“We’re too much ourselves. Afraid of letting go of what we are, in case we are nothing, and holding on so tight, we lose everything else.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Imajica
“A man kills the thing he loves, and he must die a little himself.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Imajica
“I haven't even had a life I could call my own, and you're ready to slot me into the grand design. Well, I don't think I want to go. I want to be my own design.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Imajica
“Study nothing except in the knowledge that you already knew it. Worship nothing except in adoration of your true self. And fear nothing except in the certainty that you are your enemy's begetter and its only hope of healing.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Imajica
“Perhaps sunlight had always been luminous, and doorways signs of greater passage than that of one room to another. But she’d not noticed it until now.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Imajica
“It was the pivotal teaching of Pluthero Quexos, the most celebrated dramatist of the Second Dominion, that in any fiction, no matter how ambitious its scope or profound its theme, there was only ever room for three players. Between warring kings, a peacemaker; between adoring spouses, a seducer or a child. Between twins, the spirit of the womb. Between lovers, Death. Greater numbers might drift through the drama, of course -- thousands in fact -- but they could only ever be phantoms, agents, or, on rare occasions, reflections of the three real and self-willed beings who stood at the center. And even this essential trio would not remain intact; or so he taught. It would steadily diminish as the story unfolded, three becoming two, two becoming one, until the stage was left deserted.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Imajica
“His body and his mind went about their different businesses. The former, freed from conscious instruction, breathed, rolled, sweated, and digested. The latter went dreaming.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Imajica
“Make a fist. Lightly. Leave enough room for a breath to pass through. Good. Good. All magic proceeds from breath. Remember that.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Imajica
“Her skin was flawless and always cool, always pale; her body was long, like her hair, like her fingers, like her laughter; and her eyes, oh, her eyes, had every season of leaf in them: the twin greens of spring and high summer, the golds of autumn, and, in her rages, black midwinter rot.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Imajica
“Despite his intent, tears sprang to his eyes, and he went into her embrace, both of them sobbing freely, like enemies joined by a common loss or lovers about to be parted. Or else souls who could not remember whether they were lovers or enemies and were weeping at their own confusion.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Imajica
“Look at him." The Autarch glanced back at the captive as he spoke. He's got seconds left to live. But the leech gave him a taste and he wants it back again."
"A taste of what?"
"Of the womb, Rosengarten. He said it was like being in the womb. We're all cast out. Whatever we build, wherever we hide, we're cast out.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Imajica
“The sight of her had pierced him, making her the enterer, had she but known it, and him the entered. Perhaps she had known, on reflection. Perhaps she’d fled from his passivity, from his ease beneath the spike of her beauty. If so, he would undo her revulsion with tonight’s business. Here,”
― Clive Barker, quote from Imajica
“You still love her, don’t you?” Pie said, once they were out and walking. “Of course I love her,” Estabrook said. “That’s why I want her dead.” “There’s no resurrection, Mr. Estabrook. Not for you, at least.” “It’s not me who’s dying,” he said. “I think it is,” came the”
― Clive Barker, quote from Imajica
“Remember, Lucius, that everything you learn is already a part of you, even to the Godhead Itself. Study nothing except in the knowledge that you already knew it. Worship nothing except in adoration of your true self. And fear nothing"--there the Maestro stopped and shuddered, as though he had a presentiment--"fear nothing except in the certainty that you are your enemy's begetter and its only hope of healing. For everything that does evil is in pain. Will you remember those things?”
