Cressida Cowell · 246 pages
Rating: (6.2K votes)
“And now that its ruby eyes are set into the gold, you cannot see their tear-shape, so they seem to be laughing rather than crying. It is a constant reminder to me of the human ability to create something beautiful even when things are at the darkest.”
― Cressida Cowell, quote from How to Twist a Dragon's Tale
“The Hero cares not for a wild winter's storm. For it carries him swift on the back of the storm. All may be lost and our hearts may be worn, but a Hero fights forever.”
― Cressida Cowell, quote from How to Twist a Dragon's Tale
“Human hearts are not made out of stone.
Thank Thor.
They can break, and heal, and beat again.”
― Cressida Cowell, quote from How to Twist a Dragon's Tale
“If you're going to start a new life, you might as well start it NOW.”
― Cressida Cowell, quote from How to Twist a Dragon's Tale
“Slowly, Gobber stood up. Carefully, he removed his helmet from his head, and placed it very gently on the chest of the dead Goliath.”
― Cressida Cowell, quote from How to Twist a Dragon's Tale
“Hiccup had made leaps such as these all his life. Leaps of faith, leaps of hope, leaps out into the unknown. Hiccup had always trusted in his luck, in his faith that the universe was ultimately kindly, a Good Egg, as Stoick would put it, rather than a Bad Egg, and would reach out and save him.
But this was more of a leap of despair.”
― Cressida Cowell, quote from How to Twist a Dragon's Tale
“Is the universe a Good Egg or a Bad Egg?”
― Cressida Cowell, quote from How to Twist a Dragon's Tale
“You see how good and evil are twisted together?
Like a golden dragon bracelet snaking brightly about a person's arm.”
― Cressida Cowell, quote from How to Twist a Dragon's Tale
“The dragon bracelet that Humongous created, out of misplaced love and gratitude, in the hellish nightmare of the Lava-Lout Jail-Forges is exquisitely made, for he was a far better goldsmith than he was a singer.
It curls around my arm, its shining wings folded back, as if about to unfurl and take off, and now that its ruby eyes are set into the gold, you cannot see their tear shape, so they seem to be laughing rather than crying.
It is a constant reminder to me of the human ability to create something beautiful even when things are at their darkest.”
― Cressida Cowell, quote from How to Twist a Dragon's Tale
“Hicke hade tagit liknande språng i hela sitt liv, språng undan faror, språng ut i det okända, språng utan skyddsnät. Hicke hade alltid litat på turen och på förvissningen om att världen i grund och botten var vänligt inställd till honom (s. 224, 226).”
― Cressida Cowell, quote from How to Twist a Dragon's Tale
“Människohjärtan är inte gjorda av sten (s. 251).”
― Cressida Cowell, quote from How to Twist a Dragon's Tale
“Be careful. Wait out your year. Come home.”
― Jessica Day George, quote from Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow
“When Warren was a little boy fingerprinting nuns and collecting bottle caps, he had no knowledge of what he would someday become. Yet as he rode his bike through Spring Valley, flinging papers day after day, and raced through the halls of The Westchester, pulse pounding, trying to make his deliveries on time, if you had asked him if he wanted to be the richest man on earth—with his whole heart, he would have said, Yes.
That passion had led him to study a universe of thousands of stocks. It made him burrow into libraries and basements for records nobody else troubled to get. He sat up nights studying hundreds of thousands of numbers that would glaze anyone else’s eyes. He read every word of several newspapers each morning and sucked down the Wall Street Journal like his morning Pepsi, then Coke. He dropped in on companies, spending hours talking about barrels with the woman who ran an outpost of Greif Bros. Cooperage or auto insurance with Lorimer Davidson. He read magazines like the Progressive Grocer to learn how to stock a meat department. He stuffed the backseat of his car with Moody’s Manuals and ledgers on his honeymoon. He spent months reading old newspapers dating back a century to learn the cycles of business, the history of Wall Street, the history of capitalism, the history of the modern corporation. He followed the world of politics intensely and recognized how it affected business. He analyzed economic statistics until he had a deep understanding of what they signified. Since childhood, he had read every biography he could find of people he admired, looking for the lessons he could learn from their lives. He attached himself to everyone who could help him and coattailed anyone he could find who was smart. He ruled out paying attention to almost anything but business—art, literature, science, travel, architecture—so that he could focus on his passion. He defined a circle of competence to avoid making mistakes. To limit risk he never used any significant amount of debt. He never stopped thinking about business: what made a good business, what made a bad business, how they competed, what made customers loyal to one versus another. He had an unusual way of turning problems around in his head, which gave him insights nobody else had. He developed a network of people who—for the sake of his friendship as well as his sagacity—not only helped him but also stayed out of his way when he wanted them to. In hard times or easy, he never stopped thinking about ways to make money. And all of this energy and intensity became the motor that powered his innate intelligence, temperament, and skills.”
― Alice Schroeder, quote from The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life
“Lying across his chest was a curious weapon, a shotgun with the barrel sawed off a foot in front of the triggers. It was clear that this had been fired at close range and that he had received the whole charge in the face, blowing his head almost to pieces. The triggers had been wired together, so as to make the simultaneous discharge more destructive.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Valley of Fear
“Youth is terrible: it is a stage trod by children in buskins and a variety of costumes mouthing speeches they've memorized and fanatically believe but only half understand. And history is terrible because it so often ends up a playground for the immature; a playground for the young Nero, a playground for the young Bonaparte, a playground for the easily roused mobs of children whose simulated passions and simplistic poses suddenly metamorphose into a catastrophically real reality.”
― Milan Kundera, quote from The Joke
“Fear? That’s it, Francis. The little slum boy still fears loss of job. Fears he’ll be cast into the outer darkness and deafened by the weeping, the wailing, the gnashing. Brave, imaginative teacher encourages teenagers to sing recipes but wonders when the axe will fall, when Japanese visitors will shake their heads and report him to Washington. Japanese visitors will instantly detect in my classroom signs of America’s degeneracy and wonder how they could have lost the war. And”
― Frank McCourt, quote from Teacher Man
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