“He said to me that we belonged toghether because he was born with a flower and I was born with a butterfly and that Flower and Butterfly need each other to survive”
― Gemma Malley, quote from The Declaration
“I love you, Anna Covey,' he said, his voice barely audible. And slowly, clumsily, he leant forward, and his lips found hers, and as Anna felt him kiss her awkwardly, she knew that she wasn't a Surplus anymore. And nor was Peter.
Surplus meant unnecessary. Not required.
You couldn't be a Surplus if you were needed by someone else. You couldn't be a Surplus if you were loved.”
― Gemma Malley, quote from The Declaration
“But there was nothing beautiful about the word "brainwash". To clean the brain. To strip it bare.”
― Gemma Malley, quote from The Declaration
“Reading and writing were a dangerous business; they made you think.”
― Gemma Malley, quote from The Declaration
“...Sometimes her curiosity got the better of her and she found herself furtively asking questions about his life before Grange Hall, pretending as she did so that she wasn't really that interested. The truth was that Peter was a window through which Anna could glimpse the world outside, and the temptation to keep looking was quite overwhelming.”
― Gemma Malley, quote from The Declaration
“But was falling such a bad thing, she wondered. Was it, perhaps better to see the top of the mountain, even if only for a moment, than never to even try? Or was it that the higher you allow yourself to climb, the further you have to come crashing down to earth?”
― Gemma Malley, quote from The Declaration
“Nature is not about preserving old things, but about creating new ones. New life. New ideas.”
― Gemma Malley, quote from The Declaration
“Everyone would fear her again. And love her, of course. Mrs Pincent needed to be loved as much as wanted to be feared-to her they were two sides of the same coin. Both gave her total control.”
― Gemma Malley, quote from The Declaration
“It was his eyes, so challenging and with a piercing look about them. They were eyes that trusted in nothing and they made her uncomfortable around him, self-conscious.”
― Gemma Malley, quote from The Declaration
“Il dit qu'on est faits l'un pour l'autre, parce qu'il est né avec une fleur et moi un papillon, et que les fleurs et les papillons ont besoin les uns des autres pour survivre.”
― Gemma Malley, quote from The Declaration
“But each time, nothing was done, because change carried risks, because change led to instability, because new technology meant using precious energy, and because, at the end of the day, no one really cared.”
― Gemma Malley, quote from The Declaration
“The snow is not falling for you.”
― Gemma Malley, quote from The Declaration
“What does time matter when every moment is stolen anyway?”
― Gemma Malley, quote from The Declaration
“I know that we have to live each moment because we won’t be here for ever, and that I wouldn’t want to be anyway, because knowing something’s going to end makes you appreciate it more, makes you want to savour every moment.
And I know that I won’t sign the Declaration, even if it makes me different, even if it makes me suspicious. Because no one needs to live for ever.
I think that sometimes you can outstay your welcome.”
― Gemma Malley, quote from The Declaration
“But sometimes they all craved a little bit of danger, of excitement, of meaning, even if only to reinforce how very comfortable and secure their lives really were.”
― Gemma Malley, quote from The Declaration
“But I do know that the world is the most beautiful place to be and that we're very lucky to be here. I know that we have to live each moment because we won't be here for ever, and that I wouldn't want to be anyway, because knowing something's going to end makes you appreciate it more, makes you want to savour every moment.”
― Gemma Malley, quote from The Declaration
“But it was a restless sleep, and throughout the night her dreams were filled with crying children, a woman screaming and a little butterfly, trapped in a cold, grey prison.”
― Gemma Malley, quote from The Declaration
“Se había puesto a escribir sin pensar. Y una vez empezó se dio cuenta de que no quería parar. Pensamientos y sentimientos que normalmente yacían ocultos tras las preocupaciones y el agotamiento empezaron a aflorar como si les faltara el aire”
― Gemma Malley, quote from The Declaration
“Le encantaba aprender palabras y expresiones nuevas, las atesoraba como si fueran objetos preciosos que podría usar cuando eligiera”
― Gemma Malley, quote from The Declaration
“¿Tan malo era caer?, �se preguntó. �¿o era mejor, quizá, alcanzar la cumbre de la montaña, aunque sólo fuera un instante, a ni siquiera intentarlo?”