― Clive Barker, quote from Imajica
“What marked this place as another Dominion was the people in the streets outside, some human, many not, all retreating from the wind or the commotions it carried.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Imajica
“IT WAS THE PIVOTAL teaching of Pluthero Quexos, the most celebrated dramatist of the Second Dominion, that in any fiction, no matter how ambitious its scope or profound its theme, there was only ever room for three players. Between warring kings, a peacemaker; between adoring spouses, a seducer or a child. Between twins, the spirit of the womb. Between lovers, Death. Greater numbers might drift through the drama, of course—thousands in fact—but they could only ever be phantoms, agents, or, on rare occasions, reflections of the three real and self-willed beings who stood at the center. And even this essential trio would not remain intact; or so he taught. It would steadily diminish as the story unfolded, three becoming two, two becoming one, until the stage was left deserted.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Imajica
“You’ve got blood on your hands, and you smell of coitus.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Imajica
“This was the substance of every moment, she realized: the body - never certain if the next lungful would be its last - hovering for a tiny time between cessation and continuance. And in that space out of time, between a breath expelled and another drawn, the miraculous was easy, because neither flesh nor reason has laid their edicts there.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Imajica
Clive Barker
Born place: in Liverpool, The United Kingdom
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“When she was little, someone gave her some weird book called The Wife Store. It was about a very lonely man who decided that he wanted to get married. So he went to the wife store, where endless women lined enormous shelves. He picked himself a wife and bought her. She was bagged up and put in a cart. He took her home. After that, the two of them went to the children store to buy a few kids.
Petey read this book over and over. Not because she liked it, but because she kept waiting for the story to change, kept waiting for the day she'd turn the page and a woman would get to the husband store. She kept waiting for justice. But, of course, the story never changed. She never got justice. If Petey were keeping one of her lists of the things she hated, she wold have to add: the fact that there was no justice. But The Wife Store was still on her shelf at home, if only to remind her that there were assholes in the world who would write such things, believe such things.”
― Laura Ruby, quote from Bone Gap
“A second date always felt like an announcement at his age. And he never felt ready for the announcement.”
― Megan Abbott, quote from The Fever
“Nuh-uh.” Blake shook his head. “Nothing gets trapped in my brain.” No one argued.”
― A.E. Kirk, quote from Demons in Disguise
“the simple fact of bearing a responsibility can be something that gives meaning to life.”
― John Ajvide Lindqvist, quote from Little Star
“A sudden yowl from up ahead had them all starting. A small tree smoked on one side, the faint glow of fire darting from a burning patch of dead foliage. The yowl came again. Matt hurried over and peered up the tree to see a calico cat, its green eyes staring down, as if in accusation.
"No," Reyna said, stopping beside him. "We are not rescuing the cat."
"But the tree -"
"- is on fire. I see that. Have you ever owned a cat? If they can go up, they can come down. Guaranteed."
Matt eyed the feline. It eyed him back, then yowled, as if to say Well, hurry it up.
"It might be too scared to come down," he said.
"It's a cat," Reyna said. "They don't get scared - just annoyed, which I'm going to get if you insist on playing hero and rescuing that faker." She scowled at the cat. "Yes, I mean you. Faker."
The cat sniffed, then turned to Matt, clearly sensing the softer touch.
Owen stepped forward. "If you'll feel better rescuing the cat, Matt, then go ahead. We aren't on a tight schedule."
Reyna waved her arms around the smoking street. "Um, Ragnarök?"
"And the longer you two bicker ..."
"Fine," Reyna said. "I've got this." Before Matt could protest, she walked to the base of the tree, grabbed the lowest branch, and swung up. "Rodeo girl, remember? Also, five years of gymnastics, which my mother thought would make me more graceful and feminine. Her mistake."
She shimmied along a branch. "Come on, faker. I'm your designated hero for today." She looked down at Matt. "And if you ever tell anyone I rescued a cat from a tree ..."
Before Matt could answer, the cat sprang to the ground.
"Arggh!" Reyna said.
"You scared him out," Matt said. "He just needed the extra motivation. No, wait. It's a she. Calicos are almost always female."
"Are they? Huh." Reyna swung out. The cat sat on the ground below, watching.
"See?" Matt said. "She's grateful."
"She's gloating. Let's go.”
― K.L. Armstrong, quote from Thor's Serpents
To Beguile a Beast
The Death of Artemio...
Stranger than Fictio...
True
Chimes at Midnight
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