“I’ve never been angry to have been born a woman. There have been times I’ve been angry at how the world treats us, but I see being a woman as a challenge I must fight. Like being born under a stormy sky. Some people are lucky enough to be born on a bright summer’s day. Maybe we were born under clouds. No wind. No rain. Just a mountain of clouds we must climb each morning so that we may see the sun.”
― Renee Ahdieh, quote from Flame in the Mist
“I believe the stars align so souls can find one another. Whether they are meant to be souls in love or souls in life remains to be seen.”
― Renee Ahdieh, quote from Flame in the Mist
“Be as swift as the wind. As silent as the forest. As fierce as the fire. As unshakable as the mountain. And you can do anything...”
― Renee Ahdieh, quote from Flame in the Mist
“You are first and foremost a person. A reckless, foolish person, but a person nonetheless. If I ever say you are not permitted to do something, rest assured that the last reason I would ever say so would be because you are a girl.”
― Renee Ahdieh, quote from Flame in the Mist
“Sometimes we must fall forward to keep moving. Remain motionless—remain unyielding—and you are as good as dead.
Death follows indecision, like a twisted shadow. Fall forward. Keep moving. Even if you must pick yourself up first.”
― Renee Ahdieh, quote from Flame in the Mist
“If I am marching to my death, then I will march to it as a girl. Without fear.”
― Renee Ahdieh, quote from Flame in the Mist
“The only power any man has over you is the power you give him.”
― Renee Ahdieh, quote from Flame in the Mist
“You don't know the beginning of me." She trembled as she spoke. "And . . . you will never see the end.”
― Renee Ahdieh, quote from Flame in the Mist
“There is such strength in being a woman. But it is a strength you must choose for yourself. No one can choose it for you. We can bend the wind to our ear if we would only try.”
― Renee Ahdieh, quote from Flame in the Mist
“Until nothing at all existed between them.
But shared breaths.
And unspoken promises.
Lies.
And unshakable truth.”
― Renee Ahdieh, quote from Flame in the Mist
“The stars could fall - the moon could crash from the heavens - and Mariko could not care.”
― Renee Ahdieh, quote from Flame in the Mist
“Beautiful words were beautiful words, even to the most practical of minds.”
― Renee Ahdieh, quote from Flame in the Mist
“The entire time she'd watched him - waited for him to join her, even in death - her features had remained serene. A flame in the mist.”
― Renee Ahdieh, quote from Flame in the Mist
“But Mariko knew it was time to do more. Time to be more.
She would not die a coward. Mariko was the daughter of
a samurai. The sister of the Dragon of Kai. But more than that, she still held power over her decisions. For at least this one last day. She would face her enemy. And die with honor.”
― Renee Ahdieh, quote from Flame in the Mist
“Bravery did not come to her naturally. She spent too much time weighing her options to be brave. Too much time calculating the many paths before her. But Mariko knew it was time to do more. Time to be more. She would not die a coward.”
― Renee Ahdieh, quote from Flame in the Mist
“She remembered Chiyo telling her that finding one's match was like finding one's other half. Mariko had never understood the notion.
She was not a half. She was wholly her own.”
― Renee Ahdieh, quote from Flame in the Mist
“The air between them filled with all that remained unsaid. All that should be said.
Yet wasn't.”
― Renee Ahdieh, quote from Flame in the Mist
“Control is an illusion. Expectations will not rule my days. Not anymore.”
― Renee Ahdieh, quote from Flame in the Mist
“Perhaps true weakness is weakness of the spirit”
― Renee Ahdieh, quote from Flame in the Mist
“Curious had been the word most often ascribed to her
when she was younger. She’d been the watchful sort of child. The one conscious of every mistake. When Mariko had erred, it had usually been intentional. An attempt to push barriers. Or a desire to learn. Usually it was that. A wish to know more. As she grew from a curious child into an even more curious young woman, the word she most often overheard at her back was odd. Much too odd. Far too prone to asking questions.
Far too apt to linger in places she wasn’t meant to be.”
― Renee Ahdieh, quote from Flame in the Mist
“Words are foolish. Promises are useless. Anyone can say anything to get what it is they desire. Believe in actions and actions alone.”
― Renee Ahdieh, quote from Flame in the Mist
“Stay or go. I leave it to you. But you are welcome always. In all ways.”
― Renee Ahdieh, quote from Flame in the Mist
“I deny being a slave to any one thing. In any situation we can choose who we are and choose who we want to be.”
― Renee Ahdieh, quote from Flame in the Mist
“Are you ever angry you were born a woman?"
"I've never been angry to have been born a woman. There have been times I've been angry at how the world treats us.”
― Renee Ahdieh, quote from Flame in the Mist
“She refused to die like an animal locked in a cage. Like a girl with nothing to save her name. Better to die by the sword. Better to die at the mercy of the nightbeasts. To die in the night air. Free.”
