“…nostalgia is, by definition, the least authentic of all feelings.”
― quote from Lies
“We don’t even survive in the memories of the living. Science has destroyed that myth. Whenever we remember something, what we’re doing is remembering the last time we remembered it; our memory doesn’t go back to the original notch, the first one was cut, but to the last one. Human memory is virtual, like that of a computer. When we open a file we’re not opening it as it was when we first created it, but as it was the last time we used it. It is called hypercathexis and is our brain’s most sophisticated recourse when it comes to confronting pain.”
― quote from Lies
“Serena has spent her life fighting fiction the way good soldiers fight—intent on detecting its presence, harassing it, suppressing it—but I have to find a way to show her she’s mistaken her enemy, to explain to her that whoever suppresses fiction destroys life, and that everything disappears with it, all love, all desire. If the past is an invention, it’s not such a big deal. After all, the future’s an invention, and no one finds that hard to accept.”
― quote from Lies
“A law of life: at the precise instant when someone tells a truth, that truth is transformed into a story”
― quote from Lies
“I feel as though my life were a film I've seen too many times; it bores me because I know it by heart, and yet I don't understand it.”
― quote from Lies
“But there are other words for privacy and independence. They are isolation and loneliness.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, quote from The King of Attolia
“I turn to head outside when the boys make their way back into the house. Kel stops in the doorway and puts his hands on his hips, then looks up at me.
“Are you my sister’s boyfriend?”
I’m thrown off by his directness. I pull my jacket on and shake my head. “Um, no. Just her friend.”
“She told my mom you were taking her on a date. I thought only boyfriends took girls on dates.”
“Well,” I pause. “Sometimes boys take girls on dates to see if they want them to be their girlfriend.”
I notice Caulder standing beside me, taking in the conversation as if he’s just as curious. I wasn’t prepared to have to explain the rules of dating right now.
“So it’s like a test?” Caulder asks. “To see if you want Layken to be your girlfriend?”
I shrug and nod. “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”
Kel laughs. “You aren’t gonna like her. She burps a lot. And she’s bossy. And she never lets me drink coffee, so she probably won’t let you have any, either. And she has really bad taste in music and sings way too loud and leaves her bras all over the house. It’s gross.”
I laugh. “Thanks for the warning. You think it’s too late to back out now?”
Kel shakes his head, missing my sarcasm completely. “No, she’s already dressed so you have to take her now.”
I sigh, pretending to be annoyed. “Well, it’s just a few hours. Hopefully she won’t burp a lot and boss me around and steal my coffee and sing to her really bad music and leave her bra in my car.”
Or hopefully she will.”
― Colleen Hoover, quote from This Girl
“On the raptors kept for falconry:
"They talk every night, deep into the darkness. They say about how they were taken, about what they can remember about their homes, about their lineage and the great deeds of their ancestors, about their training and what they've learned and will learn. It is military conversation, really, like what you might have in the mess of a crack cavalry regiment: tactics, small arms, maintenance, betting, famous hunts, wine, women, and song. Another subject they have is food. It is a depressing thought," he continued, "but of course they are mainly trained by hunger. They are a hungry lot, poor chaps, thinking of the best restaurants where they used to go, and how they had champagne and caviar and gypsy music. Of course, they all come from noble blood."
"What a shame that they should be kept prisoners and hungry."
"Well, they do not really understand that they are prisoners any more than the cavalry officers do. They look on themselves as being 'dedicated to their profession,' like an order of knighthood or something of that sort. You see, the member of the Muse [where Raptors are kept for falconry] is restricted to the Raptors, and that does help a lot. They know that none of the lower classes can get in. Their screened perches do not carry Blackbirds or such trash as that. And then, as for the hungry part, they're far from starving or that kind of hunger: they're in training, you know! And like everybody in strict training, they think about food.”
― T.H. White, quote from The Sword in the Stone
“Mr F.'s Aunt, who had eaten her pie with great solemnity, and who had been elaborating some grievous scheme of injury in her mind since her first assumption of that public position on the Marshal's steps, took the present opportunity of addressing the following Sibyllic apostrophe to the relict of her late nephew.
'Bring him for'ard, and I'll chuck him out o' winder!'
Flora tried in vain to soothe the excellent woman by explaining that they were going home to dinner. Mr F.'s Aunt persisted in replying, 'Bring him for'ard and I'll chuck him out o' winder!' Having reiterated this demand an immense number of times, with a sustained glare of defiance at Little Dorrit, Mr F.'s Aunt folded her arms, and sat down in the corner of the pie-shop parlour; steadfastly refusing to budge until such time as 'he' should have been 'brought for'ard,' and the chucking portion of his destiny accomplished.”
― Charles Dickens, quote from Little Dorrit
“The real tragedy of our postcolonial world is not that the majority of people had no say in whether or not they wanted this new world; rather, it is that the majority have not been given the tools to negotiate this new world.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, quote from Half of a Yellow Sun
Sacred Marriage: Cel...
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South of No North
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