A Brief History of T...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.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.
