Quotes from Shadow Spinner

“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

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“I heard her walking away. Lincoln stayed where he was for a while and then sat down beside me again. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t touch me. He knew I couldn’t have handled it right then. I turned toward the window and pretended to sleep while trying to ignore the hundreds of thoughts bombarding my mind, fighting for attention. It wasn’t long before I felt him move away, and the first twinge of my soul stirring within, warning me. “Let me by.” “I’m sorry, Evelyn. I’m sure there is a lot that needs to be discussed, but right now, she’s exhausted. You have no idea what she’s been through.” Lincoln’s voice caught, but he covered it, clearing his throat. “She needs to rest…and so do you, I imagine.” “You’re her partner?” she asked confrontationally. “I am.” “You’re from a Power?” It was an odd question. “How did you know?” Lincoln asked. “At least some things were done right,” she mumbled. “I suppose if I were to make a point of passing you now, you’d be willing to use force?” “A fair assumption,” he said, and I could tell he wasn’t joking. My soul stirred again. “Would you die for her?” I almost stopped breathing. I could feel his eyes on me. “I do. Every day.”
― Jessica Shirvington, quote from Emblaze

“This was mere unfounded prejudice--that seems obvious to me--because neither before nor after existed, nor any place to immigrate from, but there were those who insisted that the concept of "immigrant" could be understood in the abstract, outside of space and time.”
― Italo Calvino, quote from Cosmicomics

“آه كم هي عنيدة الذاكرة وذاكرتي لا تتركني بسلام ، تملأ مخيلتي بصور ، بكلمات ، بألم وحب”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Inés of My Soul

“In matrimonial geography the distance between the first mute recognition of a break and the admission thereof is as great as the distance between the first naive faith and the first doubting.”
― Sinclair Lewis, quote from Babbitt

“Let me get straight on this. You don’t want to be the girl to wear out your welcome, but you’ll be the girl who lets him wear out your vagina?”
She slaps my arm in the dark. “That’s just crude, Laurie.” She giggles. “But oh so true. He did wear it out like a champ.”
― Georgia Cates, quote from Beauty from Pain

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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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