“Marjan. I have told him tales of good women and bad women, strong women and weak women, shy women and bold women, clever women and stupid women, honest women and women who betray. I'm hoping that, by living inside their skins while he hears their stories, he'll understand over time that women are not all this way or that way. I'm hoping he'll look at women as he does at men--that you must judge each of us on her own merits, and not condemn us or exalt us only because we belong to a particular sex.”
― Susan Fletcher, quote from Shadow Spinner
“There are some stories that you don't tell aloud, that you make up and tell silently to yourself.”
― Susan Fletcher, quote from Shadow Spinner
“If you let words go buzzing out of your mouth like bees, she always told me, they will come back and sting you.”
― Susan Fletcher, quote from Shadow Spinner
“My auntie Chava used to tell me to chew my words before letting them out. "Seven times, Majan," she would say. "Chew them seven times.”
― Susan Fletcher, quote from Shadow Spinner
“There are many different words inside a city. The world of the rich and the world of beggars. The world of men and the world behind the veil. The worlds of Muslims and of Christians and of Jews.
If you are a rich woman living inside a harem, the world of a poor Christian beggarman is as foreign as China or Abyssinia.
All the worlds touch at the bazaar. And the other place where they touch is in stories. Shahrazad crossed borders all the time, telling tales of country women and Bedouin sheikhs, of poor fishermen and scheming sultanas, of Jewish doctors and Christian brokers, of India and China and the lands of the jinn.
If we don’t share our stories—trading them across our borders as freely as spices and ebony and silk—we will all be strangers forever.”
― Susan Fletcher, quote from Shadow Spinner
“The Sultan tapped his tented fingers, staring into the distance. Suddenly, he lunged toward me, took hold of my wrist, and pulled me roughly down to sit on the cushion beside him. “This . . . mermaid,” he said through clenched teeth, leaning in so close to me that I could smell the mint on his breath. “The one who sang to the king at night.” His voice was fierce, but quiet. I couldn’t tell if anyone but me could hear. “How . . .” he began. “How did she think of the king . . . in her heart?”
I glanced quickly up at his face and saw there a look that took me by surprise. An oddly soft, vulnerable, hurting look. The look of a man who might cry out in his sleep at night, like a child. But then the stony mask slid back.
“Did she despise him,” the Sultan asked, “for making her sing for her life each night? Did she only pretend affection to save her own skin? Did she . . . loathe him for what he had done before, to his other wives? For his . . . sins?”
“No, my lord,” I said softly. “She loved him.”
“Do you swear it?” He gripped my wrist harder, until it hurt.
“Yes, my lord. She told me—” I stopped, corrected myself. “She told the mermaid with the broken fin. She said the king—the merman king, my lord—she said that he had a deep hurting inside him. She said that she wanted to soothe him. And when the mermaid with the broken fin . . . questioned how the queen could love him—because of the things you just said, my lord—the queen said, ‘I’m not ashamed of loving him. There’s nothing wrong with loving someone. It’s hating—that’s what’s wrong.”
― Susan Fletcher, quote from Shadow Spinner
Susan Fletcher
Born place: in Pasadena, The United States
Born date May 28, 1951
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“The cultural work done in the past by gods and epic sagas is now done by laundry-detergent commercials and comic-strip character”
― Roland Barthes, quote from Mythologies
“Our one employee came warily out of the back. He was always skittish with me, and if Lizzy wasn't around, h made a point of keeping his distance. I think he was expecting me to make a pass at him. He was seventeen, had stringy black hair,bad skin, and probably weighed a buck five soaked wet. I didn't have the heart to tell him he wasn't my type.”
― Marie Sexton, quote from Promises
“The dragonets found the carpenters to be even more fascinating than the furniture, and followed the poor men from pen to pen, crowding around to watch, tasting the wooden planks, trying to steal the tools. It made for an interesting day for everyone, as the boys tried to keep the dragonets away from the carpenters, and the dragonets tried to get at the carpenters, and the carpenters worked probably a great deal faster than they ever had in their lives, sure that the dragonets would go from tasting the wood to tasting them. ”
― Mercedes Lackey, quote from Alta
“David's was the first face I saw when I woke up from the surgery to sew up my leg." Eve made a face. "It was like a bad rerun. His face is always the first one I see when I wake up from an attack by a homicidal lunatic.”
― Karen Rose, quote from I Can See You
“I work it out. It is the act of reading itself I miss, the opportunity to retreat further and further from the wold until I have found some space, some air that isn't stale, that hasn't been breathed by my family a thousand times already.”
― Nick Hornby, quote from How to Be Good
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