“Have you ever played chess, Kitty?”
I eyed her. What did a board game have to do with this? “Not really.”
“You and I should play sometime. I think you would like it,” she said. “It’s a game of strategy, mostly. The strong pieces are in the back row, while the weak pieces—the pawns—are all in the front, ready to take the brunt of the attack. Because of their limited movement and vulnerability, most people underestimate them and only use them to protect the more powerful pieces. But when I play, I protect my pawns.”
“Why?” I said, not entirely sure where this conversation was going. “If they’re weak, then what’s the point?”
“They may be weak when the game begins, but their potential is remarkable. Most of the time, they’ll be taken by the other side and held captive until the end of the game. But if you’re careful—if you keep your eyes open and pay attention to what your opponent is doing, if you protect your pawns and they reach the other side of the board, do you know what happens then?”
I shook my head, and she smiled.
“Your pawn becomes a queen.” She touched my cheek, her fingers cold as ice. “Because they kept moving forward and triumphed against impossible odds, they become the most powerful piece in the game. Never forget that, all right? Never forget the potential one solitary pawn has to change the entire game.”
― Aimee Carter, quote from Pawn
“But the world is out there, and it understands that the illusion of knowledge and freedom is not the same as the real thing. Eventually it will fade, and there are those who will do whatever it takes to make that happen sooner rather than later.”
― Aimee Carter, quote from Pawn
“The world doesn't exist because you gave it permission.”
― Aimee Carter, quote from Pawn
“I doubt he'll come all this way for an orange," she said as she tapped her spatula against the side of the bowl. That was what I loved most about Nina: she'd heard it all, and nothing any of us threw at her ever surprised her. "You know, once upon a time, everyone could walk into a marked and buy anything they wanted."
I snorted. "Fairy takes start with 'once upon a time' Nina."
"It was a fairy take of sorts, but that didn't make it any less real," she said lowering the bowl to focus on me. "It's frightening how much things change in seventy-one years.”
― Aimee Carter, quote from Pawn
“I would know something was missing. I would know my life was pointless, even if I never understood why. Even if we'd never met, even if you never existed, I would still love you beyond all reason for the rest of my life.”
― Aimee Carter, quote from Pawn
“You and I should play sometime. I think you would like it,' she said." It's a game of strategy, mostly. The strong pieces are in the back row, while the weak pieces - the pawns - are all in the front, ready to take the brunt of the attack. Because of their limited movement and vulnerability, most people underestimate them and only use them to protect the more powerful pieces. But when I play I protect my pawns.'... 'They may be weak when the game begins, but their potential is remarkable. Most of the time, they'll be taken by the other side and held captive until the end of the game. But if you're careful - if you keep your eyes open and pay attention to what your oppenent is doing, if you protect your pawns and they reach the other side of the board, do you know what happens then?' I shook my head, and she smiled.
"Your pawn becomes a queen."... 'Because they kept moving forward and triumphed against impossible odds, they become the most powerful piece in the game.”
― Aimee Carter, quote from Pawn
“The world doesn’t exist because you gave it permission,”
― Aimee Carter, quote from Pawn
“Even if we’d never met, even if you never existed, I would still love you beyond all reason for the rest of my life.”
― Aimee Carter, quote from Pawn
“the illusion of knowledge and freedom is not the same as the real thing.”
― Aimee Carter, quote from Pawn
Aimee Carter
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“We do not disappear without a trace. We leave a wake that never quite disappears, a gash in time that we so laboriously leave behind us.”
― Lars Saabye Christensen, quote from The Half Brother
“Humanity will destroy itself, body and soul, before it will learn a simple lesson.”
― Dan Wells, quote from Fragments
“I saw the folded note peeking up from behind the cover of the book in which I'd hidden it.
I brushed my fingertips across the lineny surface, my skin sparking with electricity, my fingers itching to pull it free.
I shoudn't, I told myself, even as I held my breath and watched myself withdrawing it from the book. I tried to tamp down the feeling of anticipation coursing through me at the same time I argued that it was a mistake to look at it again.
It didn't deserve anymore of my time. He didn't deserve the space he already occupied in my mind.
I glanced around to see if anyone had noticed me there, tucked beneath my desk, reading a note that I'd already memorized.
No one paid me any attention.
I held the letter, vividly picturing the six words written inside the folds. Six words that I already knew by heart. Six words that meant more to me than they should.
I unfolded the top third of the paper, then the bottom, purposely keeping my eyes unfocused for just a moment.
My heart stopped.
And then my eyesight cleared.
I pledge to keep you safe.”
― Kimberly Derting, quote from The Pledge
“A hawk reeled overhead with a rodent squirming in its beak, close enough so you could see the bird’s black shiny eyes.”
― Mary Karr, quote from The Liars' Club
“almost every species that has ever existed is extinct; extinction is the rule, survival is the exception.”
― Carl Sagan, quote from The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God
After You'd Gone
Brooklyn
The Descendants
The Ghost Writer
Insight
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