Patricia C. Wrede · 1056 pages
Rating: (8.8K votes)
“May you and your triple cursed wash water turn purple with orange spots and fall down a bottomless pit!”
― Patricia C. Wrede, quote from The Enchanted Forest Chronicles
“I didn’t ask what you’d said about it,” the frog snapped. “I asked what you’re going to do. Nine times out of ten, talking is a way of avoiding doing things.”
― Patricia C. Wrede, quote from The Enchanted Forest Chronicles
“You’d think they’d been raised in a palace for all the manners they have.” “If they’re princes, they probably have been raised in palaces,” Mendanbar said. “Princes usually are.” “Well, no wonder none of them have any manners, then.” The squirrel sniffed. “They ought to be sent to school in a forest, where people are polite. You don’t see any of my children behaving like that, no, sir. Please and thank you and yes, sir and no, ma’am—that’s how I brought them up, all twenty-three of them, and what’s good enough for squirrels is good enough for princes, I say.”
― Patricia C. Wrede, quote from The Enchanted Forest Chronicles
“Mendanbar wondered idly whether a bucket of soapy water plus lemon juice plus dishes would be as good for melting a wizard as one without dishes, and what effect the dishes would have on the process. Being melted was probably not very comfortable, but being melted while cups and plates and forks were falling on your head was likely to be even less so.”
― Patricia C. Wrede, quote from The Enchanted Forest Chronicles
“I’m the King, and I say you go to the dungeon instead of fighting wizards, and no argument.”
― Patricia C. Wrede, quote from The Enchanted Forest Chronicles
“Thank you very much,” I said. “But I really ought to tell you: I’m not a lord.” The dwarf smiled tolerantly. “Of course not, my lord. Is there anything else we can do for you?”
― Patricia C. Wrede, quote from The Enchanted Forest Chronicles
“to test. Would weightlessness put them off their game? It did. The turtles moved “slowly and insecurely” and did not attack a piece of bait placed directly in front of them. Then again, the water in which they swam was repeatedly floating up out of the jar and forming an “ovoid cupola.” Who could eat? Von Beckh quickly moved on from turtles to Argentinean pilots. Under the section heading “Experiments with Human Subjects”—a heading that, were I a doctor previously employed by Nazi Germany, I might have rephrased—von Beckh reports on the efforts of the pilots to mark X’s inside small boxes during regular and weightless flight. During weightlessness, many of the letters strayed from the boxes, indicating that pilots might experience difficulties maneuvering their planes and doing crossword puzzles during air battles. The following year, von Beckh was recruited by the Aeromedical Research Laboratory at Holloman Air Force”
― Mary Roach, quote from Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void
“In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost. Ah, how hard a thing it is to tell what a wild, and rough, and stubborn wood this was, which in my thought renews the fear!”
― Dante Alighieri, quote from La Divina Comedia
“But who said that I am to be measured by how well I do things? In fact, who said that I should be measured at all? Who indeed? What is required to disengage oneself from this trap is a clear knowledge that the value of a human being cannot be measured by performance—or by any other arbitrary measurement.”
― W. Timothy Gallwey, quote from The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance
“Consider this: Most people live lives that are not particularly physically challenging. They sit at a desk, or if they move around, it’s not a lot. They aren’t running and jumping, they aren’t lifting heavy objects or throwing things long distances, and they aren’t performing maneuvers that require tremendous balance and coordination. Thus they settle into a low level of physical capabilities—enough for day-to-day activities and maybe even hiking or biking or playing golf or tennis on the weekends, but far from the level of physical capabilities that a highly trained athlete possesses.”
― K. Anders Ericsson, quote from Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise
“Valentine smoothed the hairs down, glaring at Poe. “It’s because my hair absorbs power. My whole body does.” he explained. But the angry mumbling tone he used to explain the comical picture made Poe laugh even more. And Sabre was full out laughing now too. Valentine”
― Lucian Bane, quote from Seven Sons of Zion
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