Quotes from Passenger

“It's our choices that matter in the end. Not wishes, not words, not promises.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger

“You cannot fathom the distance I would travel for you.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger

“In the whole course of history, war had always fallen on the shoulders of the young.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger

“Good ideas had in the dark were generally best left there.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger

“The only way out is through.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger

“It matters not who you love, but only the quality of such a love. A flower is no less beautiful because it does not bloom in the expected form. Because it lasts an hour, and not days.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger

“There are rules, but rules may be rewritten if only one hand holds the ink.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger

“She didn't need a protector or a rescuer. But she did need him.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger

“I've never slapped anyone before,” she admitted.
“How did you find the experience?”
“It would have been more satisfying if he'd gone flying out of his seat like I imagined.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger

“Love was selfish, wasn't it? It made honest men want things they had no right to. It cocooned one from the rest of the world, erased time itself, knocked away reason. It made you live in defiance of the inevitable. It made you want another's mind, body; it made you feel as if you deserved to own their heart, and carve out a place in it.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger

“What a privilege it was to never feel like you had to take stock of your surroundings, or gauge everyone’s reactions to the color of your skin.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger

“I love you.” For whatever small comfort it was worth, he would have the truth between them now. “Most desperately. Bloody inconvenient, that.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger

“How do you fight against a mountain? How do you move it when you don't even have a shovel?”
“Maybe you don't have to move it,” Etta said, folding the gown over the lid of the trunk. “Maybe you have to climb it.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger

“He would not surrender to the disaster of loving her.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger

“This was the danger, the seduction of time travel, she realized—it was the opportunity, the freedom of a thousand possibilities of where to live and how to start over. It was the beauty open to you in your life if you only stopped for a moment to look.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger

“So you'd keep me here against my will—”
“Know this pirate,” he said, his hands gripping the railing, “You are my passenger, and I will be damned before I let any harm come to you.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger

“You do have a choice, you know,” Etta told her after a moment. “There is always a choice.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger

“Society is always the same, regardless of the era. There are rules and standards, with seemingly no purpose. It's a hateful, elaborate charade, equal parts flirtation and perceived naïveté. To men we have the minds of children.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger

“But she wondered if, in moving outside of the natural flow of time, they had forgotten the most crucial point of life—that it wasn’t meant to be lived for the past, or even the future, but for each present moment.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger

“Oh my God you are despicable!” Etta snarled.
“Careful, madam, blasphemy is still a sin—”
Even if Nicholas had been the gambling sort, he never would have wagered a single coin on her next words being “Then I guess I'll see you in hell!”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger

“Nicholas felt a rueful smile spread across his face. And a curse be on him for it, because now he knew her. She'd shown him her mind, and she'd opened up her heart, and now he knew the taste of her tears. And he was wrecked.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger

“Rest assured,” he said, when he managed to find his voice, “there will always be a position for you on my ship.”
Her face brightened with her clever, beautiful smile. “Will you let me climb up into the rigging? Reef the sails?”
A burst of thunder rolled through him. “Absolutely not.”
She laughed again. “As if you could stop me.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger

“I wish you'd go a a little easier on him,” she said.
“He came in here thrashing a sword around. Was I supposed to stand idly by and do nothing?” he huffed.
“Well, you weren't supposed to try and rearrange his face with your fist.”
“I wasn't,” Nicholas protested. “He lunged up into it several times. I was only in the way.”
“You're ridiculous.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger

“Free the fire fluttering inside her rib cage. Work her muscles, the bow, the violin, until she played herself to ash and embers and left the rest of the world behind to smolder.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger

“Having actually read the Voltaire in question, I can confirm the quote is, as different from ours as the breed of spaniels is from that of greyhounds,” Nicholas said coldly. “Interesting, though, that in the end we're all just dogs.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger

“A snake could shed its skin, but never change its color.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger

“Half-truths only added up to a whole lie.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger

“What good is honour when greed eats away at its foundations?”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger

“How about a kiss, hey?” Etta liked that she was still able to startle him, just a little. The blank look of concentration broke as he barked out a laugh. “I don't know if that's a wise idea. We'd never leave.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger

“All I hear are Satan's hammers and the war drums of hell, thank you.”
― Alexandra Bracken, quote from Passenger

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Popular quotes

“The beautiful lie is, however, also the essence of kitsch. Kitsch is a form of make-believe, a form of deception. It is an alternative to a daily reality that would otherwise be a spiritual vacuum. . . . Kitsch replaces ethics with aesthetics. . . . Nazism was the ultimate expression of kitsch, of its mind-numbing, death-dealing portent. Nazism, like kitsch, masqueraded as life; the reality of both was death. The Third Reich was the creation of “kitsch men,” people who confused the relationship between life and art, reality and myth, and who regarded the goal of existence as mere affirmation, devoid of criticism, difficulty, insight.”
― Modris Eksteins, quote from Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age

“Sometimes we do not hear the Whisperer even at her loudest because she speaks in our own voice, the one we most often discount.”
― Diane Duane, quote from The Book of Night with Moon

“He seemed to hasten the retreat of departing light by his very presence; the setting sun dipped sharply, as though fleeing before our nigger; a black mist emanated from him; a subtle and dismal influence; a something cold and gloomy that floated out and settled on all the faces like a mourning veil. The circle broke up. The joy of laughter died on stiffened lips.”
― Joseph Conrad, quote from The Nigger of the Narcissus

“He seemed to notice for the first time that we weren't exactly rushing to his side, but were mainly watching him as a zoo patron would watch a crazy monkey, curious but ready to move at the first sign of poo-flinging. There was a minute of awkward silence before someone near the back with their head held under their arm said "who's this twat?”
― Yahtzee Croshaw, quote from Mogworld

“I opened the curtain and entered the confessional, a dark wooden booth built into the side wall of the church. As I knelt on the small worn bench, I could hear a boy's halting confession through the wall, his prescribed penance inaudible as the panel slid open on my side and the priest directed his attention to me.

"Yes, my child," he inquired softly.

"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. This is my First Confession."

"Yes, my child, and what sins have you committed?"
....

"I talked in church twenty times, I disobeyed my mother five times, I wished harm to others several times, I told a fib three times, I talked back to my teacher twice." I held my breath.

"And to whom did you wish harm?"

My scheme had failed. He had picked out the one group of sins that most troubled me. Speaking as softly as I could, I made my admission.

"I wished harm to Allie Reynolds."

"The Yankee pitcher?" he asked, surprise and concern in his voice. "And how did you wish to harm him?"

"I wanted him to break his arm."

"And how often did you make this wish?"

"Every night," I admitted, "before going to bed, in my prayers."

"And were there others?"

"Oh, yes," I admitted. "I wished that Robin Roberts of the Phillies would fall down the steps of his stoop, and that Richie Ashburn would break his hand."

"Is there anything else?"

"Yes, I wished that Enos Slaughter of the Cards would break his ankle, that Phil Rizzuto of the Yanks would fracture a rib, and that Alvin Dark of the Giants would hurt his knee." But, I hastened to add, "I wished that all these injuries would go away once the baseball season ended."
...

"Are there any other sins, my child?"

"No, Father."

"For your penance, say two Hail Mary's, three Our Fathers, and," he added with a chuckle, "say a special prayer for the Dodgers. ...”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, quote from Wait Till Next Year

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