“The problem with paths is that once you have chosen one, You cannot choose the others. Attributed to Gothos”
― Ian C. Esslemont, quote from Orb Sceptre Throne
“Kruppe wonders now, in the presentsight, as it were – or is it is? – what pedestrian activities or seemingly innocuous events will, in the hindsight of the future, be seen to be foreshadowings of the grievous event which may, or may not, come to pass, and which, by the forewarning, may thusly be headed off.”
― Ian C. Esslemont, quote from Orb Sceptre Throne
“when you think everyone around you is mad, that’s then you should start to suspect it’s actually you.”
― Ian C. Esslemont, quote from Orb Sceptre Throne
“Freedom - rather more complicated in the concrete than the abstract, yes?”
― Ian C. Esslemont, quote from Orb Sceptre Throne
“Tyranny remains because the weak and fearful seek it.”
― Ian C. Esslemont, quote from Orb Sceptre Throne
“They are the words of an old man who has lost a great friend. A mourning elder who looks at life only to see death. Such a dark vision must not guide a people. We who see life, who look ahead to the future. We must lead. And”
― Ian C. Esslemont, quote from Orb Sceptre Throne
“The truth is that the goal of existence is to kill you.”
― Ian C. Esslemont, quote from Orb Sceptre Throne
“Scillara was not cruel; she was simply not interested and he did not hold this against her. It seemed to him that frankly most people by temperament and character should not be thrust into the role of parents. She was simply uncharacteristic in admitting it. He”
― Ian C. Esslemont, quote from Orb Sceptre Throne
“Did we not look out together upon the dark waters of the lake
And behold there the constellations
Of both hemispheres at once?
-Love Songs of the Cinnamon Wastes”
― Ian C. Esslemont, quote from Orb Sceptre Throne
“Give and give of y’self till there’s nothing left! Only then can you have something! If you take, you diminish things till there’s nothing left. If you give, you provide and things grow! Yes?”
― Ian C. Esslemont, quote from Orb Sceptre Throne
“Speak not to me of the meddling Jaghut!”
― Ian C. Esslemont, quote from Orb Sceptre Throne
“Having faith is believing in something you just know ain't true.”
― Mark Twain, quote from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
“You don't notice the dead leaving when they really choose to leave you. You're not meant to. At most you feel them as a whisper or the wave of a whisper undulating down. I would compare it to a woman in the back of a lecture hall or theater whom no one notices until she slips out.Then only those near the door themselves, like Grandma Lynn, notice; to the rest it is like an unexplained breeze in a closed room.
Grandma Lynn died several years later, but I have yet to see her here. I imagine her tying it on in her heaven, drinking mint juleps with Tennessee Williams and Dean Martin. She'll be here in her own sweet time, I'm sure.
If I'm to be honest with you, I still sneak away to watch my family sometimes. I can't help it, and sometimes they still think of me. They can't help it....
It was a suprise to everyone when Lindsey found out she was pregnant...My father dreamed that one day he might teach another child to love ships in bottles. He knew there would be both sadness and joy in it; that it would always hold an echo of me.
I would like to tell you that it is beautiful here, that I am, and you will one day be, forever safe. But this heaven is not about safety just as, in its graciousness, it isn't about gritty reality. We have fun.
We do things that leave humans stumped and grateful, like Buckley's garden coming up one year, all of its crazy jumble of plants blooming all at once. I did that for my mother who, having stayed, found herself facing the yard again. Marvel was what she did at all the flowers and herbs and budding weeds. Marveling was what she mostly did after she came back- at the twists life took.
And my parents gave my leftover possessions to the Goodwill, along with Grandma Lynn's things.
They kept sharing when they felt me. Being together, thinking and talking about the dead, became a perfectly normal part of their life. And I listened to my brother, Buckley, as he beat the drums.
Ray became Dr. Singh... And he had more and more moments that he chose not to disbelieve. Even if surrounding him were the serious surgeons and scientists who ruled over a world of black and white, he maintained this possibility: that the ushering strangers that sometimes appeared to the dying were not the results of strokes, that he had called Ruth by my name, and that he had, indeed, made love to me.
If he ever doubted, he called Ruth. Ruth, who graduated from a closet to a closet-sized studio on the Lower East Side. Ruth, who was still trying to find a way to write down whom she saw and what she had experienced. Ruth, who wanted everyone to believe what she knew: that the dead truly talk to us, that in the air between the living, spirits bob and weave and laugh with us. They are the oxygen we breathe.
Now I am in the place I call this wide wide Heaven because it includes all my simplest desires but also the most humble and grand. The word my grandfather uses is comfort.
So there are cakes and pillows and colors galore, but underneath this more obvious patchwork quilt are places like a quiet room where you can go and hold someone's hand and not have to say anything. Give no story. Make no claim. Where you can live at the edge of your skin for as long as you wish. This wide wide Heaven is about flathead nails and the soft down of new leaves, wide roller coaster rides and escaped marbles that fall then hang then take you somewhere you could never have imagined in your small-heaven dreams.”
― Alice Sebold, quote from The Lovely Bones
“A bruise is a lesson... and each lesson makes us better.”
― George R.R. Martin, quote from A Game of Thrones
“Grover didn't say anything for awhile. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?”
― Rick Riordan, quote from The Lightning Thief
“I have nothing now but praise for my life. I'm not unhappy. I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can't stop them. They leave me and I love them more...What I dread is the isolation. ... There are so many beautiful things in the world which I will have to leave when I die, but I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready.”
― Maurice Sendak, quote from Where the Wild Things Are
BookQuoters 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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