Stephen Crane · 92 pages
Rating: (6.5K votes)
“The man had arrived at that stage of drunkenness where affection is felt for the universe.”
― Stephen Crane, quote from Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
“The girl, Maggie, blossomed in a mud puddle.”
― Stephen Crane, quote from Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
“To her the earth was composed of hardships and insults. She felt instant admiration for a man who openly defied it. She thought that if the grim angel of death should clutch his heart, Pete would shrug his shoulders and say, "Oh, ev'ryt'ing goes."
She anticipated that he would come again shortly. She spent some of her week's pay in the purchase of flowered cretonne for a lambrequin. She made it with infinite care, and hung it to the slightly careening mantel over the stove in the kitchen. She studied it with painful anxiety from different points in the room. She wanted it to look well on Sunday night when, perhaps, Jimmie's friend would come. On Sunday night, however, Pete did not appear.
Afterwards the girl looked at it with a sense of humiliation. She was now convinced that Pete was superior to admiration for lambrequins.”
― Stephen Crane, quote from Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
“Nevertheless, he had, on a certain star-lit evening, said wonderingly and quite reverently: "Deh moon looks like hell, don't it?”
― Stephen Crane, quote from Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
“She thinks my name is Freddie, you know, but of course it ain't. I
always tell these people some name like that, because if they got onto
your right name they might use it sometime. Understand?”
― Stephen Crane, quote from Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
“Formidable women, with uncombed hair and disordered dress, gossiped while leaning on railings, or screamed in frantic quarrels.”
― Stephen Crane, quote from Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
“Rose leaned against the bathroom door. Here it was — her real life, the truth of who she was, barreling down on her like a bus with bad brakes. Here was the truth — she wasn’t the kind of person Jim could fall in love with. She wasn’t what she’d made herself out to be — a cheerful, uncomplicated girl, a normal girl with a happy, orderly life, a girl who wore pretty shoes and had nothing more pressing on her mind that whether ER was a rerun this week. The truth was in the exercise tape she didn’t have time to unwrap, let alone exercise to; the truth was her hairy legs and ugly underwear. Most of all, the truth was her sister, her gorgeous, messed-up, fantastically unhappy and astoundingly irresponsible sister.”
― Jennifer Weiner, quote from In Her Shoes
“Why’re you like that?” the boy persisted.
“Like what?” Paragon finally asked in annoyance.
“Ya’know. Allus mad. Or crazy fightin’ Say’n stuff ta be mean.”
“How else do you expect me to be?” Paragon retorted. “Joyous that they’ve dragged me out here? All excited to go off on a hare-brained rescue mission with them?”
He felt the boy’s shrug. “Ya could be.”
“I could be?” Paragon snorted. “I’d like to know how.”
“S’easy. Ya decide t’be.”
“You decide to be happy? I should just forget everything that has been done to me, and be happy? Tra-la-la-la? Like that.”
“Ya could.” He heard the boy’s nails against his scalp. “Lookit me. I coulda hated everyone o’ ‘em. I decided t’be happy. Decided ta take what I could get. Make a life outer it.” A pause. “S’not like I’m gonna get another life. Gotta make this’n work.”
“It’s not that simple,” Paragon snapped.
“Could be,” Cliff insisted. “In’t no harder than decidin’t’be mad allus.”
The boy sauntered away slowly. His bare feet scuffed lightly on the deck. “But it’s a lot funner,” he called back over his shoulder.
p. 406: Clef to Paragon”
― Robin Hobb, quote from The Mad Ship
“Guild doesn't like me."
"That's true."
"He doesn't like you, ether."
"That is mystifying.”
― Derek Landy, quote from Playing with Fire
“He was right. I was letting myself get distracted, like a rabbit doing math problems instead of looking for foxes.”
― Brandon Sanderson, quote from Steelheart
“Somentimes you're in the wrong place at the wrong time and what happens is nobody's fault.You just want to feel bad so you'll feel better.”
― Rick Yancey, quote from The Infinite Sea
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