Cressida Cowell · 241 pages
Rating: (7.5K votes)
“There's no such thing as im-POSSIBLE, Hiccup, only im-PROBABLE. The only thing that limits us are the limits to our imagination”
“Sometimes it is only a True Friend who knows what we mean when we try to speak.
Somebody who has spent a lot of time with us, and listens carefully to what we are trying to say, and tries to understand.”
“Who is to say that your friend's life is worth more than a Dragon's?' said One Eye, who was taking up most of the deck.
'It's worth more to me,' said Hiccup. 'Because I didn't know the Doomfang personally.”
“Ibland är det bara nära vänner som kan förstå vad vi försöker få sagt. Nån som vi ofta har varit tillsammans med och som lyssnar noga på vad det är som vi försöker säga, och som försöker förstå (s. 220).”
“You can Cheat a Dragon's Curse.
You do not have to accept the hand that Fate has dealt you.”
“My poison is creeping through his body.
My strong venom is killing his heart.”
“There's no such thing as im-POSSIBLE, Hiccup,' snorted Old Wrinkly, 'only im-PROBABLE. The only thing that limits us are the limits to our imaginations... and I used to think of you as an imaginative boy. Give up, if you want to... but I used to think of you as the sort of boy who would NEVER give up, however bad things looked.”
“The world broke open like a big white egg.”
“Sometimes it is not until the Final Chapter that you realise what a quest has REALLY been about all along.”
“Sometimes it is only a True Friend who knows what we mean when we try to speak. Somebody who has spent a lot of time with us, and listens carefully to what we are trying to say, and tries to understand.”
“A little later, strolling about the town, I, stopped into a shop near the museum, where they sold souvenirs and post-cards. I looked over the cards leisurely; the ones I liked best were soiled and wrinkled. The man, who spoke French fluently, offered to make the cards presentable. He asked me to wait a few minutes while he ran over to the house and cleaned and ironed them. He said he would make them look like new. I was so dumbfounded that before I could say anything he had disappeared, leaving me in charge of the shop. After a few minutes his wife came in. I thought she looked strange for a Greek woman. After a few words had passed I realized that she was French and she, when she learned that I hailed from Paris, was overjoyed to speak with me. We got along beautifully until she began talking about Greece. She hated Crete, she said. It was too dry, too dusty, too hot, too bare. She missed the beautiful trees of Normandy, the gardens with the high walls, the orchards, and so on. Didn't I agree with her? I said NO, flatly. "Monsieur!" she said, rising up in her pride and dignity, as if I had slapped her in the face.
"I don't miss anything," I said, pressing the point home. "I think this is marvellous. I don't like your gardens with their high walls, I don't like your pretty little orchards and your well-cultivated-fields. I like this …" and I pointed outdobrs to the dusty road on which a sorely-laden donkey was plodding along dejectedly. "But it's not civilized," she said, in a sharp, shrill voice which reminded me of the miserly tobacconiste in the Rue de la Tombe-Issoire.
"Je m'en fous da la civilisation européenne!" I blurted out.
"Monsieur!" she said again, her feathers ruffled and her nose turning blue with malice.
Fortunately her husband reappeared at this point with the post-cards which he had given a dry-cleaning.”
“Instead of saying, “I love you because you’re so beautiful,” tell her that you love her because there is no one else in the world like her.”
“El error de los hombres superiores es gastar los años de su juventud en hacerse dignos de la estimación de los demás.”
“I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and cry, ‘Tis all barren—and so it is; and so is all the world to him who will not cultivate the fruits it offers. I declare, said I, clapping my hands chearily together, that was I in a desart, I would find out wherewith in it to call forth my affections—If I could not do better, I would fasten them upon some sweet myrtle, or seek some melancholy cypress to connect myself to—I would court their shade, and greet them kindly for their protection—I would cut my name upon them, and swear they were the loveliest trees throughout the desert: if their leaves wither’d, I would teach myself to mourn, and when they rejoiced, I would rejoice along with them.”
“Don't try and go through life worrying about if somebody like you or not. You best be making sure they doing right by you,”
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