“Mind yourself in that guardroom," Gilan told him. Thorn grinned cheerfully. He never had any stomach butterflies before a fight. "I plan to be subtle," he said.
Gilan looked at him, his head tilted curiously. "How's that?"
"Once we go through that door, I'll bash anything that moves. And if they don't move, Stig will bash them."
"You have a strange concept of subtle," Gilan said.
Thorn's grin grew wider, "So I've been told.”
― John Flanagan, quote from Slaves of Socorro
“Hal: "...Then we'll leave in a huff, taking you with us."
"I've always wanted to travel in a huff," Ingvar mused. "It sounds very comfortable. I imagine they're well padded."
"Lined with feathers, in fact," Gilan put in.”
― John Flanagan, quote from Slaves of Socorro
“What now?" Lydia asked. "I assume we have a plan B?"
He shook his head. "We're way past plan B," he told her. "And we've gone past plan C as well. We're up to plan D now."
"And what's plan D?"
He jerked his head down the alley to the corner. "Anyone comes round that corner, we shoot them."
She pursed her lips critically. "Doesn't sound too ingenious," she said.
He shrugged. "I'm not good at ingenious. I'm good at dangerous.”
― John Flanagan, quote from Slaves of Socorro
“Who’s Ikbar?” Ulf said. His brother turned away to hide a smirk. Gilan glanced at Hal curiously, saw he wasn’t planning to answer, so spoke in his place. “He was an Arridan demigod, I believe.” “Oh, don’t,” Hal said quietly. But it was too late. “And what did he do?” “Well, Ulf, I’m not sure that he did too much of anything,” Gilan said. “Just paraded round being a demigod.”
― John Flanagan, quote from Slaves of Socorro
“You think our mam likes you better than me?” challenged whichever one was the other. (Don’t blame me. I’ve lost track too.)”
― John Flanagan, quote from Slaves of Socorro
“I think you're wonderful too, Hal!" Stephan said, in a workmanlike approximation of Ophelia's breathless, admiring tones. The crew laughed even harder.
Lydia snorted through her nose.”
― John Flanagan, quote from Slaves of Socorro
“Oh dear, oh deary me!" Thorn said in a ridiculous falsetto voice. "What are we going to do? It's twelve big hairy guardsmen and Mahmel in a natty green hat."
It was all very well to joke about it, Hal thought, but the situation was serious.”
― John Flanagan, quote from Slaves of Socorro
“Karina and Tho-orn, sitting in a tree-ee. Kay-eye-ess-ess-eye-en-gee.”
― John Flanagan, quote from Slaves of Socorro
“My name is Gilan. The King wants to see you.”
― John Flanagan, quote from Slaves of Socorro
“Just wanted you to know, there’s been no . . . funny business between me and your mam. No . . . hanky-panky, if you know what I mean?” For”
― John Flanagan, quote from Slaves of Socorro
John Flanagan
Born place: in Sydney, Australia
Born date May 22, 1944
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“I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.”
― Henry David Thoreau, quote from Walden
“A wondrous subtle thing is love, for here were we two who had never seen each other before that day, between whom no word or even look of affection had ever passed, and yet now in an hour of trouble our hands instinctively sought for each other. I have marvelled at it since, but at the time it seemed the most natural thing that I should go out to her so, and, as she has often told me, there was in her also the instinct to turn to me for comfort and protection. So we stood hand in hand, like two children, and there was peace in our hearts for all the dark things that surrounded us .”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Complete Sherlock Holmes
“But you haven't tried. You haven't tried once. First you refused to admit that there was a menace at all! Then you reposed an absolutely blind faith in the Emperor! Now you've shifted it to Hari Seldon. Throughout you have invariably relied on authority or on the past—never on yourselves."
His fists balled spasmodically. "It amounts to a diseased attitude—a conditioned reflex that shunts aside the independence of your minds whenever it is a question of opposing authority. There seems no doubt ever in your minds that the Emperor is more powerful than you are, or Hari Seldon Wiser. And that's wrong don't you see?"
For some reason, no one cared to answer him.
Hardin continued: "It isn't just you. It's the whole Galaxy. Pirenne heard Lord Dorwin's idea of scientific research. Lord Dorwin thought the way to be a good archaeologist was to read all the books on the subject—written by men who were dead for centuries. He thought that the way to solve archaeological puzzles was to weight the opposing authorities. And Pirenne listened and made no objections. Don't you see that there's something wrong with that?"
Again the note of near-pleading in his voice.
Again no answer. He went on: "And you men and half of Terminus as well are just as bad.. We sit here, considering the Encyclopedia the all-in-all. We consider the greatest end of science is the classification of past data. It is important, but is there no further work to be done? We're receding and forgetting, don't you see? Here in the Periphery they've lost nuclear power. In Gamma Andromeda, a power plant has undergone meltdown because of poor repairs, and the Chancellor of the Empire complains that nuclear technicians are scarce. And the solution? To train new ones? Never! Instead they're to restrict nuclear power."
And for the third time: "Don't you see? It's galaxy-wide. It's a worship of the past. It's a deterioration—a stagnation!”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Foundation
“but whatever came, she had resolved never again to belong to another than herself.”
― Kate Chopin, quote from The Awakening
“Someday I will understand Auschwitz. This was a brave statement but innocently absurd. No one will ever understand Auschwitz. What I might have set down with more accuracy would have been: Someday I will write about Sophie's life and death, and thereby help demonstrate how absolute evil is never extinguished from the world. Auschwitz itself remains inexplicable. The most profound statement yet made about Auschwitz was not a statement at all, but a response.
The query: "At Auschwitz, tell me, where was God?"
And the answer: "Where was man?”
― William Styron, quote from Sophie's Choice
God-Shaped Hole
Testament of Youth
The Sword of Shannar...
Slammerkin
Glamorama
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