“Books are like oxygen to a deep-sea diver," she had once said. "Take them away and you might as well begin counting the bubbles.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from I Am Half-Sick of Shadows
“Although it is pleasant to think about poison at any season, there is something special about Christmas, and I found myself grinning.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from I Am Half-Sick of Shadows
“I lay for a long time in silence, staring at the ceiling. Was my life always to be like this? I wondered. Was it going to go, forever, in an instant, from sunshine to shadow? From pandemonium to loneliness? From fierce anger to a fiercer kind of love?”
― Alan Bradley, quote from I Am Half-Sick of Shadows
“I had concocted the gunpowder myself from niter, sulfur, charcoal, and a happy heart. When working with explosives, I've found that attitude is everything.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from I Am Half-Sick of Shadows
“I had learned by personal experience that grumblers are deaf to any voices but their own.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from I Am Half-Sick of Shadows
“I realized at once that a great actress can never be greater than when she's starring in her own life.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from I Am Half-Sick of Shadows
“Either way, the whole thing was a pain in the porpoise.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from I Am Half-Sick of Shadows
“The sweater didn't fit me, of course. Even with the sleeves rolled up I looked like a baggy monkey picking bananas. But to my way of thinking, at least in winter, woolly warmth trumps freezing fashion any day of the week.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from I Am Half-Sick of Shadows
“Excuse me,' I said. 'I've just remembered something.' It was true. What I'd remembered was this: While I was not in the least afraid of the dead, there were those among the living who gave me the creeping hooly-goolies...”
― Alan Bradley, quote from I Am Half-Sick of Shadows
“Yaroo!" I shouted, and I didn't give a beetle's bottom who heard me. "Ya-rooo!”
― Alan Bradley, quote from I Am Half-Sick of Shadows
“Impertinent children ought to be given six coats of shellac and set up in public places as a warning to others.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from I Am Half-Sick of Shadows
“I was halfway up the stairs when the doorbell rang. "Dash it all!" I said. There was nothing I hated more than being interrupted when I was about to do something gratifying with chemicals.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from I Am Half-Sick of Shadows
“But getting back to my old friend water, the thing of it is this: No matter how hot or how cold, no matter its state, its form, its qualities, or its color, each molecule of water still consists of no more than a single oxygen atom bonded to two sister atoms of hydrogen. It takes all three of them to make a blinding blizzard— or a thunderstorm, for that matter … or a puffy white cloud in a summer sky. O Lord, how manifold are thy works!”
― Alan Bradley, quote from I Am Half-Sick of Shadows
“Perhaps, I thought, whenever we began to breathe the breath of others, when the spinning atoms of their bodies began to mingle withour own, we took on something of their personality, like crystals in a snowflake. Perhaps we became something more, yet something lesser than ourselves.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from I Am Half-Sick of Shadows
“Do What?'
'Lie,' he said. 'Why do you fabricate these outlandish stories?'
'Well,' I wanted to say, 'there are those of us who create because all around us, things visible and invisible are crumbling. We are like the stonemasons of Babylon, forever working, as it says in Jeremiah, to shore up the city of walls.'
I didn't say that, of course. What I did say was: 'I don't know.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from I Am Half-Sick of Shadows
“Good morning, Flavia," she said at last, but her acknowledgment of my presence came too late for my liking.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from I Am Half-Sick of Shadows
“Older sisters are much alike the world over: half a cup of love and half one of contempt.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from I Am Half-Sick of Shadows
“Ladies and gentlemen, friends and neighbors, and anyone else I've managed to leave out–”
― Alan Bradley, quote from I Am Half-Sick of Shadows
“Was my life always to be like this? I wondered.Was it going to go, forever, in an instant, from sunshine to shadow? From pandemonium to loneliness? From fierce anger to a fiercer kind of love?