― Gemma Malley, quote from The Declaration
“Usually she loved to learn new words, treating them as exciting possessions that she could employ as she chose-in her journal, in her conversation-relishing the newness and beauty of each one.”
― Gemma Malley, quote from The Declaration
“There's a whole world out there, Anna, a whole world for us to explore.”
― Gemma Malley, quote from The Declaration
“It doesn't feel dangerous, it feels exciting, even though they're probably the same thing.”
― Gemma Malley, quote from The Declaration
“I vow to serve, to pay my dues
And train myself for Legal use.
I vow to bear the Surplus shame
And repay Nature for the same
I vow to listen, not to speak;
To steel myself when I am weak.
I vow to work and most of all
To serve the State if it should call.”
― Gemma Malley, quote from The Declaration
“¿Tan malo era caer?, se preguntó. ¿o era mejor, quizá, alcanzar la cumbre de la montaña, aunque sólo fuera un instante,a ni siquiera intentarlo?”
― Gemma Malley, quote from The Declaration
“I think flowers can be just as important as food, sometimes. I think id depends what you're hungry for.”
― Gemma Malley, quote from The Declaration
“Not five minutes after Alona had vanished through the far wall of my bedroom, my mom had poked her head in my room to say good night, and let’s face it, probably check up on me. Her face was glowing with happiness. She must have had a good time Sam at the movies. Where I was absolutely sure they did nothing but actually watch the movie, and refused to believe any evidence to the contrary. It was too...weird.”
― Stacey Kade, quote from Queen of the Dead
“What about God? The idea embarrassed him. It was only in moments of absolute fear that he had ever thought about God and prayed to him, always embarrassed because he did not believe and felt so hypocritical when he prayed out of fear, as if in spite of his disbelief there might be God after all, God who could be fooled by a hypocrite. When he was a child, then he believed. He certainly did believe when he was a child. How did it go, the nightly Act of Contrition? The words came hesitantly, unfamiliarly to him. Oh my God, I am heartily sorry for—For what?”
― David Morrell, quote from First Blood
“Will let out a long breath. "She leaves me a lot. That's what she does. She leaves, and then she comes back. And then she stays some and then she leaves again."
"Where does she go?"
"I have no idea."
"You've never asked her?"
"No."
Sara Didn't pretend to understand. "Why not?".
He glanced out into the street, watching the traffic zoom by. "It's complicated.”
― Karin Slaughter, quote from Fallen
“Political calculation and local suffering do not entirely explain the participation in these pogroms. Violence against Jews served to bring the Germans and elements of the local non-Jewish populations closer together. Anger was directed, as the Germans wished, toward the Jews, rather than against collaborators with the Soviet regime as such. People who reacted to the Germans' urging knew that they were pleasing their new masters, whether or not they believed that the Jews were responsible for their own woes. By their actions they were confirming the Nazi worldview. The act of killing Jews as revenge for NKVD executions confirmed the Nazi understanding of the Soviet Union as a Jewish state. Violence against Jews also allowed local Estonians, Latvian, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, and Poles who had themselves cooperated with the Soviet regime to escape any such taint. The idea that only Jews served communists was convenient not just for the occupiers but for some of the occupied as well.
Yet this psychic nazification would have been much more difficult without the palpable evidence of Soviet atrocities. The pogroms took place where the Soviets had recently arrived and where Soviet power was recently installed, where for the previous months Soviet organs of coercion had organized arrests, executions, and deportations. They were a joint production, a Nazi edition of a Soviet text.
P. 196”
― Timothy Snyder, quote from Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin
“The wise man will want to be ever with him who is better than himself.”
― Plato, quote from Phaedo
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