“But I do get afraid. It's just that fear makes me sort of . . . angry and resentful, and I bite back at it. It's hard to describe."
It isn't hard to describe, you idiot," Aud said. "It's called courage.”
― Jonathan Stroud, quote from Heroes of the Valley
“Ah, you coward! Look at you, running."
"Actually, it's called improvising.”
― Jonathan Stroud, quote from Heroes of the Valley
“What is a gathering without unseemly drunkenness?”
― Jonathan Stroud, quote from Heroes of the Valley
“Long ago I dreamed of being a hero in your company" Halli said Huskily "I'm sorry to say your reality disappoints me”
― Jonathan Stroud, quote from Heroes of the Valley
“The stories that bind us, Halli. The stories we live by, that dictate what we do and where we go. The stories that give us our names, our identities, the places we belong, the people we hate.”
― Jonathan Stroud, quote from Heroes of the Valley
“– Один плюс один равняется одному, твою мать, – сказал он и тяжело обрушил флейту на челюсть Дудочника. Тот отшатнулся, но не упал. – Я не крыса плюс человек, усек? Я больше, чем один из двух, и я больше, чем оба. Я новое существо. Ты не заставишь меня танцевать.”
― China Miéville, quote from King Rat
“I love knowing that I am simultaneously as big as the universe and yet merely a heap of star dust.”
― Jill Bolte Taylor, quote from My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey
“Beautiful girls who love too much, as Lindsay appeared to have done, often meet unpleasant ends.”
― Meg Cabot, quote from Size 14 Is Not Fat Either
“In the half darkness I winked to my other self, my mad dictator, and congratulated him on his droll victory. I closed my eyes and felt the warmth flowing from Shosha's head to my face. What did I have to lose? Nothing more than what everyone loses anyway.”
― Isaac Bashevis Singer, quote from Shosha
“The Sultan tapped his tented fingers, staring into the distance. Suddenly, he lunged toward me, took hold of my wrist, and pulled me roughly down to sit on the cushion beside him. “This . . . mermaid,” he said through clenched teeth, leaning in so close to me that I could smell the mint on his breath. “The one who sang to the king at night.” His voice was fierce, but quiet. I couldn’t tell if anyone but me could hear. “How . . .” he began. “How did she think of the king . . . in her heart?”
I glanced quickly up at his face and saw there a look that took me by surprise. An oddly soft, vulnerable, hurting look. The look of a man who might cry out in his sleep at night, like a child. But then the stony mask slid back.
“Did she despise him,” the Sultan asked, “for making her sing for her life each night? Did she only pretend affection to save her own skin? Did she . . . loathe him for what he had done before, to his other wives? For his . . . sins?”
“No, my lord,” I said softly. “She loved him.”
“Do you swear it?” He gripped my wrist harder, until it hurt.
“Yes, my lord. She told me—” I stopped, corrected myself. “She told the mermaid with the broken fin. She said the king—the merman king, my lord—she said that he had a deep hurting inside him. She said that she wanted to soothe him. And when the mermaid with the broken fin . . . questioned how the queen could love him—because of the things you just said, my lord—the queen said, ‘I’m not ashamed of loving him. There’s nothing wrong with loving someone. It’s hating—that’s what’s wrong.”
― Susan Fletcher, quote from Shadow Spinner
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