Something was missing. I was sure of it. Something was missing, but I couldn't for the life of me think what it was.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from I Am Half-Sick of Shadows
“Theater, I suppose, is a form of mass mesmerism, and if that’s the case, Shakespeare, despite his chemical shortcomings, was surely one of the greatest hypnotists who ever lived.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from I Am Half-Sick of Shadows
“Think of the billions of trillions of snowflakes, and the billions of trillions of hydrogen and oxygen molecules in every single one of them. It makes you wonder, doesn’t it, who wrote the laws for the wind and the rain, the snow and the dew? I’ve tried to work it out, but it makes my head spin.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from I Am Half-Sick of Shadows
“The vicar's organized a snow-shoveling party."
"But why?" I asked.
It didn't make sense. If all the roads were closed, what use was it clearing a way to the front door?
"Because," said Aunt Felicity's voice behind me, "it is a well-known fact that more than two men shut up together in an enclosed space for more than an hour constitute a hazard to society. If unpleasantness is to be avoided, they must be made to go outdoors and work off their animal spirits.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from I Am Half-Sick of Shadows
“I was being resisted by millions of tiny crystals, I knew, but the strength of their chemical bonds was enormous. If all of us could be like snow, I thought, how happy we should be.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from I Am Half-Sick of Shadows
Alan Bradley
Born place: Toronto, Canada
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“The rain accompanied Faolan as he travelled inland to the crossroads where he must at last make a choice of ways. He tried to fix his mind on the decision ahead, but thoughts of Deord intruded: Deord strong and serene as guard to a solitary, gifted captive; Deord devoting all he had left, after Breakstone, to keeping that wrongly imprisoned man safe from his own brother and from himself. Deord, at the end, fighting one last, heroic battle and dying so Faolan and Ana and the remarkable Drustan could go free.”
― Juliet Marillier, quote from The Well of Shades
“Your rival has ten weak points, whereas you have ten strong ones. Although his army is large, it is not irresistible.
“Yuan Shao is too caught up in ceremony and show while you, on the other hand, are more practical. He is often antagonistic and tends to force things, whereas you are more conciliatory and try to guide things to their proper courses, giving you the advantage of popular support. His extravagance hinders his administrative ability while your better efficiency is a great contribution to the government, granting you the edge of a well-structured and stable administration. On the outside he is very kind and giving but on the inside he is grudging and suspicious. You are just the opposite, appearing very exacting but actually very understanding of your followers’ strengths and weaknesses. This grants you the benefit of tolerance. He lacks commitment where you are unfaltering in your decisions, promptly acting on your plans with full faith that they will succeed. This shows an advantage in strategy and decisiveness. He believes a man is only as good as his reputation, which contrasts with you, who looks beyond this to see what kind of person they really are. This demonstrates that you are a better judge of moral character. He only pays attention to those followers close to him, while your vision is all-encompassing. This shows your superior supervision. He is easily misled by poor advice, whereas you maintain sound judgment even if beset by evil council. This is a sign of your independence of thought. He does not always know what is right and wrong but you have an unwavering sense of justice. This shows how you excel in discipline. He has a massive army, but the men are poorly trained and not ready for war. Your army, though much smaller, is far superior and well provisioned, giving you the edge in planning and logistics, allowing you to execute effectively. With your ten superiorities you will have no difficulty in subduing Yuan Shao.”
― Luo Guanzhong, quote from Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Vol. 1
“—No te estoy dejando por él. No te estoy dejando por nadie, y jamás me habré ido buscando algo mejor. Tú eres mi algo mejor, y desearía, que yo fuese el tuyo también.”
― Aimee Carter, quote from Goddess Interrupted
“Or perhaps it is because it is so NECESSARY for you to win. It is like a drowning man catching at a straw. You yourself will agree that, unless he were drowning he would not mistake a straw for the trunk of a tree.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Gambler
“You stop that,’ he said, in a voice which he did not recognise. ‘You stop that. You stop trying to kill me. It’s not my fault I’m white. It’s not my fault you’re black. It’s not my fault he’s dead.”
― James Baldwin, quote from Another Country
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TricksBookQuoters 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.
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