― Renee Ahdieh, quote from Flame in the Mist
“Believe in actions and actions alone.”
― Renee Ahdieh, quote from Flame in the Mist
“This boy did not take steps. He glided like a shark through the water. And like the sea, the members of the Black Clan parted around him”
― Renee Ahdieh, quote from Flame in the Mist
“Without risk, life is far too predictable”
― Renee Ahdieh, quote from Flame in the Mist
“She’d fought off her assailant. And in doing so, she’d displayed one of the seven virtues of bushidō: Courage. The way of the warrior. Mariko”
― Renee Ahdieh, quote from Flame in the Mist
“It was mint and memories and the past and the future and she felt as if she’d done this before and already she longed to do it again.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from The Dream Thieves
“Maybe if I act well enough, I'll come to believe it myself.”
― Garth Nix, quote from Abhorsen
“Be kind to others before you take care of yourself; make whoever you're with feel like they matter.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from The Storyteller
“Night, forever. But within it, a city, shadowy and only real in certain ways.
The entity cowered in its alley, where the mist was rising. This could not have happened!
Yet it had. The streets had filled with… things. Animals! Birds! Changing shape! Screaming and yelling! And, above it all, higher than the rooftops, a lamb rocking back and forth in great slow motions, thundering over the cobbles…
And then bars had come down, slamming down, and the entity had been thrown back.
But it had been so close! It had saved the creature, it was getting through, it was beginning to have control… and now this…
In the darkness of the inner city, above the rustle of the never-ending rain, it heard the sound of boots approaching.
A shape appeared in the mist.
It drew nearer.
Water cascaded off a metal helmet and an oiled leather cloak as the figure stopped and, entirely unconcerned, cupped its had in front of its face and lit a cigar.
Then the match was dropped on the cobbles, where it hissed out, and the figure said: “What are you?”
The entity stirred, like an old fish in a deep pool. It was too tired to flee.
“I am the Summoning Dark.” It was not, in fact, a sound, but had it been, it would have been a hiss. “Who are you?”
“I am the Watchman.”
“They would have killed his family!” The darkness lunged, and met resistance. “Think of the deaths they have caused! Who are you to stop me?”
“He created me. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who watches the watchmen? Me. I watch him. Always. You will not force him to murder for you.”
“What kind of human creates his own policeman?”
“One who fears the dark.”
“And so he should,” said the entity, with satisfaction.
“Indeed. But I think you misunderstand. I am not here to keep the darkness out. I am here to keep it in.” There was a clink of metal as the shadowy watchman lifted a dark lantern and opened its little door. Orange light cut through the blackness. “Call me… the Guarding Dark. Imagine how strong I must be.”
The Summoning Dark backed desperately into the alley, but the light followed it, burning it.
“And now,” said the watchman, “get out of town.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Thud!
“My mother's suffering grew into a symbol in my mind, gathering to itself all the poverty, the ignorance, the helplessness; the painful, baffling, hunger-ridden days and hours; the restless moving, the futile seeking, the uncertainty, the fear, the dread; the meaningless pain and the endless suffering. Her life set the emotional tone of my life, colored the men and women I was to meet in the future, conditioned my relation to events that had not yet happened, determined my attitude to situations and circumstances I had yet to face. A somberness of spirit that I was never to lose settled over me during the slow years of my mother's unrelieved suffering, a somberness that was to make me stand apart and look upon excessive joy with suspicion, that was to make me keep forever on the move, as though to escape a nameless fate seeking to overtake me.
At the age of twelve, before I had one year of formal schooling, I had a conception of life that no experience would ever erase, a predilection for what was real that no argument could ever gainsay, a sense of the world that was mine and mine alone, a notion as to what life meant that no education could ever alter, a conviction that the meaning of living came only when one was struggling to wring a meaning out of meaningless suffering.
At the age of twelve I had an attitude toward life that was to endure, that was to make me seek those areas of living that would keep it alive, that was to make me skeptical of everything while seeking everything, tolerant of all and yet critical. The spirit I had caught gave me insight into the sufferings of others, made me gravitate toward those whose feelings were like my own, made me sit for hours while others told me of their lives, made me strangely tender and cruel, violent and peaceful.
It made me want to drive coldly to the heart of every question and it open to the core of suffering I knew I would find there. It made me love burrowing into psychology, into realistic and naturalistic fiction and art, into those whirlpools of politics that had the power to claim the whole of men's souls. It directed my loyalties to the side of men in rebellion; it made me love talk that sought answers to questions that could help nobody, that could only keep alive in me that enthralling sense of wonder and awe in the face of the drama of human feeling which is hidden by the external drama of life.”
― Richard Wright, quote from Black Boy
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